Pinch me MARK GET-UP

If you’d said 6 months ago that the worst of the Abbott Budget would fail to pass this year, people would’ve said: you’re dreaming. Well, thank goodness GetUp members dream big, because that’s exactly what we did together.

The GP co-payment ended the year in political farce, with Liberal MPs asking journalists to update them about the status of their own policy.¹ And has anyone heard about the 6 month waiting period for Newstart recently? It quietly dropped off the Senate agenda. Finally, the Senate voted down $100k uni degrees this week, just as Parliament wrapped for the year.

Still, the Abbott Government refused to let go of its sinking Budget. So GetUp members sent a powerful message this week by gathering with political leaders holding the power to make passage of any Budget measure nearly impossible at a brilliant Budget Bon Voyage event on the steps of Parliament House.

Amid the media frenzy, we also delivered more than 10,000 ‘Good Riddance!’ Budget farewell postcards from around the country to Prime Minister Abbott.

Check out this video of the amazing Bon Voyage Budget event that capped off a sensational year of campaigning against the Abbott Budget.

The popular backlash we saw over this budget isn’t just about breaking election promises. It’s about breaking the fundamental promise of a fair go for all Australians.

So even as Minister Pyne was trying to revive his battered education bill, GetUp members were joined outside with leaders from Labor, the Greens and Palmer United, standing united against $100k degrees and the rest of Abbott’s brutal Budget.

That show of political unity across the opposition parties is almost unprecedented, and GetUp members brought them together this week in a demonstration of huge political force.
Although senior Government ministers weren’t there to see it in person, they probably got the message when it appeared on channels 7, 9, Sky News and the ABC.

Click here to see the event, the extensive coverage and even watch the individual political speeches:

https://www.getup.org.au/we-did-it

Getup members did everything possible to stop this Budget. We signed and tweeted. We wrote to our newspapers and called our radio stations. We put up posters and funded TV ads and billboards. But most importantly, we opened our hearts and shared our stories with our leaders.

So as you go to bed tonight, do it knowing that you helped make a real difference in the lives of millions of Australians. You protected the fair go for young jobseekers, students, pensioners, families, the sick and the disadvantaged — for all of us.

And if anyone wants to know what GetUp is — who we are — that’s it right there: a community that stands up and fights not just for themselves, but for each other, and something even bigger, called the fair go.

Thanks for all you do,
Mark, Lily, Nat & George, for the GetUp team

References:
[1] “MPs all at sea over $7 GP co-payment”, The Age, 29 November 2014