FED:Abbott tells GetUp! to get real

AAP General News (Australia)
08-16-2010
FED:Abbott tells GetUp! to get real

CANBERRA, Aug 16 AAP - Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has told political advocacy group
GetUp! to "get real" for using remarks he made in the 1970s for its latest political advertisement.

Mr Abbott says the television ad shows the left-leaning group, with more than 375,000
members, is operating as an arm of the Labor Party.

He challenged GetUp! to dig up comments Prime Minister Julia Gillard made when she
was president of the Australian Union of Students.

"If GetUp!'s fair dinkum they would go back and they would pick quotes from Julia Gillard
back in the 1970s," he told ABC Radio on Monday.

"I just think that GetUp! ought to get real frankly."

The advertisement features women repeating comments Mr Abbott has made on issues such
as abortion and climate change.

"It would be folly to expect that women would ever dominate or even approach equal
representation in a large number of areas," one woman says of 1979 Abbott quote.

"Simply because their aptitudes, abilities, and interests are different for physiology
reasons," she continues.

A second woman uses another quote from Mr Abbott: "I won't be rushing out to get my
daughters vaccinated against cervical cancer".

A third says: "Abortion is the easy way out".

GetUp! has released several political ads during the campaign, including one parodying
Ms Gillard and Labor's climate change policy.

AAP sld/rl/maur

KEYWORD: POLL10 GETUP ABBOTT

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