GetUp faces conservative challenger Advance Australia

An alliance of well-known Australians has launched a centre-right political machine in a bid to rival activist group GetUp.

Advance Australia national director Gerard Benedet. Picture: Glenn Hunt

An alliance of well-known Australians has launched a centre-right political machine in a bid to rival union-backed activist group GetUp and vowed to campaign as a registered third-party organisation against the Left ahead of next year’s election.

The group, Advance Australia, will run its first major campaign against Labor’s plan to scrap ­imputation dividend refunds, the so-called retiree tax, as well as a grassroots movement to keep Australia Day unchanged.

MORE: GetUp slams conservative rival

Advance Australia has also flagged a direct counter campaign to GetUp-led attacks on sitting conservative Liberal MPs, and may target federal seats to support candidates who campaign on mainstream issues.

An advisory body for the not-for-profit organisation, which proposes to register with the ­Australian Electoral Commission as an independent third party under pending rule changes in the ­electoral act, includes: former ABC chairman, banking executive and Macquarie University chancellor Maurice Newman; Sydney doctor David Adler, who is president of the Australian ­Jewish Association; and storage king Sam Kennard.

Free-speech advocate Kerry Wakefield, whose husband is former Coalition minister Nick Minchin, will also be on the advisory board, with the organisation to be chaired by Queensland businessman James Power, whose uncle Bernie Power founded Power Brewing, which was bought by Fosters Group in 1993.

Mr Newman, who also served as Australian Stock Exchange chairman, said the time had come to challenge groups such as GetUp, with left-wing activism dominating the national debate.

“We are in the position of the battle of Stalingrad … we have retreated to such an extent we need to hold our ground somewhere and start to push back,” Mr Newman told The Australian. “We have to put our hand up and say we believe in this country. People like GetUp are so well funded.

“Look at seats like Warringah, Canning, Dickson … these electorates are under constant attack by GetUp. They are very well-funded and we have to get well-funded. We are hopeful we can. We can’t leave the world to ­George Soros.”

 

A nationwide poll of 2000 voters, commissioned by Advance Australia in September to guide its charter, found that only 16 per cent of people believed society was better than it was a decade ago, while more than 80 per cent were concerned about the rise of political correctness.

Dr Adler, a former deputy medical director at the Australian Medical Association, told The Australian that mainstream and traditional values had largely been left out of the national discourse. Dr Adler, who lives in the electorate of Wentworth, said that in the recent by-election there was only one side of the argument displayed in any great volume at polling booths, and most focused on climate change.

“Clearly the material came from GetUp,” Dr Adler said.

He said the new organisation stood for freedoms, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion, individual initiative and safety and security. “It is important to have an ­organisation standing up for these values and I’m pleased to lend my support,” Dr Adler said.

He said Advance Australia would not be aligned to a political party. The group’s national director, Gerard Benedet, who previously worked as chief of staff to former Queensland Liberal Nat­ional Party treasurer Tim Nicholls and also worked for News Corp, publisher of The Australian, said a mainstream political movement to counter GetUp had been a “long time coming”.

“It’s also been borne out of frustration with the major parties,” Mr Benedet said. “We don’t get caught up in the politics of activism, we are about raising awareness. GetUp is 13 years old; we are three months in the making … we want to have an impact and we think we will have an impact this time around (at the election).

“We will support people of all political persuasions who back mainstream values and freedoms and stand for the institutions that have served this country well.”

Mr Benedet said the organisation would consider seat-by-seat campaigns.

However, he said there was no one involved in the organisation who was a member of a political party.

Mr Benedet resigned his LNP membership when he left Mr Nicholls’s office. He said had the group been established earlier, it would have campaigned against the Coalition’s changes to superannuation.

GetUp, which has had significant funding from construction union CFMEU, is fighting attempts by Coalition senator Eric Abetz to have its independent status revoked and force its regis­tration as an affiliated entity of Labor. It has been forced to amend its constitution and remove references to charitable status. In 2007, it was taken to task by the AEC for printing misleading how-to-vote cards recommending voting against Coalition candidates.

Mr Benedet said Advance Australia would be based on a similar structural arrangement as GetUp but would not be a charitable organisation. The name was chosen after focus group testing found Advance Australia popular.

He said more than 1000 members signed up to the organisation in six days after the launch of its campaign website.