Innocent faces hiding a leftie war machine

Forget the contest of ideas, or a policy driven debate, GetUp!’s objective is the eradication of conservatives from parliament and a shift of the Liberal Party to the left, writes Peta Credlin.

It was bad enough when kids who couldn’t even spell wagged school on Friday over climate change.

Worse still, were the idiotic adults like NSW opposition leader Michael Daley and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore endorsing law-breaking (as it’s actually illegal for school age children not to be at school without a reasonable excuse). But worst of all, was the network of climate change activists orchestrating this so-called “student-led protest”.

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The protest’s primary backer, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, was founded by the wife of former GetUp! executive director Simon Sheikh; another key backer, Climate Leaders (supposedly representing under-18s) was founded by Christina McPhail, who’s heavily involved in the campaign to oust former prime minister Tony Abbott from his seat of Warringah. Another member of Climate Leader’s all-adult board is Django Merope-Synge, a national campaigner for GetUp!.

Around the world on March 15, students, including these in Sydney, marched in a strike and protest to highlight inadequate progress in addressing climate change. Picture: Saeed Khan/AFP

These people are experts at manipulating public opinion, often by making far-left causes seem relatively harmless, like “kids’ crusades”. Having successfully conned tens of thousands of gullible students and, often enough, their scarcely better-informed teachers into last week’s climate change strike, much the same network is now trying to deliver the government of Australia to Bill Shorten and to drive conservatives out of the Liberal Party by replacing them with independents in formerly safe Liberal seats.

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In recent days, GetUp! has dispatched a new fundraising appeal to its claimed one million Australian members. In fact, as a company limited by guarantee, GetUp! has nine director members (five of whom have strong Labor links) and three foundation members; but the million members it claims — if there are that many — are actually subscribers or donors who, unlike company shareholders or political party members, have no say in how GetUp! operates.

They’re just the “front” to sanitise a sophisticated machine’s claim to be a grassroots organisation. With no say, these people are little more than a cash cow that helps GetUp! to an income of about $10 million a year with about 70 staff.

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Forget the contest of ideas, or a policy driven debate, GetUp!’s primary objective is the eradication of conservatives from the parliament and a shift of the Liberal Party to the left. As their latest donation drive makes plain: “We saw the damage that Tony Abbott could do, even from opposition. That’s why GetUp! members (sic) are fighting tooth and nail to ensure that neither Abbott nor (Peter) Dutton gets anywhere near a leadership chair again”.

It’s noteworthy that this latest GetUp! appeal especially targets those supposedly involved in the removal of Malcolm Turnbull as PM. There’s Greg Hunt who “backed Dutton in the spill” which is “something we’ll remind the voters of Flinders where we just announced Hunt as a key target”, and Nicole Flint “who signed the petition to trigger the spill” along with “arch-conservative Kevin Andrews, a founding member of a dedicated pro-coal faction in the Liberal Party”.

What GetUp! doesn’t mention is there were 43 Liberals who signed the spill request, because that’s what Turnbull demanded. And that Turnbull himself, stupidly, called his own spill motion and ultimately lost.

Last week, renegade former left-wing Liberal Julia Banks changed her tune about the removal of Turnbull to claim, out of the blue, that Abbott was its ringleader.

Surprise, surprise. Within a couple of days this fake news had found its way into the GetUp! appeal letter. I’ve been in the backrooms of Canberra long enough to recognise a concerted strategy when I see it, but this one is about as low as it gets because not only are there volleys from the enemy, but also plenty of friendly fire as evidence grows of links between GetUp! and left-wing Liberals.

Here’s just some of the tally; John Hewson was a foundation director (along with Bill Shorten). Christopher Pyne has admitted asking GetUp! to lobby for Turnbull at the time of the 2009 leadership spill and held follow-up meetings.

Then there’s Alex Turnbull (Malcolm’s son) who’s promised to fund GetUp!-backed independents in Liberal seats. And last year, a GetUp! organiser, Ray Yoshida, helped set up the North Shore Environmental Stewards, whose first meeting was addressed by the left-wing Liberal factional war lord, Michael Photios, (in the presence of his gormless state Liberal acolyte Felicity Wilson MP) and which is now part of the green-left coalition supporting Abbott’s opponent in Warringah, the former skier Zali Steggall.

Warringah MP Tony Abbott and independent candidate for Warringah Zali Steggall at the Leadership Summit in PWC Barangaroo One International Towers earlier this month. Picture: Monique Harmer

At the 2016 election, GetUp! heavily targeted the conservative Liberal MP Andrew Nikolic, who lost his seat; Dutton, who suffered a 5 per cent swing against him; and Abbott, who suffered a 9 per cent swing on primary votes (although only a 4 per cent swing two party preferred). Plainly, this was a dry run for a much bigger effort this time.

GetUp! are especially active supporting left-leaning independents — who are often pretending to be disillusioned Liberals — in seats that Labor can’t realistically win.

GetUp! was behind Kerryn Phelps in the Wentworth by-election and are massively backing Steggall in Abbott’s seat. Phelps’ ex-Labor staffer campaign director, Anthony Reed, is now running Steggall’s campaign along with Louise Hislop, who has strong GetUp! links.

If the polls are to be believed, at the national level, the coming election is a foregone conclusion. The real fight might not be for who is in government but for the soul of the Liberal Party.

It will be between people like Abbott (who led the party back to government in 2013) and what’s left of the Turnbull fan club (aided by far-left activists) who think the Liberals should turn into Labor-without-the-unions.