By GetUp!
No urgent call to arms today: instead, a note of congratulations. GetUp members have been on a roll in recent weeks, creating national headlines and locking in a big victory protecting native forests. Hear about the four ways you're making an impact.
1 - The views of GetUp members are creating headlines (and cartoon punchlines)
Every Sunday, Barry Cassidy and the panel on ABC Insiders review the political news of the week - the buzz amongst politicians and journalists in Canberra. Last Sunday they opened with a 10-minute conversation about the results of our monthly surveys of GetUp members which is showing a huge dip in the PM's approval ratings after his backflips on climate change and refugees. And that was just the beginning: GetUp featured in over three dozen news stories this week alone--see below for a full list. This Bill Leak cartoon from Monday's edition of The Australian is one favourite:
2 - An important win for the river red gums on the Murray-Darling.
On Wednesday night NSW Premier Kristina Keneally reversed her position and passed a bill to protect river red gum trees in the Murray-Darling basin. Thousands of hectares of these sacred old trees were set to be logged, but in the last month 11,000 GetUp members faxed, emailed or called the Premier's office asking her to protect the trees. Congratulations! Thanks to your efforts, and the tireless campaigning of our friends in the environment movement (particularly the Wilderness Society and the National Parks Association), these ancient trees will now be safe from logging. Click here to send a message of thanks to Premier Keneally on twitter, or here by email.
3 - We're Australia's largest progressive advertiser
This week alone we have an incredible two newspaper ads and three television ads running across the country.
Page 5 of the Australian yesterday featured our parody ad on the mining super profits tax -- and because members hit the target of $105,000 you can find a new ad today in the Oil and Mining Markets page (p. 31) of the The Australian Financial Review: the paper delivered straight to the desks of mining executives.
Three GetUp ads are also running on TV at the moment, made possible by donations from GetUp members. Did you know you were such a media powerhouse?
Mental Health: our message from Australian of the Year, Prof. Patrick McGorry, will continue running for the next month, with some 400 ad spots booked across the country.
Refugees: the GetUp ad featuring Riz Wakil, an Afghan refugee, is running on Border Security (with an audience of 2 million) and SBS world news in major cities.
Internet Censorship: our Censordyne ad parodying the Government's proposed internet filter is still showing every Sunday on Channel 10.
4 - We're making waves in Parliament House
In recent weeks, tens of thousands of GetUp members called their Labor representatives at their electorate and Parliament House offices to voice dissent over the Government's delay on climate action. We asked our MPs and Senators to speak up in the Labor party caucus over the back-flip. It worked: "PM tries to pacify worried caucus" read the headline in The Herald Sun1.
To drive it home, GetUp traveled to Parliament House and hand delivered a dossier to every parliamentarian showing the number of GetUp members in their electorate, and the total number of actions and donations. One MP in Victoria said he'd received over 150 calls from GetUp members in a day -- more than their office usually receives in months!
GetUp is more than any one campaign or single success. Your actions breath life into the progressive principles of social justice, economic fairness and environmental sustainability. Together our movement, now 350,000 strong, holds power to account, whatever its form, and helps create a fairer, more sustainable and more just Australia.
Now there's an election coming--word in Canberra is that it may be upon us as early as July or August. Elections are moments for movements to bind together to make a difference. It is a time to recommit ourselves to achieving real progress and to inspire others to take notice and join the cause.
Thanks for making these past weeks possible,
The GetUp Team.
Media referencxes: http://www.getup.org.au/about/media/
--Sources--
1 "PM tries to pacify worried caucus", Michael Harvey, Ben Packham, The Herald Sun, 11 May 2010.