Progressive activist group GetUp has raised over $200,000 within just six days as part of a crowdfunding campaign targeting immigration minister/notorious potato, Peter Dutton.

Launched last Thursday, GetUp’s latest campaign will focus on training 1,000 new campaigners to target Dutton’s marginal Brisbane electorate of Dickson. The group has previously worked to cut Dutton’s margin from 6.72 percent to 1.6 percent in the last federal election, meaning he held on by fewer than 3,000 votes.

Woohoo @GetUp raises nearly $200k in crowdfunding 2 campaign against @PeterDutton_MP #auspol https://t.co/KUfu3PSXah pic.twitter.com/iTZYYq5aAQ

— Lynetta G (@artbylynettag) May 30, 2017

Harnessing People Power

The national director of GetUp, Paul Oosting, told Junkee that their ‘Going After Dutton’ campaign already had activists set to research local concerns and educate Dickson residents on Dutton’s more electorally unpopular, far-right policies in “hyperlocal” terms. For example, instead of focusing on “health cuts”, campaigners would make the issue feel more tangible by describing them in terms of “staff cuts” and “waiting times”.

“We find that the majority of Australians, including Coalition voters, stand against [Dutton’s policies],” Oosting said. “As health minister, he tried to slash funding to our hospitals by $54 billion; he’s against action on climate change; he misled the public on the issue of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru; he wants to purge, to get rid of the ABC.”

“He’s got some very extreme views, he’s not popular. Yet he’s extremely powerful, and that’s at the heart of why — at the last federal election and leading up to this one — we’re looking at Peter Dutton.”

Dutton Is More Influential Than You Think

Oosting believes that, as a leader of the Liberal Party’s far-right faction, Dutton’s sway over the Coalition is unrepresentative of broader Australia and needs to be minimised.

Ultimately, Oosting would like to see the Coalition become a more centrist party, which he argues would both be in their interest, as moderate political views are more in line with mainstream Australian, and that, historically speaking, it already has been under previous leaders and “could have been but failed to be under Malcolm Turnbull”.

It’s hard to remember, but there was a time, not that long ago, when the Liberal Party wasn’t as desperate to look like a mainstream version of One Nation. For context, here’s Paul Keating, who was used to dealing with relatively more moderate Liberal leaders like John Hewson, reacting to the then-far out idea of a Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Little did he know…

Dutton has enjoyed a remarkable increase in power over the last few years, with an expanded immigration and border protection portfolio, new “God Powers” over the future of refugees and people seeking asylum, and potential oversight of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police.

While he is not popular across the broader Australian electorate, coming in behind Julie Bishop, Tony Abbott at less than one-fifth of Malcolm Turnbull’s support level in a preferred Liberal leader poll, Dutton is still being touted as a potential leader of the party

The Potato Strikes Back

In response to news of GetUp’s campaign, Dutton has hit out at the organisation and said he is confident of holding onto his seat.

“I’ve held the seat for 16 years against every left-wing campaign and I’ll defeat the left-wing GetUp union campaign at the time of the next election,” Dutton said. “Anyone donating a dollar to GetUp should know they are nothing more than a front for the Labor Party, the Greens, and their other big benefactor — the CFMEU.”

Dutton’s response follows similar attacks from his office on the activist group, with a spokesperson accusing the group of ripping off donors by using money for “wacky causes” such as a bid to take the Coalition to court over its treatment of asylum seekers. Which, has been defined as torture by the UNHCR, as well as Amnesty International, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and even The Australian’s Chris Kenny.

However, Oosting calls the push to unseat Dutton “totally achievable,” citing the Liberal Party’s attempt to change the boundaries of Dickson, in order to make it a more conservative seat, as proof that Dutton’s “on the run, that he’s really scared by this campaign and trying to do what he can to make the seat safe again.”

Bit scared? @PeterDutton_MP pic.twitter.com/ysBGdyi2Pq

— GetUp! (@GetUp) May 30, 2017

Finally, Oosting says the campaign’s success — which he believes to be huge by GetUp’s standards — represents a section of Australian society that the Immigration Minister “can’t get his head around”.

“It’s not been a full week yet and already over 5,000 individuals have chipped in,” Oosting said. “This is a people-powered effort.

“I think this is something people like Peter Dutton can’t wrap their head around, that if Australians want to get involved in democratic outcomes people are willing to commit their time and commit their money.”