Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has indicated he will give the right of his party another thing they want: a crackdown on GetUp.
For months after the election, right-wing Coalition politicians have been screaming from the rooftops about GetUp’s influence in Australian politics. The witch-hunt had originally been focused on whether or not GetUp had charity status and whether it should be revoked — it doesn’t and it can’t — but the focus now has been on whether GetUp’s agenda is determined by rich overseas backers. In a bizarre 17-minute rant in Parliament in September, Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz (who appears to blame the group for several of his colleagues being voted out at the last election) tried to import US right-wing conspiracy theories by suggesting GetUp was all about American multibillionaire currency speculator George Soros — with very little evidence to back this up. GetUp denies Soros is its shadowy leader.
But Turnbull appears to have bought into the complaints from his backbench, and in his National Press Club speech yesterday, the PM suggested that foreign donations could be banned for political parties and activist groups.
“I believe Australians expect us to ensure that only Australians and Australian businesses can seek to influence Australian elections, whether via a political party, an activist group like GetUp or an association or a union,” he said.
For its part, GetUp agrees on banning overseas corporations and individuals from taking foreign donations, but at the same time it has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign donations itself. In the last three financial years, GetUp has taken $63,693 from Oak Foundation, $42,960 from Campact, and $99,985 from the Avaaz Foundation, according to the organisation’s disclosure page. It is Avaaz that right-wing websites claim is funneling money from Soros, but GetUp national director Paul Oosting said in a parliamentary committee hearing late last year that even if Avaaz had taken money from Soros (in addition to many others), GetUp was guided by what its members wanted the group to campaign on, rather than the donors.
Oosting defended the group taking foreign donations, stating that GetUp was operating within the system it was also seeking to change:
“We play by the current rules and we want those rules improved. That is why we are here. That is what campaigners do. We at the moment do accept funds from around the world. Many of our members are often abroad when they are making donations. So it is necessary that they use PayPal when they are doing so because we have in place measures to protect people that are donating. So it is necessary that we provide that infrastructure.”
Coalition members of the committee accused Oosting of “rank hypocrisy” for refusing to lead by example and rejecting overseas donations in their campaign to stop political parties from taking overseas donations.
Banning foreign donations appears to be a bipartisan issue. In Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s speech to the National Press Club the day before the Prime Minister’s, he also said Labor would “clamp down on foreign donations”, and reduce the threshold — for all political parties and associated entities — where donations have to be publicly declared from $13,200 to $1000. The Labor Party already discloses all donations above $1000.
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Someone should ask Abetz “Why it is ok for for conservative Christian church groups to accept overseas donations to fight Gay marriage- but not ok for progressive lobby groups to recieve foreign donations”. Hypocrites!
That is a very good question, Paddy O.
Poor old furball! he is now taking up Erich Abetz nutty causes.
He can’t see that a) there’s a fundamental difference between government receiving overseas donations and local NFP’s receiving donations from overseas – NFP’s don’t run the country. Come to that what about local subsidiaries of overseas companies surely governments should be receiving donations from them? and secondly b) in the case of GetUp their power is always driven by the numbers of locals supporting them. What GetUP does is to help focus the voice of opposition. If GetUp puts up a bogus cause it will fail to get support.
Cough up that one Mr Furball!
Sorry I meant to have said “shouldn’t” in relation to accepting donations from local subsidiaries with a local parent.
Well said the voice of sanity prevails. The Australian characteristic by it’s very nature is to question, question, question?? That is why GetUp has such a strong base in Australia and around the World, they are there to hold the politicians & the business people to account, not all of us have the power like Abetz and the nuttier members of the right wing political groups/ACL & the conservative Liberal backers, Yes Pauline this includes you, and your One Nation mates, they all seem to think that taking Australia back to the “good old days”, in the 50’s where government thought it was acceptable to treat it’s tax payers and members of our society as a collective mushroom farming exercise,” by feeding them BS and keeping them in the dark.” I wasn’t alive at that time, but I’ve done enough research to realise that this was a common experience of that time. But one person’s idyllic, carefree existence is another’s, wake up and smell the coffee, join the real world experience. This inexorably drags me back for the reason, groups like GetUp! need to exist, because our politicians are too busy kowtowing to those with the money and power, taking their eyes off the ball, as to the reason they are they’re in power in the first place, which is to run government for the people, if this was the case we wouldn’t need groups like GetUp!
Will Murdoch be exempted from this measure too?
Get Up could make a simple ‘I will if you will’ offer. If the parliament bans donations to political parties from overseas, they will cease accepting donations from overseas. It would be an interesting dare.
On the other hand the foreign money going into conservative lobbying – such as various business and christian causes and for gun rights activity – really ought to be addressed as well as that going to groups like Get Up. Otherwise it is nothing more than an exercise in censoring views the government does not want to hear.
Surely LNP declared several donations from Chinese developers and companies, don’t get it.
Only if they have no other way of getting around it.