“With their collective heads in a fog of denial, day by day the three parties regale us with promises to do this, to do that, and do the other. What they don’t tell us is how any of it will be funded,” writes columnist HUGH SELBY.

“We care about the journey” was emblazoned on an O’Brien’s truck that the bus passed just north of Goulburn on that long, straight climb that starts after the neglected railway carriages that, year by year, are falling apart at the end of a line.

That uplifting message caught this passenger’s eye, a promise of good team service to ensure success for the future.

The colours of the message were an arresting mix of white, blue and black, identical to the colours used for the caption on an election pamphlet that I found in my Canberra letterbox this week, “Don’t let your vote open the door to a conservative Liberal government”.

The pamphlet cover featured a door opening on to a white nothingness. On the reverse side were three quotes attributed to independent candidates, two of them unsupportive of our loveable, cheery, beaming chief minister and his government, and one fence sitting some months ago.

In the tiniest print, I found that this pamphlet was authorised (per section 292, subs 2 and 4 of the Electoral Act) for ACT Labor – our long time government (so long that the opposition Liberals seem to have forgotten the role requirements when in opposition) – which seeks to persuade us to give them another four years, not on the basis of what it will do, but by putting us in fear of what the terrible, terrifying, “blue” Liberals might do if they take the controls with the help of independents.

“Fear and loathing” isn’t cutting it for me in 2024, and that’s for a simple reason: there’s no money and we have a very large interest debt to handle.  Our financial report card is into the “extreme danger” part of the wheel of fortune. 

With their collective heads in a fog of denial, day by day the three parties regale us with promises to do this, to do that, and do the other. What they don’t tell us is how any of it will be funded, or even what any of it is going to cost.

The Liberals have had years to come up with a plan that has us live within our means, but also ensures that the basic services are adequately resourced and acceptably delivered. Apparently, that’s too hard, but still they want us to trust them with government.  

The Greens want us to believe that the long silent winter of their complicity in creating the present mess has ended with an outbreak of spring growth.  They failed to prune when it was necessary and they have shown no aptitude for improving the sustainability and yield of our basic services.

How fitting that with all parties keen to keep us uninformed about the challenges for which solutions must be found, the most obvious signs of election fever are the numerous roadside signs featuring head photos of the candidates: vote one to five for the faces that are prettiest, ugliest, best known, unknown, etcetera.

It is surprising that the major parties didn’t put all their portrait candidates in emblazoned hats. The Liberals might have gone with the embroidered caption, “Make Canberra Great Again”. Labor needed a message that showed their support for the unfettered right to feed off gambling addiction, such as “We win, the mug punters lose”. The Greens, naturally, needed the caps once worn by tram conductors. That way the corflutes would have carried a relevant message.

But wait, can corflutes carry a message beyond identifying the party that belongs to the face?

The answer, “Yes”, is found in our Electoral Act, Division 17, “Campaigning offences” (from section 291 and following). 

The authors of pamphlets, such as the one featured above, must be wary of falling foul of sections 297 and 297A, which make it an offence to publish electoral material, “that is likely to mislead or deceive an elector about the casting of a vote”, or “contains a statement purporting to be a statement of fact that is inaccurate and misleading to a material extent”.

Is it in any way misleading, inaccurate, deceptive to posit that elected independents will join with the Liberals to form a government? Does it matter that there is no mention in the pamphlet of a “minority” government, of being prepared to guarantee supply, but otherwise voting independently, issue by issue? (the Assembly can always be dissolved if it is incapable of doing its job, per Section 16 of our Self Government Act.)

The pamphlet’s open door leading to nothingness intrigues. What was the intended meaning? Was it telling us that the cupboard is bare? Was it a warning not to open the door to change, or an invitation to step out and explore the unknown?

We can care about any journey on which these candidates wish to take us. It would be nice to know the destination, the route, the cost, the timing. I’d like to know, too, how they are going to fund buying the fuel for the journey.  

Dream on fellow voters, because that’s what the three parties want us to do until election day.

Hugh Selby is the CityNews legal affairs commentator.