The Greens and GetUp

The recent announcement that former national director of GetUp, Simon Sheikh, is to seek preselection as a Greens Party Senate candidate is no great surprise.

Those who take at face value GetUp’s claims that it is not aligned with any one political party might be a bit taken aback. (Its website claims that ‘GetUp does not back any particular party…’)

But only the naïve would believe that GetUp is not politically aligned.  Its sympathies are clear from statements like this in GetUp’s 2010-11 Annual Report:

GetUp members also donated over $70,000 to counter fear mongering Liberal Party mobile billboards in the Western Australia marginal seats of Hasluck, Swan and Canning…

They are even clearer if you look at the track record of GetUp’s former directors. They include current and former Labor Party politicians Bill Shorten and Evan Thornley and current Greens Party politician Catriona Faehrmann. 

Given these well established links between GetUp and serving Greens and Labor politicians, I am not persuaded by Sheikh’s claim, in an interview in last weekend’s Canberra Times, that the idea of running for Parliament came to him out of the blue a few weeks ago as he was on a road trip around Australia with his wife:

In July, the 26-year-old had just stepped down as national director of political organisation GetUp! And, as a consequence, away from the public spotlight.

He quit shortly after fainting on ABC’s live Q&A program and cited his intention to avoid burnout as the reason behind the resignation.

Sheikh then embarked on a six-week road trip with wife Anna Rose, travelling thousands of kilometres from Canberra to Broome.

The political ambition occurred while journeying along the endless bitumen of the Barkly Highway, somewhere between Mount Isa and Tennant Creek.

‘’It’s not an easy decision to make because so much of politics today is so public. I’m a private person by nature so to make a decision to open up our lives … was a tough decision.

The Greens Party and GetUp have some key similarities.  In particular, both say they are opposed to political organisations accepting large donations – but have a practice of accepting such donations.

In the 2010 Federal election, the largest single political donation was received by the Greens Party: $1.68 million dollars from one individual, Graeme Wood, founder of Wotif.  As Paul Barry of The Power Index pointed out earlier this year, this is the same Greens Party which campaigns against political donations via the website Democracy4Sale.  Indeed, on the day the donations figures were released by the Australian Electoral Commission, Greens Party Senator Lee Rhiannon issued a press release criticising the two major parties for accepting large donations.

Dr Noman Thompson, described as “Director of the Democracy4Sale project”, responded to Paul Barry’s comments with a statement published on Crikey.  He advised that Lee Rhiannon “queried the value of accepting this donation”; none of the money was spent on her campaign in NSW; the Greens are a confederation of independent state bodies and the NSW Greens are still opposed to accepting donations; and “many members and supporters are disturbed accepting this cheque.”  Which is all very well, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Greens Party says one thing about donations and does another.

Under Simon Sheikh’s leadership, GetUp too said one thing about political donations but did another.  Its 2008-09 annual report describes GetUp’s campaign against political organisations accepting large donations:

3rd of August 2009 - Political Donations GetUp members signed a petition to call for a ban on corporate and third-party political donations, and a $10,000 cap on individual donations. It was signed by over 25,000 members.

Yet according to its disclosures to the Australian Electoral Commission and on its website, in the last few years GetUp has received numerous donations, some very large, including:

• third party donations – the biggest being $1.12 million from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU)
• corporate donations including from Tarkine Wilderness Pty Ltd and Heyede Pty Ltd
• Numerous donations from individuals exceeding $10,000 – one person gave donations totalling $116,497, another gave donations totalling $65,000, a third gave $32,000.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a political organisation.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with accepting political donations which comply with the law.

But I think it is misleading for GetUp to claim that it ‘does not back any political party’, given the proven involvement of senior Greens and Labor political figures. I also think it is misleading that GetUp and the Greens both claim to be opposed to political donations of the kind they in fact accept.