The activist group GetUp! has congratulated itself on its election campaign and taken credit for campaigns that removed conservative Liberals from parliament.
GetUp! has posted a YouTube video applauding its campaign work, especially its use of phone banks to contact voters in marginal seats and its distribution of how-to-vote cards on polling day.
The Liberal Party has attacked GetUp!, claiming it poured a million dollars into the campaign against Andrew Nikolic in Bass, Tasmania. Nikolic was defeated by a swing of just over 10% in the Launceston-based electorate. Nikolic, a former army officer, was one of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s staunchest supporters in the last parliament. The Liberal Party’s Senate leader, Eric Abetz, has attributed Nikolic’s defeat to the campaign by GetUp!. [Read more…]
Before the 43rd Parliament has even met, the new political paradigm has been shown to be illusory. Standard politics continues apace. An old-fashioned deal has delivered us a minority government. Interest groups and political participants have begun positioning themselves to extract maximum advantage from the new Parliament.