From corflute craziness to ‘Trumpet’ texts, election day can’t come soon enough

I’m almost scared to vote in my hotly contested electorate. I’ve had ankle surgery and I’m worried I won’t be able to navigate my clumsy crutches through the sea of signs and corflutes at my polling booth.

It’s sign city in this marginal seat and every second fence seems to have a smiling face. It’s ridiculous how many there are – as if a vacillating voter will be swayed by this visual pollution.

Corflutes outside the pre-polling centre in Parramatta.Credit: Anthony Segaert

But then, the corflute is a consequence of our not caring. With so many disengaged, disheartened and disenfranchised voters, candidates need name recognition at the very least. Social media algorithms target us in bubbles, but we’ve all seen the conspicuous corflutes (and we’ve all received the annoying “Trumpet” texts).

If posters are the only way to universally access voters, they’re bound to attract passion. The skirmishes around signs range from scary to silly.

Independent candidate for Calare Kate Hook’s posters were ripped down and had metal stakes poked through the face. It takes a certain kind of fury to do that to an inanimate object, and any woman who feels welcome in politics after seeing the image is crazy-brave. Hook says it’s “a distraction from the issues of homelessness, affordable housing, childcare and climate change” that she wants to talk about.

Similarly, there’s the video of Dr Greg Malham; in his blue singlet and shorts, he takes out his rage on independent Monique Ryan’s poster and boasts about “burying the body under concrete” as he stomps on it. He has apologised, but this man operates on spines that now shiver at his misguided machismo. Melbourne seems to be showing nastier behaviour this election – neo-Nazis have crashed a sacred event to get attention and volunteers have been spat at.

Defaced poster of Kate Hook, independent candidate for Calare.

In Sydney, we’ve seen sillier expressions of subliminal rage in the staking of land claims.

The Mosman women using a Chanel lipstick to draw a pig face on an election poster for the MP for Warringah Zali Steggall says everything about the entitlement of the ladies who possibly liquid-lunched, and none about their MP.

Not since Kath and Kim’s alter egos Pru and Trude have we seen such a show of clueless entitlement and petty obsession with such clipped vowels. If you wrote these lasses in a comedy sketch, you’d be accused of being too reductive. I feel sorry for the people of Mosman – these women just set your stereotype in stone for the next decade. Yet the word “pig” on a face in lipstick still slightly sickens me.

A friend in Wentworth had her Allegra Spender poster damaged twice and woke up to see her carport violated overnight. Over-eager Liberal volunteers had surrounded her car with their candidate’s posters and even jammed one under the windscreen wiper. Nearby, Liberal candidate Ro Knox’s signs have been doctored so a Peter Dutton in a red MAGA hat looms over her head.

Corflutes which the Allegra Spender campaign alleges were damaged. Credit: Sam Mooy

Several candidates are reporting stolen corflutes and one of Zali Steggall’s has been defaced so often it has to be packed away and put to bed at night.

In Mackellar, Sophie Scamps’ corflutes have been defaced on Warringah Road and James Brown – the Liberal candidate – had the face of black soul musician James Brown superimposed over his.

Hired overseas backpackers have been told to stop putting up Better Australia signs on council poles. Independent candidate Nicolette Boele has been putting signs up on power poles in Bradfield. She’s been frustrated by a giant billboard on a truck that’s mocking her tasteless joke to a hairdresser. (It’s one of the Liberal vehicles that hasn’t been damaged while driving under low expressways or stuck on a street divider in the city).

If signs big and small don’t have impact, a lot of money is being wasted.

Now we’re voting in pre-polling at record rates, and volunteers in some seats are seeing a level of aggressiveness they’ve not seen before. Police were called to Berowra electorate this weekend. Independent candidate Tina Brown says a Liberal volunteer harangued her volunteer for telling voters she was the only woman on the ballot (she is). Brown believes she annoyed the Liberals by putting pictures of Peter Dutton and Liberal candidate Julian Leeser on her corflutes. Yep, more corflutes.

There’s been a few scuffles around the city, lots of jockeying for sign real estate and some inappropriate comments. Volunteers are told to be polite and trained not to react to those itching for a fight and some attention. There’s a mixture of desperation, schoolyard pettiness, misogyny and some mental illness on display as well as signals of lost decorum – if people are trying to get photos of a dead Pope in a coffin and booing at a Welcome to Country ceremony on Anzac Day, what’s a little rudeness at a cake stall?

But while I’ve been concerned about what I’m seeing, I’ve concluded that our elections are mostly civil and even friendly, and this is why I wait to election day to vote. Because after the competitive staking out and claiming of the first fence positions for the corflutes at the school or church gates, the dispiriting atmosphere of this election should lift.

The volunteers will chat across party lines and queue together for the sausage sizzle. Sure, I’m uninspired, but I still like the sausage that is Australian democracy; you don’t quite know what you’re getting, and your choice can leave an awful aftertaste. But each sausage is not the same, and it’s our job to look beyond the smiling pictures to see the policies they push and those they hide and who is paying for all the damn corflutes.

Sarah Macdonald is an author, broadcaster and journalist.