After trying to tilt a key electorate away from One Nation, progressive campaigners GetUp will turn their attention to another goal: media reform.
The million-person-strong network, prominent through the 2010s, is returning to the fore with a big-money campaign to keep Pauline Hanson's anti-immigration party from winning Saturday's by-election in the federal seat of Farrer.
It is also launching a fresh fight, petitioning Anthony Albanese's government to tighten regulation of Australia's media.
It begins with an open letter that counts Rosie Batty, Bob Brown, Saxon Mullins and Brittany Higgins among its signatories.
Campaigners want to abolish the Australian Press Council and Australian Communications and Media Authority in favour of a "truly independent" journalism standards authority.
That body would be empowered to tackle digital publishers, require prominent corrections and provide rights of reply to wronged parties.
"There have been countless stories over the years of victims of press abuse having their lives, and livelihood, offered up as entertainment, without the right of reply or any recourse for remedy," the open letter reads.
Underpinning the push are concerns of media concentration in Australia, which has fewer media owners and outlets than comparable democracies.
The campaign is analogous to Hacked Off, which emerged in the UK following the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch-owned London newspaper News of the World.
Mr Murdoch's media empire is in the crosshairs of this campaign, with signatories alleging harassment by the 95-year-old's Australian publications.
David Sharaz, GetUp's media and campaigns lead - and the partner of Ms Higgins - is a spokesman for the drive.
"I've watched what certain news outlets do to people who speak out. I've lived it," Mr Sharaz said.
"We're calling for an independent authority that investigates media complaints quickly, requires prominent corrections, and isn't beholden to the people it regulates. So no one has to experience what Brittany did."
GetUp is far from the first group to criticise the press council.
The national journalists union, the MEAA, withdrew from the organisation in 2021, citing slow and inconsistent adjudications while hoping to "spark a serious discussion about media regulation".
GetUp also believes the structure, with volunteer membership and funding from media organisations, is flawed.
Monica Attard, co-director of the Centre for Media Transition at UTS - and a former host of Media Watch - backs reform but believes a new body will lack legitimacy if it is independent from media outlets.
"It should be a completely new industry-based body," she told AAP.
"The current fragmented media standards schemes should be consolidated into a single cross-platform scheme administered by an industry body with an independent complaint handling role."
GetUp peaked in influence in the previous decade, when it played a key role in unseating Tony Abbott while advocating for marriage equality and other left-wing causes and candidates.
It raked in $13.2 million in 2019 when Scott Morrison's government acted as a lightning rod for member dissatisfaction.
While fundraising has since dropped off, falling to a reported $6.4 million in donations in 2024, GetUp has found a fresh rallying cry for concerned progressives in the rise of One Nation.
