By Ethan Benedicto and Cam Lucadou-Wells
It was recently reported that the City of Casey has removed and seized 250 signs since the election season began, now with the Casey Residents Ratepayers Association calling for a crackdown on their prominence.
The president of the CRRA, Brian Oates, sent a letter to Star News on behalf of the organisation where he coined the electoral competition in Bruce as a “war of corflutes”.
He highlighted the abundance of signage throughout the municipality, from local homes’ fences, to bollards, lightposts, walls, traffic direction posts and more.
However, the biggest concern he raised was, “have the candidates applied for permits?”
Dandenong-Cranbourne RSL president Lance McDermott said the sub-branch had repeatedly removed unsolicited corflutes from its perimeter fence on Foster and Clow streets Dandenong.
“It’s not on.
“No one asked for permission to put them up on the fence. And if they asked permission, we would have said ‘no’ because the RSL is apolitical.”
Casey’s chief executive Glenn Patterson, told The Age of the number of signs they had removed, and that photos were taken and infringements to follow where they deemed appropriate.
CRRA’s Oates expressed concern with the signs’ proper authorisation, adding that it would be a “timely event and should be at the top of the list when the review of the Local Laws takes place”.
“The CRRA also believes that if the council have to remove inappropriate campaign material, then the candidate must be made to pay for the costs of the removals, not the ratepayers,” he said.
Corflutes and signs have been widespread in the electorate, with more than a handful having been defaced in the process.
Liberal candidate Zahid Safi recently posted on his Facebook page expressing his disappointment with their vandalism, while incumbent Labor MP Julian Hill’s signs were also subject to the same treatment.
On this note, and with a specific focus on the days coming post-election, Oates posed the question of how long the signage would linger throughout the city, and if limitations on their physical size is to be considered.
