GetUp attack dogs ready to bite sitting MPs

GetUp’s crusade to oust the Coalition government will zero in on Victoria’s at-risk marginal seats.

Health Greg Hunt is one of the Victorian Liberal MPs that GetUp is targeting. Picture: David Geraghty

GetUp’s crusade to oust the ­Coalition government will zero in on at-risk Victorian marginal seats in coming weeks, as it rolls out a brazen campaign designed to paint Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Health Minister Greg Hunt as disloyal and Kevin Andrews as a supporter of “cruel gay conversion therapy” who “only cares about himself and his hard-right factional mates”.

The push, which comes courtesy of GetUp’s multi-million-dollar war chest, signals a marked shift to US-style negative campaigning tactics geared towards denigrating particular candidates, in this case conservatives.

It comes as questions have emerged about the relationship between the left-leaning activist group and several independent candidates, including Coalition defector Julia Banks.

Ms Banks revealed yesterday that she was open to preferencing Labor and the Greens ahead of the Liberal Party.

“I’m keeping an open ticket,” she said. “When nominations close and all the candidates are confirmed I will make any decisions as to preferences.”

She is also set to benefit from GetUp manning polling booths in the seat of Flinders, which she is contesting, as part of its attempt to dislodge Mr Hunt.

GetUp is urging supporters to target the electorate — held by the Liberals on a 7.2 per cent margin — and “carry through our most ambitious, cut-through election day campaign yet”.

A Liberal Party campaign spokesman said the material suggested GetUp was “the campaign arm of the Labor Party”. “They are clearly prepared to tell any lie to get Bill Shorten elected,” the Liberal spokesman said.

Conversation guides available on GetUp’s website reveal that Mr Hunt, as well as Mr Frydenberg and Mr Andrews, can expect to be on the receiving end of negative attacks in coming weeks.

The guides advise volunteers to implore voters to “make a commitment to not give Kevin Andrews/Josh Frydenberg/Greg Hunt your vote this election”.

Kooyong is held by Mr Frydenberg with a 12.8 per cent margin. He is being challenged by Greens candidate Julian Burnside and former Liberal Party member Oliver Yates, who is being advised by a former GetUp adviser Adrian Dodd and Labor’s Jana Stewart.

Mr Andrews, the government’s longest continuously serving MP, has held Menzies since 1991 and is currently on an 8 per cent two-party-preferred margin.

All three electorates are considered to be in play. Get Up aims to make more than one million cold calls throughout the election campaign and has organised “calling parties”, where volunteers get together to cold-call voters. One is scheduled for this evening to target Kooyong and Higgins.

 

The group continues to actively recruit new volunteers, holding an event at the Collingwood Town Hall last night that was attended by about 200 people. Its conversation guides were updated earlier this month but are similar to those used in Warringah earlier this year. They discredit Coalition MPs and introduce the idea of supporting an independent instead. Although GetUp claims not to endorse any political party or candidate, it does advise volunteers to point voters to independents running, such as Ms Banks and Mr Yates.

Volunteers are also given a list of “bad things Josh Frydenberg has done”, which includes the claim that he was “part of the coup that removed Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister and that he “failed to get any real action on climate change”. “He’s part of the chaos in Canberra. He’s in coalition with Peter Dutton, Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce,” says the guide.

Mr Hunt is targeted over the same issue. “He was Peter Dutton’s deputy in the leadership spill … that cut down Malcolm Turnbull and installed the hard-right faction to power,” the guide says.

And if someone should suggest that Mr Hunt is a good person? “Did you know that Greg Hunt stabbed Malcolm Turnbull in the back and tried to install Peter Dutton as prime minister? Lots of people have told us that they have always voted Liberal, but that this election, they can’t do it — particularly after Malcolm Turnbull was knifed — by Greg Hunt.”

Mr Andrews is criticised for being “Tony Abbott’s most loyal supporter in parliament”, and advocating “discredited, damaging and cruel gay conversion therapy”.

A spokeswoman for GetUp defended the tactics, saying they were “resonating with voters”.

“They reflect where people are at: sick of hard right wreckers who are out of touch with their electorates.” the spokeswoman said

GetUp national director Paul Oosting said the group’s supporters handed out independent, issue-based how-to-vote cards at every election letting voters know “how to vote for a progressive Australia — for climate action and for properly funded healthcare”.

“The candidates who support the largest number of our policies — and who also have a chance of getting elected per seat polling — will be recommended on these cards,” Mr Oosting said yesterday.

Ms Banks said that she was not receiving any financial assistance from GetUp and would meet “any disclosure obligations”.