Caroline Le Couteur and the ACT Greens clearly have an issue with the use of corflutes in ACT election campaigns.
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They have called for this most affordable and ubiquitous form of political advertising to be banned a year out from the 2020 poll.
Some would suggest the party is indulging in some pre-emptive dog whistling given the ban plan will attract vocal support if letters to the editor and social media posts on the subject during the 2016 election are anything to go by.
That outpouring of vitriol against weatherproofed signage featuring the grinning visages of political candidates from across the spectrum needs to be seen in context however. It may, for example, have just reflected the deeply entrenched antipathy many Canberrans have for politicians in general.
Other factors likely included concerns over the ability of some parties to spend more on corflutes than others, and the fact that some voters in our community just don't like the sight of them.
What we can't ignore is that corflutes are one of the most affordable ways for parties and candidates to get names and faces out in front of the public.
Even the most resource-strapped, self-funded independent who just doesn't have the means for a mass media campaign can usually stump up the dollars for a dozen or so corflutes and round up some volunteers to hammer them in.
The signs we love to hate are, like the celebrated but high cholesterol democracy sausage, an expression of our right to campaign or just to vote for the candidate of our choice in its most basic form.
If the Greens feel so strongly about corflutes the bottom line is they don't have to use them
Ms Le Couteur and the Greens should think carefully before acting to abridge the ability of individuals to put their names before the public as part of our participatory democracy.
If the Greens feel so strongly about corflutes the bottom line is they don't have to use them. It is even possible, if community dissatisfaction with the signs is as great as they say, there could be an electoral benefit from a self-imposed ban on their use.
It isn't as if the corflute debate is something new or that this is not an already well regulated space.
While there are not, and should not be, numerical limits on the signs, they can't be displayed until the last six weeks of the election campaign. It is also a condition of their use that they must be removed within 48 hours of the close of the polls.
The ACT Electoral Commission has also recommended that, subject to consultation with Transport Canberra and City Services, the signs only be allowed on specified stretches of major arterial roads and outside areas "that have the special characteristics of the national capital".
If these rules are breached then the issue is one of enforcement and compliance; it is not necessarily grounds for an arbitrary and across the board ban that affects the innocent to the same degree as the guilty.
We should never lose sight of the fact that this city was conceived and developed as the tangible expression of our national democracy in action.
It would be strange if the jurisdiction responsible for its day-to-day affairs chose to ban this most fundamental of campaign tools which is widely used elsewhere across the nation seemingly without becoming a major issue.
It makes a great deal of sense to trial the changes proposed by the ACT Electoral Commission following its review of the 2016 poll before embarking on an arbitrary and knee-jerk response to what many would say is a classic "first world" problem.
