Public asked to nominate which conservative Coalition MPs are ‘the worst’ to help GetUp prioritise targets

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

GetUp is asking the public to nominate which conservative Coalition MPs are “the worst of a bad bunch” to help it prioritise targets for the federal election.

The new appeal will help it recruit campaigners in an election year and signals an intention to focus not on the government’s most marginal seats but rather the biggest opponents of progressive policies.

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Eighteen Coalition MPs have been chosen by the activist body, with participants asked to choose three. Not all are marginal seat holders but were chosen by GetUp for what it considers “out of date” views on climate change, “heartless positions” on immigration policy and those who “blatantly discriminate” on social justice issues.

The results of the survey will be updated live on the website.

GetUp has already committed to high-profile campaigns against MP Tony Abbott and the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, but offers voters a host of other options in its “Let’s vote out the hard right” campaign, which it considers an “extension” of its original campaign.

GetUp’s proposed targets include the attorney general, Christian Porter, the health minister, Greg Hunt, and the energy minister, Angus Taylor, as well as the influential conservative backbenchers George Christensen, Craig Kelly and Michael Sukkar.

The list of target MPs includes several in nominally safe Coalition seats including Kevin Andrews, who holds Menzies with a 10% margin, Barnaby Joyce, who holds New England on 23.4%, and even the prime minister, Scott Morrison, who is likely untouchable in Cook with a 15.4% buffer.

Abbott, who holds Warringah with a margin of 11.6%, is under a concerted attack from grassroots organisers keen to capitalise on dissatisfaction about conservatives’ role in bringing down Malcolm Turnbull.

The former prime minister is facing a challenge from the Indigenous broadcaster and mental health educator Susan Moylan-Coombs. The social commentator Jane Caro has also contemplated a run against Abbott.

The Coalition’s disastrous Victorian state election result has convinced Labor that at least six more seats in Victoria are in play at the federal election. Sukkar’s seat of Deakin (5.7%), Hunt’s seat of Flinders (7.8%) and population minister Alan Tudge’s seat of Aston (8.6%) are on GetUp’s list and are considered in play despite healthy buffers.

The Australian has reported that even the deputy Liberal leader, Josh Frydenberg, could lose his blue-ribbon seat of Kooyong, which he holds by 13.3%, because a union-backed poll found him trailing 48% to 52% in two-party preferred terms.

GetUp has completed a survey of 23,000 of its members that found their top priorities for the 2019 election are: action on climate change and stopping the Adani coalmine, renewable energy, evacuation of people from offshore detention on Manus Island and Nauru, social spending on health and education, and protecting the ABC and SBS.

Members placed less priority on: stopping tax evasion by corporations and high-income earners, a federal anti-corruption watchdog, raising income support for the unemployed, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander campaigns and defending multiculturalism.

Despite being dwarfed by unions – collectively Australia’s largest social movement with more than 1.8 million members – GetUp is an outsized irritant to conservative media and politicians, many of who believe the political right should emulate its organising tactics.

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The campaign body has drawn the ire of the Coalition for its refusal to identify as an “associated entity” of the opposition Labor and Greens parties, particularly after its decision in 2016 to hand out how-to-vote cards directing preferences away from the Liberal and National parties.

GetUp’s national director, Paul Oosting, said voters in targeted electorates could expect to see his organisation’s members on the other end of their phone lines and at their doors, as well as witness to crowd funded advertising campaigns, with a focus on digital and social media.

“Led by our members we will be holding candidates to account on the key policy areas essential for Australia to be fair, flourishing and just,” he told Guardian Australia.

“We have a groundswell of enthusiasm and people everywhere are fed up with out-of-date politicians blocking meaningful action on the issues they care about.

“People are raring to go and to make a difference.

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“This election effort is going be huge, we already have thousands of hours committed by volunteers and are in awe of their dedication to have a lasting impact on election day.’’

The conservative side of politics has attempted to counter GetUp campaigns with its own centre-right campaign organisations, the latest incarnation being Advance Australia. So far, an inability to agree on core issues to target has hampered all previous conservative campaigns to establish its own GetUp style campaign machine.