GetUp spends millions, fails to oust another other than Abbott

GetUp has claimed credit for ­defeating Tony Abbott but papered over its failure to topple any other Coalition MPs.

GetUp volunteers at Manly, in the federal electorate of Warringah. Picture: Jim O'Rourke.

GetUp has claimed credit for ­defeating Tony Abbott in his formerly safe Sydney seat, but the ­activist group yesterday papered over its failure to topple any other Coalition MPs targeted in a multi-million-dollar campaign to ­“remove the hard-right’s grip on power”.

The left-leaning group issued a “hit list” of Coalition MPs at the start of the election campaign whom it targeted because of their “out-of-date” views on climate change and “heartless positions” on immigration policy.

The top seven chosen by GetUp to face a campaign of doorknocking, phone calls and how-to-vote cards at polling booths were Mr Abbott, Peter Dutton, Greg Hunt, Christian Porter, Kevin ­Andrews, Barnaby Joyce, George Christensen, Craig Kelly and ­Michael Sukkar. The hit list expanded during the campaign to more than 20 seats, including Cowper, where former independent MP Rob Oakeshott mounted a failed challenge to the Nationals.

After raising more than $10 million in the past year, GetUp yesterday declined to confirm how much it had spent in its quest to oust Mr Abbott and other ­Coalition MPs.

But GetUp national director Paul Oosting issued a national tally of how the group’s resources were deployed, saying its “people power” was tripled at this election with 9433 volunteers, 712,039 calls to voters, and 36,315 doorknocks.

Mr Oosting said the election had shown the importance of connecting, person to person, on ­issues and values in the face of “scare campaigns waged by some”.

“This is particularly true in Tony Abbott’s electorate of Warringah, where GetUp members knocked on more doors and made more calls than any other,” he said.

The GetUp chief confirmed the tally of resources deployed in Warringah alone was 1865 volunteers, including 1114 first-timers, 58,954 volunteer-hours, 157,592 phone calls, 25,630 doorknocks and 88,500 “climate voting guides” distributed at polling booths.

He said a 12.7 per cent swing away from Mr Abbott “showed a rejection of his climate-wrecking ways” as GetUp volunteers connected with “a genuine appeal to values and issues”.

Mr Oosting took credit for Mr Dutton failing to “recreate the statewide swing” in his Queensland seat of Dickson where he scored a 2.5 per cent swing to him compared with a statewide 4.2 per cent.

GetUp confirmed it put 1556 volunteers into Dickson for a “Ditch Dutton” campaign, the second-biggest effort after Warringah. Concerted GetUp efforts were made to oust Greg Hunt in his Victorian seat of Flinders, and others, which also failed.

GetUp beat off recent attempts by senior Liberals Eric Abetz and Ben Morton to have the group categorised by the Australian Electoral Commission as an “associated entity” of Labor or the Greens.

Such a finding would have forced greater scrutiny of GetUp finances, and effectively ended its claim to be an “independent” campaign group, which is key to its ­appeal to supporters.

The AEC made a preliminary finding that GetUp was an “associated entity” but retreated in its final report, finding there was insufficient evidence.