Zali Steggall ‘joined at hip’ to GetUp

Zali Steggall may have dumped GetUp, but opponents say she still has links to it.

Independent candidate Zali Steggall. Picture: Hollie Adams.

Zali Steggall has publicly walked away from GetUp amid fallout over its ad depicting Tony Abbott as a lifesaver refusing to help a drowning man. But she seems ­reluctant to knock back hundreds of campaign volunteers signed up by the activist group.

A claim by the independent candidate rated a chance of defeating Mr Abbott in Warringah that “I don’t have anything to do with GetUp” was attacked by the former prime minister’s supporters yesterday as a trick to play down her connections and campaign backing. Abbott supporters pointed to news reports soon after Ms Steggall announced her run in late January that GetUp had “signed up hundreds of volunteers to doorknock across Warringah, man phone banks and hand out how-to-vote cards”.

Tim James, close to Mr Abbott and a critic of Ms Steggall’s claimed independent status, said the lawyer and former Olympic skier could also not reasonably deny GetUp links when she had been chosen as the preferred candidate by activist groups including GetUp and its local chapter in Warringah.

Local anti-Abbott groups banded together late last year to pick an independent candidate with the best prospect of ousting Mr Abbott from the Sydney northern beaches seat he has held for 25 years. When Ms Steggall put her name forward, they endorsed her. Mr James claimed Ms Steggall was “joined at the hip” to GetUp. He said her campaign policy priorities were almost identical, while her campaign co-manager Louise Hislop was a known GetUp supporter in contact with the group’s activists.

“She is aligned 100 per cent with GetUp priorities,” he said.

Ms Steggall dismissed claims she was connected to GetUp as “a litany of basic factual errors”.

Shown a list of alleged links, a spokesman for Ms Steggall said: “None of these claims have any basis in fact. Mr James’s conspiracy theories are once again just more smear and fear tactics.”

Asked further if Ms Steggall, in denying links to GetUp after its withdrawn ad, would also disavow support from hundreds of GetUp volunteers signed up to support her, the independent’s spokesman said: “Ms Steggall has already given on-the-record responses to this.” He did not elaborate.

In a now-deleted tweet following airing of the GetUp ad, key Steggall supporter Coleen McKinnon was effusive: “Times have changed Tony. Why haven’t you? Clever ad @GetUp! Good job @Comedian Jonas!!”

Mr James said Ms Steggall had five “core” policy priorities that mirrored GetUp’s: a safe and healthy climate, protecting the Great Barrier Reef, stopping the Adani coalmine, defending asylum-seekers and holding government to account.

He said Ms Hislop had been ­reported as a member of GetUp’s “Warringah Action Group” list which shared campaign information using an invitation-only encrypted messaging app.

Before joining the Steggall campaign, Ms Hislop started a local activist group called Australian Progressives and credited ­former GetUp campaign director Sally Rugg for her “self-education and improvement”.

Ms Hislop was spotted at GetUp’s Warringah campaign launch.