Vote for me, I can’t fix Gaza, bins or potholes

Let’s make it easier for everyone, and set out what most constituents do and don’t want to hear from their local council candidate, argues Patrick Carlyon.

Local councils have cadidates who do promise the world but struggle to make change.

It seems to be that time again, at least where I live, when the beaming faces of people you don’t know, and probably never will, materialise in front yards and shop fronts.

They’re clambering for a prized spot on the local council.

Some of them just want to improve their little patch.

Others are armed with grandiose visions for wrenching the world to their undergrad ideals, one anonymous postcode at a time.

They all represent the vote you must make, even if you don’t really have the care or time to decipher the telltale clues in their campaign guff.

Let’s make it easier for everyone, and set out what most constituents do and don’t want to hear from their local council candidate.

I will be as invisible as possible. You’ll hardly know I’m there.

That said, I will call out state governments which impose implausible housing targets for your municipality, in stunts so misguided that even the cynical bastards who implement them don’t think they will happen.

I promise to not try and fix Gaza on your behalf.

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike on the town of Khiam near Marjayoun, Lebanon. Picture: Getty

I vow to introduce no new bins on my watch.

There will be no weirdo attempts, couched in the motherhood airiness of your grandchildren’s wellbeing, to make you get closer to your garbage. I will not ask you to soak/rinse/sterilise/jet power wash your garbage before you put it in the garbage.

I will not terrorise otherwise sane older people who fear the full force of the law when they allow their thoughtless neighbours, still dusty after a rather large weekend, to put pizza boxes and illegal plastics into their recycle bin.

If despite your best efforts you run out of the assigned bin space for designated items, you can from time to time fill the other (non-recycle) bins with the overflow. Just don’t tell anyone, especially me.

If you want to use gas in your home for as long as you like, that’s fine with me, too.

If you let your dog off the leash in a deserted “dogs must be on leads” park, and as long as you clean up after them, that’s OK, too.

Local council elections often yield little for Australians and where they live.

I will not seek to solve the Israel v Iran crisis on your behalf.

I will not ignore the majority view for the sake of a fringe campaign.

If most of you want Australia Day celebrations on Australia Day, then so we shall. Who am I to up-end the prevailing view of the day?

I do not want to share my plan for ending the Ukraine v Russia war.

There will be no new flags raised at council chambers, except AFL club flags, which will fly at half-mast if your team is Richmond.

I will never use the word “colonisation” in public office, unless it is in a parks and gardens sense.

I can barely follow the confounding intricacies of transgender politics, and I guess that most of you can’t either. I wish all the vested parties all the best in their pursuit of happiness, and I will avoid the fashions of the myopic fray lest I inadvertently offend the kindly view of ordinary people.

I will not campaign for Pollyanna solutions to existential crises on the other side of the world based on my breathtaking disdain for any lessons about human nature and ancient vendettas which have not popped up on my Insta feed.

I will entertain the indulgences of the under-30 voters, and countenance the complaints of the over-50s. But I am more likely to act on the correspondence of 30-50-year-olds, figuring that they are so captive to the slog of cost-of-living/interest rates/school drop-offs that they probably will not contact me unless they’ve really got something to say.

I will never agree to heritage list any home unless the owners really want me to.

I do not ever wonder if the Greens have the answers.

I have many views on many things, and I may secretly nurse political aspirations in a bigger arena, but none of this is at all relevant to my position of local councillor. You won’t hear about my many views on many things.

If there is a pothole, it is almost certainly the fault of the state government, which ran out of money and stopped trying to pretend to fill them some time ago. Ring them.