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A flood of money has lifted activist group GetUp to a new peak of $12.5 million in annual donations as it puts pressure on election candidates to declare their policy positions in order to gain its support on polling day. Donations have soared 27 per cent over the past year in a significant threat to the Morrison government, which is urging voters to ignore the group's "untruths" and its support for higher taxes. The group is about to intensify its campaigns against conservative candidates by choosing 30 priority electorates where it will urge Australians to cast their ballots on climate change, the Adani coal mine and the treatment of refugees. GetUp chief Paul Oosting said the group was already running campaigns against Coalition MPs including former prime minister Tony Abbott, former defence minister Kevin Andrews, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, Health Minister Greg Hunt, backbencher Nicolle Flint and Attorney-General Christian Porter. "Our approach is to remove the hard right," Mr Oosting said, although Liberal ministers and backbenchers dispute that label. The decision has the power to shift the election result as the activist group reaches a scale that challenges the two major parties in terms of membership, and the ability to mobilise volunteers on polling day. The group will launch the next phase of its campaign when it issues surveys to candidates from Labor, the Greens and other parties asking them to reveal where they stand on key policies including the Adani mine. The responses will help decide whether GetUp puts a Labor candidate at the top of its how-to-vote cards at the election or favours the Greens or independents instead. Coalition campaign spokesman Simon Birmingham said the organisation was only a front that would help Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. "GetUp is nothing more than a front for Labor and the Greens, who peddle the same untruths as Bill Shorten and similarly believe in radically hiking the tax Australians pay," Senator Birmingham said. "Australians should only support GetUp or Bill Shorten if they want to pay more tax and believe that Bill Shorten can spend their money better than they can." NSW Liberal candidate Andrew Bragg, a former acting federal director of the party now running for the Senate, said GetUp was not independent. "Pretending to be independent when they are not and seeking to exempt themselves from a ban on foreign donations is outrageous behaviour," Mr Bragg said. The other seats to be targeted will also have GetUp volunteers at polling stations on election day. The Coalition has tried to have GetUp classified as an "associated entity" tied to Labor and the Greens but the Australian Electoral Commission rejected this in February. Registered as a "third party" organisation instead, GetUp has disclosed political expenditure of more than $40 million over the past decade. The main political parties spend far more, however, with Labor declaring total payments of $51 million last year and the Liberal Party disclosing $60 million. The group's financial statements show it collected $9.8 million in donations the 2018 financial year. Its most recent update shows it gained $12.5 million in donations in the last 365 days, a funding rate that is 27 per cent higher, although the two time periods overlap. Unlike the major political parties, the organisation receives no money from the Australian Electoral Commission after an election campaign. Its biggest single donations in the last financial year were $80,000 from make-up company Lush and $72,630 from the Avaaz Foundation of New York. It discloses its donations on its website regularly, unlike political parties whose AEC filings take months to be revealed. GetUp collected donations from 64,956 individuals last financial year, according to financial records published on its website. This is greater than the national membership of the Labor Party, estimated at 53,550, or the Liberal Party, which has about 50,000 members. The "core members" of the activist group total about 15,000 individuals who have signed up to make regular contributions every week or month. GetUp estimates 600 volunteers signed up in three opening days of the official election campaign, adding to 7000 people who have already volunteered. SMH/The Age

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