Why aren't there any right wing versions of GetUp in Australia?

Question

GetUp is a "grass roots" campaigning organisation that focuses on campaigns around "Social Justice", "Economic Fairness", "Ënvironmental Sustainability" which are topics usually associated with the left. They typically get funding large numbers of people around specific campaigns.

At the moment there appears to be no organised movements that associate them selves with more right wing topics. With recent examples of what might fit the right would be Opposing the reclassification of the Adler shotgun or moving against the greyhound racing ban (which happened anyway)

My theory is that left wing movements were more active in grass roots campaigns and ran off less resources so that when they the technology came along that enabled more effective grass roots campaigning they made use of it first, but I really don't know.

Key attributes of GetUp I don't see on the right

• They are not a political party
• Other than specific issue campaigning they don't have a common purpose for people who contribute. Church groups have run issue based campaigns in the past but they are different because they have a general common purpose other than specific issues.
• They operate campaigns mostly off specific issue support.
• They have some scale with this approach.

Answer 1

It's debatable whether you can call GetUp a grassroots organisation, but whatever.

Anyway, right-wing organisations with the same goals of social change exist in Australia, but what they don't do is try to appeal to young people. Instead, they create political parties, like Family First or One Nation.

They probably assume that they'd get their policies through faster with parliamentary seats rather than by influencing young voters, as young voters are generalised as left-leaning and progressive, and right-wing organisations are not.

Answer 2

This is mostly related to consensus finding.

The liberal left has a long-standing tradition of debating issues at length in order to arrive at a consensus that is acceptable to all participants, and this allows them to find a common vision that integrates a lot of smaller movements that each affect a minority of people only. It also helps that all these issues are mostly compatible and often overlap (e.g. homelessness and sex work), so cooperation is mutually beneficial.

The right has a more difficult time formulating a shared vision (except on the far right), and very often different groups are in direct opposition, so organizations are generally single-issue. Cooperation across these exists through personal contacts and people having memberships in multiple organizations.

Answer 3

There are, one example is Collective Shout which campaign against sexploitation.

While some of their activism could be considered left-ish, their opposition to porn and things like Fifty Shades of Grey is much more right-wing.

Answer 4

There was one, called the Tea Party. You might have heard of it.

The tea party capitalized on the voter disenfranchisement that arose from the one party passing of Obamacare in 2009, and got a number of representatives elected to congress in 2010, on a 'stop Obama' pledge.

For better or for worse, that's exactly what they did - with the loss of the house of representatives, and especially with a number of tea party representatives who opposed anything Obama proposed, the Obama administration saw its legislative efforts brought to a halt. After 2010, Obama was reduced to executive orders, and after 2014, he lost the senate as well, with tea party candidates winning some senate seats as well.

Contrast this with the left wing grass movement counterpart of the same time... Occupy Wall St, which was opposed to the influence of big wall street bankers. They made a mess in public parks and generated a fair amount of overtime for city sanitation workers. However, given that the 2016 democratic presidential candidate for president took a lot of money from... wall street bankers... Occupy doesn't appear to have accomplished much of anything, not even within their own constituency.

In recent years, the influence of the tea party has waned... they were far better at obstructing than doing, and it's more prominent members like Michelle Bachmann were known as firebrands, and not leadership material.

While the merits of the tea party may be debatable, their success at achieving their stated goal cannot be denied. It also stands as a political lesson... if you are going to pass major legislation that affects all citizens, you should have buy in from most of them, or the backlash against you can be severe.

There isn't a major right wing grass roots political movement today, largely because their chosen party is in power, or sort of in power. One of the prime motivations of grass roots movements is voter dissatisfaction.