Corflutes, underdogs and silly sausage eating? Sure signs of an election in progress

Usually we have to wait until much closer to polling day to see the sort of antics we’ve seen of late, writes Tim Blair, but our never ending election season is already delivering.

The faint rustling of cardigans. A soft shuffle of Scrabble letters. The nearly-audible yearning for visits from great-grandchildren.

These are all signs of frantic activity among the Friends of the ABC - or ABC Friends, as the group is now known following a 2014 coup against definite articles and prepositions.

The Friends have become energised by the coming federal election, which they see as a threat to their otherwise-unwatched billion-dollar broadcasting buddy.

“The stakes are high for the ABC in this election,” ABC Friends president Cassandra Parkinson – a Balmain resident, as required by Friends law - wrote in an email to her elderly team.

“We must remind our political representatives that people across Australia care about the ABC’s future. You, our 77,000 members and supporters, are a powerful group who can tell them that the ABC must be properly funded.

“That it must remain free to access, with no ads and no subscriptions. And that we vehemently oppose any attempt to sell it off.”

ABC Friends president Cassandra Parkinson and vice president Carol Stuart with ABC chair Kim Williams. Picture: Supplied

As The Australian reports, such an attempt isn’t actually happening. Sadly. But an ABC fear-fest is now common during election campaigns, along with various other colourful customs and conventions, including:

The disrespecting of the corflutes. Islamic anti-Labor agitators got things rolling on this front with multiple attacks on signs promoting government frontbencher and Western Sydney MP Tony Burke. Matters subsequently escalated, as Joe Hildebrand reported this week.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke's corflutes were defaced and destroyed as tensions begin to boil in Watson. Picture: Supplied

In Mosman, a blonde woman was caught on security video deploying a stick of lipstick to deface a poster for Warringah teal MP Zali Steggall. Hilariously, and appropriately for that area of Sydney, the vandal then realised she’d used a far fancier lippy than intended.

“S**t, was it a Chanel?” the woman howled, asking her offsider: “Why did you let me do that?”

Possibly because she was all out of Yves Saint Laurent Loveshine Candy.

But at least those corflutes remained in place, unlike one for Victorian Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer. Hers was spirited away by a fellow who turned out to be the husband of chief teal lady Dr Monique Ryan, who along with over-supportive hubby Peter Jordan later apologised.

The triennial foreign astonishment. Every election year, an overseas media outlet will run a piece explaining compulsory voting to its confused readers.

Their bewilderment is understandable. After all, it hardly makes sense that Australians get fined for not voting - but we can campaign, cast a ballot and stand for the Greens without even the slightest risk of imprisonment.

The declaration of importance. Nobody ever dismisses an election as “ordinary”, “run of the mill”, “average”, “boring” or “Logies night”. Every election is always a crucial turning point for our people.

The same is true in 2025.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be vying for your vote on May 3. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images

“On 3 May, you choose the way forward,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in his election announcement. “Your vote has never been more important.”

Sky News’s Outsiders host Rowan Dean agreed but from an opposing viewpoint, saying on Sunday: “This is quite literally the most important election of our lives.”

To be fair, Rowan backed up that perennial claim with substantial evidence. Search for “Race to save Australia” on Sky’s YouTube channel.

The underdog proclamation. No government or opposition wants to be the “overdog”. When it comes to canine political positioning, coveted underdog status is craved by all.

So while polls suggest a current Labor advantage, Coalition home affairs spokesman James Paterson quickly turned this into a bonus.

“What these polls show is that the next election is going to be close,” Mr Paterson told a television interviewer on Monday.

“That’s what polls have shown for the best part of a year. It shows that the Coalition are underdogs.”

Liberal Party Leader Peter Dutton dons high-vis for the 2025 federal election campaign. Picture Thomas Lisson/NewsWire

The vests of fluorescence and the hats of hardness. You’ll see them in abundance from now until polling day. Liberal leader Peter Dutton went for the fluoro look while visiting the Cougar mining equipment plant in Newcastle yesterday, during which he tried to wrench the nuts off some nearby machinery.

Which is also what he’s trying to do to the Labor government.

The one peculiar thing that nobody really understood at the time but everyone remembers. It hasn’t happened yet during this year’s campaign, but brace for something along the lines of former Labor leader Bill Shorten’s 2016 polling booth bid to eat a sausage sandwich.

Inexplicably, Shorten – who very nearly toppled Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in that election – went at his sausage sanger sideways.

He was either unaware of sausage protocols or else was concerned about the optics. Still, Shorten’s oddly-angled chomp will always be part of Australia’s election heritage.