Email,
If you read The Saturday Paper, you might already have seen. I just spent two days undercover at Advance's national conference. And what I witnessed was so frightening that I've been struggling to find the words – but I'm going to try.
Far-right group Advance has been growing in size and influence, so when the team at GetUp saw they were organising a private conference, we knew we had to get inside. What I found wasn't just a room full of extreme rhetoric – immigration described as an "invasion", feminism destroying Western civilisation, a speaker who suggested Angela Merkel was worse than the Nazis. It was also a professional, well-funded political machine that is quietly reshaping how Australians think about politics.
They're incredibly organised, and incredibly well-funded by their billionaire backers. And they're building infrastructure right now, between election cycles, to do everything they can to make the permanent rise of the far right a reality in Australia.
I left the conference pretty shaken. But also with a burning drive to take these extremists on and beat them.
GetUp has what it takes to go head-to-head with Advance and other far-right groups. We have huge numbers of everyday Australians like you and me, the skills, and the infrastructure.
The only thing we're missing is the funds to match them. And that's where I need your help.
I'm asking you today, Email, because the far right is skyrocketing – and right now, there's nobody else stepping up to seriously stop them. That's on us. And we can't do it without you. Can you chip in to help power this crucial fight?
The link is here: https://www.getup.org.au/fightback-fund
If you want the full story, keep reading.
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Last weekend, I signed up for the conference under a fake name and sat near the back of the room with a notebook.
I've been a campaigner for a long time. I thought I knew what I was walking into.
I didn't.
Four hundred people filled the ballroom. The atmosphere was calm, corporate, and competent – not the angry mob that you might imagine. There was branded merchandise; two teleprompters flanked the stage; and event booklets with speaker bios and a cover that read Evolve. These were people who believed they were building something significant, and they were taking their work seriously.
The rhetoric from the stage was, at times, genuinely unhinged. One international speaker declared that Angela Merkel had done more damage to Germany than the Nazis. When asked to clarify, he doubled down without hesitation. The room barely flinched.
But the rhetoric wasn't what shook me most. It was the machine behind it.
This wasn't a fringe rally. It was a polished, professional operation – professional pollsters, talented campaigners, and four hundred people absorbing the information intently. Tony Abbott, Australia's former Prime Minister, was joined by Liberal senators and far-right spokespeople from all across the world.
And behind the applause lines, I saw the forensic strategic thinking: campaign sequencing models, consumer data targeting, coordinated plans to expand into universities and run continuous operations between election cycles. One session laid out with the precision of a commercial marketing operation – find the persuadable voters, link their cost-of-living anxiety to immigration, and repeat the narrative until it stops feeling like a narrative and starts feeling like common sense.
This wasn't grievance politics. It was architecture.
Tens of millions of dollars – most from donors whose names we'll never know – are already funding it. Advance has run serious campaigns against the Voice to Parliament, Independent, Labor and Greens candidates. They've attacked GetUp and our campaigns every chance they've got. They've had real wins. And they're not just consolidating their base – they're expanding.
During the breaks I spoke with ordinary attendees. A farmer and volunteer firefighter angry about energy costs, certain no one in power had ever seen his life. A lifelong Liberal voter who'd drifted to One Nation because the major parties had stopped representing him. Real people. Real frustrations. These weren't extremists. They were people with real frustrations who had been found, and given somewhere to point their anger.
When everyday people lose faith in politics, the far right is first in line to catch them. That's what makes this moment so dangerous – and so urgent. One Nation is polling at levels never seen before. Younger men are driving towards harder political identities. And Advance is working every day – not just during elections – to make sure those trends deepen and stick.
We need to respond. Election-year mobilisation is no longer enough. So we've been investing in long-term voter research, earlier narrative work, year-round organising, a deeper regional presence, and investigative capacity to follow the dark money behind operations like Advance. We've been designing campaigns and running serious digital ads operations to make sure we're growing the size of our movement to compete. That work is happening, and it's working – but it needs resourcing to continue and grow.
We'll obviously be in touch about all of that in the weeks and months ahead – the power of GetUp is built through people like you and me. But if what I've described today concerns you as much as it concerns me, then please contribute what you can. Not because there's a deadline I'm manufacturing. But because the people in that ballroom are playing a long game with serious money behind them, and the only answer is building something that can match it.
Thanks for your support,
Conal for the GetUp team
P.S. The full piece is in this week's Saturday Paper – it's worth picking up a copy if you can.
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GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you'd like to contribute to help fund GetUp's work, donate now! We collect, store and use personal information and other data as set out in our Privacy Policy. If you do not wish to receive updates to emailnew...@googlegroups.com from us, please unsubscribe.
Our team acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet and work. We wish to pay respect to Elders - past, present and emerging - and acknowledge the important role all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within Australia and the GetUp community.
Authorised by D. Loasby, GetUp, 52 Reservoir St, Sydney.
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