Website has been dormant since Andrew Hirst took over Liberal party reins

What happened to the Fair Go? Liberals' propaganda arm silent since August

When the Liberal party’s own news publication, the Fair Go, was launched in June, the then acting federal director Andrew Bragg said it was a case of “publish or perish”.

But after just two months of producing content attacking the usual suspects of Labor, Get Up and the unions, the publication appears to have taken the second of those routes.

The website has not added any editorial content since a piece on 8 August by editor Parnell McGuinness on why the National Disability Insurance Scheme should not be framed as welfare.

Before that, its contributions to the public policy debate included “Unions to get $22m a year from your super”, “Get Up’s secret money trails” and “PaTH internships: 8 gifs which explain why $200 is better than $0”.

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Guardian Australia understands that despite the five-month hiatus, no definitive decision has been made to kill off the party mouthpiece, and its future is under consideration.

Before he left the federal Liberal party headquarters in July, Bragg was the website’s champion but its fate lies in the hands of the federal director, Andrew Hirst, who appears to have left the site to languish since taking the party reins.

The Fair Go billed itself as a forum to “analyse and explain policy in the context of our shared goals for Australia’s future”.

“We encourage freedom of thought and deliver robust conversations to promote a fair go for all Australians,” it said.

The Wordpress site used multimedia, news and opinion to communicate Liberal takes on policy in a format Junkee claimed aped its pop-culture site. Support from the Liberal party is disclosed.

Pushing for the Fair Go in a speech to federal council calling for party modernisation in June, Bragg said the website would be “a publication which reaches beyond the existing cohort of fellow travellers to speak to undecided and swing voters”.

“It is designed to support the Coalition’s overarching narrative into social platforms and arm supporters with bottom-up perspectives on public policy issues.”

In an opinion piece for Guardian Australia, Bragg said the site was designed to help “level the playing field” as progressive groups such as unions, industry super funds and Get Up, as well as research centres such as the Australia Institute, spent more on campaigns than right-wing groups.

Liberals launch website to lure swing voters and take on activist groups Read more

The Fair Go’s privacy policy makes it clear that the Liberal party collects users’ personal information and may contact them if they sign up to the site.

A review of the party’s last election campaign by the former federal director Andrew Robb set out a series of concerns, and found it was being outspent by Labor and progressive activist groups.

A right-wing version of Get Up has also been considered in Liberal circles as a counterweight to the campaigning capacity imbalance.

The Fair Go is not the first time a major party has dipped its toe into news publication. The ALP launched the Labor Herald in 2015, which produced news and analysis for the party faithful.

The website is defunct, still showing a 2016 message from assistant editor Ross Caldwell describing it as “on hiatus” and promising a return in 2017 after a “short break so that we can rest up, recharge, and get ready” for the new year.