GetUp’s attempts at deception highly transparent: Abetz

The slow drip-feed from GetUp that their membership has, from time to time, met with Liberal Members and Senators is interesting but doesn’t change the fact that they are a partisan left-wing front.

GetUp has been dropping stories of occasional meetings with Liberals in an effort to suggest that they are not, as everyone knows, a left-wing front.

Having the occasional meeting with a Liberal doesn’t change the fact that GetUp hands out against Liberals on polling day, funds ads attacking Liberal Leaders and actively campaigns almost exclusively against Liberal candidates.

This suggestion that by having a meeting or choosing to not campaign against some Liberal Members of Parliament somehow makes them less partisan is nonsense.

In my time as the Employment Minister, I met with literally dozens of unions (who happen to be associated entities) - it didn’t affect either their partisanship towards the Labor Party nor my commitment to the Liberal Party.

GetUp’s continued protestations that the rules should be different for them while campaigning and criticising other players is not only hypocritical but also laughable. For instance:

• GetUp wants a ban on foreign donations yet has accepted huge foreign donations, including from funds linked to Soviet Russia. 
• GetUp wants a ban on corporate donations yet has accepted donations from big unions and big business, including businesses linked to George Soros.
• GetUp wants realtime disclosures but refuses to accept the advice of the AEC about their own level of reporting, instead launches a campaign suggesting that the independent AEC is somehow partisan and an instrumentality of government.

I am pleased that the Australian people are finally waking up to this partisan and hypocritical left-wing front.