A report tabled in the ACT Legislative Assembly yesterday has called for a ban on roadside corflutes, rendering them a thing of the past.
The recommendation comes following the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety’s Inquiry into 2020 ACT Election and the Electoral Act.
Other recommendations from the report include a $10,000 cap on donations, and a ban on political donations from the gambling industry.
An eyesore across Canberra at every recent election, public sentiment toward roadside corflutes has long been negative due to the wasteful nature of the advertising medium.
In recommending the roadside corflute ban, the Committee considered the proliferation of roadside signs in recent elections, and the environmental concerns about mass production of corflutes for use and disposal within a six-week period.
It also found complete prohibition of corflutes is likely to be less burdensome for the Electoral Commission and TCCS to regulate than greater restrictions.
ACT Greens spokesperson Andrew Braddock MLA was pleased by the Committee’s recommendation and said corflutes “don’t add any value to the election process”.
“Corflutes just show a smiling face and a name; they don’t present any policy,” he said. “No one likes corflutes, we’ve seen that election after election, people calling for them to be banned.”
While a common counterargument is that corflutes can help grow the profile of minor parties and candidates, Mr Braddock said many didn’t “engage in the corflute wars” at the last election due to high costs.
“The minor parties found that corflutes are very expensive and took up a lot of time to deploy them across the Territory,” he said.
Some independent candidates and small parties told the Committee that the use of corflutes is an unfair advantage for major parties.
As for their efficacy, Mr Braddock pointed to the ACT Greens’ achievement at the 2020 election without a single roadside corflute.
“At the last election we did not use roadside signs and we were successful,” he said.
The ACT Greens did display plastic corflutes at the last election in private yards. Additionally, some were held by volunteers.
Under an ACT Government free trial that began following last year’s election, 974kg of corflutes, roughly 10,000, were returned and recycled.
The Committee also recommended a ban on the practice of waving electoral signs at the side of the road to attract attention from passing motorists.
They anticipate candidates in future elections may circumvent a ban on roadside signs by standing at major intersections to physically wave signs at passing motorists; this was observed during the 2020 election.
Another recommendation in the report advised the ACT Government to explore options for banning donations from “tobacco, liquor and gambling entities and associated industry representative bodies”.
2017-18 political donations data from the Australian Electoral Commission showed ACT Labor’s 1973 Foundation led the country for gambling-related political donations, providing ACT Labor with $789,197 in donations and loans.
According to The Alliance for Gambling Reform, ACT Labor’s 1973 Foundation houses the profits made from the pokies clubs have operated by the party in Canberra since 1979.
“The Committee’s recommendation today would keep profits from destructive poker machines out of political parties and out of our democratic processes,” Mr Braddock said.
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