GetUp! makes Adani’s demise its major goal for 2018

GetUp! has prioritised shutting down the Adani coal mine in Queensland as the No.1 objective for 2018.

Paul Oosting from GetUp! at Parliament House in Canberra.

GetUp! has prioritised shutting down the Adani coal mine in Queensland as the No.1 objective for 2018 and elevated “evacuation” of asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru.

More than 22,000 members of the advocacy group helped set the GetUp! agenda for the coming year by participating in a so-called “vision survey” to gauge how Australia could become more “fair, flourishing and just”.

The GetUp! membership said its No.2 priority was to protect journalists and charities from Malcolm Turnbull’s “legislative attacks on civil society” while the third objective was to ensure corporate tax cheats “paid their fair share”.

Members will campaign for the establishment of a federal corruption watchdog similar to ICAC in NSW, and pressure the government to remove “all refugees” from Manus and Nauru.

GetUp! national director Paul Oosting said the high participation in the survey showed everyday Australians wanted a say on the decisions that affected their lives because they didn’t trust politicians to do it for them.

“While trust in politicians is at an all-time low and membership of parties is in freefall, people’s desire to have a say on the decisions that affect their lives has not diminished,” he said.

“We’ve shown you don’t need a political party to be relevant or make an impact.’’ We will continue to show that this year, based on the priorities GetUp! members have nominated in this survey”.

“In the face of greed and injustice and political inertia, we refuse to despair – we are ready to fight”.

GetUp! says that in 2017 it had just over one million members with more than 63.6 per cent coming from inner city or suburban areas. It says that one in five members was prepared to take an “off-line” action including making visits to MPs or participating in protests.

According to GetUp’s own figures, its membership is active on social media with 458,775 members having a presence on Facebook and 140,287 having a presence on Twitter. In 2017, it had 64,005 individual financial donors and 18,250 regular donors

The industry with the largest number of GetUp! supporters is also identified as the education sector, with teachers accounting for 16.48 per cent of the group’s total membership, followed closely by those in medicine and healthcare who make-up 15.14 per cent of the total membership.

The sector that produces the third largest number of GetUp! members is the IT industry at 13.05 per cent, while the fourth largest group includes those who work in government and politics (including those employed with an international non-government organisation) at 9.64 per cent.

The advocacy group is currently the subject of a review by the Australian Electoral Commission into whether it should be categorised as an “associated entity” of Labor and the Greens and subject to stricter disclosure obligations.