Politics with Michelle Grattan: Paul Oosting responds to GetUp's critics
Date
7/23/2019 10:10:20 PM
Author:
Michelle Grattan
(MENAFN- The Conversation) After a bruising election outcome, GetUp is regrouping around a batch of issues - with press freedom the big ticket item. The activist group's national director Paul Oosting, who has been in Canberra for the parliamentary week, says this is 'deeply, deeply important to our members right now. It's absolutely the number one issue that they care about'.
Post-election, GetUp has faced strong critics, most recently the Liberal member for the South Australian seat of Boothby, Nicole Flint, who has accused it and unions of 'creating an environment where abuse, harassment, intimidation, shouting people down and even stalking became the new normal'.
Oosting says these claims 'aren't true' - they are 'very much self-serving from the Coalition in an attempt to to muddy our brand'.
He admits GetUp made some mistakes - in a 'calling script' in one electorate, and a wrong 'tone' in some advertising, notablydepicting a Tony Abbott figurerefusing to help a drowning person.
But in Boothby, Oosting says, 'Nicole Flint doesn't really have a high profile. So our campaign wasn't centred on her, it was centred on issues like climate change'.
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A List of Ways to Die , Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.
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