The election season, like spring, has sprung and suddenly the campaign is all colour and movement. Political reporter BELINDA STRAHORN takes a look…

CORFLUTE carnage has kicked off across Canberra with one Labor candidate using chicken wire to stop thieves knocking off his vote-for-me signs. 

Meanwhile, City Services rangers have removed 37 corflutes along the light rail route on Flemington Road this week. Labor candidate for Yerrabi Deepak Raj Gupta has had eight of his corflutes stolen from the fences of his friends’ properties in Gungahlin. His corflutes are now bolted down with chicken wire, but he fears the thieves will be back. 

AS corflutes clog Canberra’s streets, the ACT Greens has renewed its call to ban all roadside electoral signs. There’s no law to limit the number of roadside corflutes across the ACT. Greens candidate for Murrumbidgee Emma Davidson says thousands of corflutes end up “polluting our streets” then end up in landfill. Despite calling for the ban, the Greens are still using signage – made from 100 per cent recycled material – pitching them only in supporters’ front yards, not on the side of the road.

WHO donated what to the ACT’s political parties were published by the ACT Electoral Commission this week. Labor received $1.7m in total contributions including some big union donations while the Canberra Liberals pulled in some $731,000 in contributions, last financial year. The donations jolted the Liberal Party into action, re-doubling their efforts by approaching email subscribers seeking donations to help fund their election campaign. A similar request for assistance was sent out following the release of polling by the Australia Institute which showed that Labor was going to win the campaign.

THE territory moves into caretaker mode this week. While the business of government continues, any major policy decisions, contracts or significant appointments will be avoided. Caretaker ends with the election of the Chief Minister on the first sitting day of the Assembly.

WE’VE got the slogans, seen the corflutes, next up is the jingle. While they are usually cringey to listen to, there are two singers on the election circuit this time so there should be no excuse for a doozy. Jazz singer turned Belco Party candidate for Ginninderra Angela Lount is working on a catchy little ditty for the party. Will the Canberra Liberals’ candidate for Yerrabi and country music singer Leanne Castley follow suit? Here’s a fun fact: The mother of all Australian campaign songs is “It’s Time” was sung by a big-haired, 1972 all-star choir that included Bert and Patti Newton, Jack Thompson and Ted Hamilton.

POLITICAL paraphernalia is rolling out thick and fast. Check out this bumper sticker by the Federation Party with the slogan “The Major Parties don’t speak for Me”. Party chair Jason Potter said they’ve handed out hundreds. Meantime the Federation Party has promised to create a distance-education school based in the ACT, if elected in October.

THE Barr government’s media unit has gone into overdrive this week. “CityNews” is encountering an avalanche of media releases issued by otherwise invisible Labor backbench members of the Assembly seeking their moment in the sunshine. Every other day is met with announcements flogging the newsworthiness out of every last project. This is clearly part of Labor’s strategy to elevate backbenchers’ name recognition with voters and moves the focus away from the household names of Barr and Berry.

THE Canberra Liberals have promised to install flashing lights and road crossing supervisors in all school zones if elected in October. The move would bring the territory into line with NSW, including Queanbeyan, where flashing lights warn motorists to slow down during school drop-off and pick-up times.

MEANTIME, a returned ACT Labor government will not privatise government-owned entities or outsource essential public services. It’s a guarantee that was also made by Labor before the 2016 election. 

IT has long been identified that the path to a political career has narrowed overtime, making it hard for many to break through. Canberra Progressives candidate for Kurrajong Peta Swarbrick made some interesting observations about our own civic leaders path to politics. “All three men have been political staffers, lobbyists or party based employees since they were in their 20s as far as I can tell,” Swarbrick wrote on Facebook. “I can’t find any other experience that they have, not in industry, business, community or social services, not in academia, or management, research, or technology… they reflect, in the main, the monocultures of the parties that formed them from their earliest adulthood.” Ouch! 

“I am not a politician,” she says “I haven’t been trained to be one, or think like one or act like one, I am a negotiator, a listener, a thinker, a worker, an organiser, a business owner, a volunteer, a student, I have had a lifetime getting ready for the challenge.” But by virtue of standing for public office, you do in fact meet the definition of a politician, Peta. 

INDEPENDENT candidate for Murrumbidgee Fiona Carrick took to Facebook recently to criticise the ACT government’s decision to build an ice centre in Tuggeranong. “Another sad day for community facilities in Woden,” Carrick writes. “Does this mean the end of the Phillip pool and ice centre?…This is another poor outcome for the Woden Town Centre and users of the ice facility as access is less than ideal.”