Congratulations to all candidates who put their hands up for selection.

To put yourselves into the public domain is a daunting task that many of us could not, and would not, contemplate.

While each candidate is the sole holder of their reasons for standing, you deserve to be acknowledged for just being part of the democratic process.

Thank you.

This election, arguably like no other, was a strange beast.

Voters were asked to put their trust in candidates without quite getting full and complete access to them.

The shadow of the global pandemic meant that many of our accepted avenues to source information were either closed off, altered in some fashion or compromised to some degree.

Candidates could not hand out how-to-vote cards at the point of entry to the polling booth (there was a 100 metre limit placed on that), door-knocking was impacted by health concerns, and smaller than normal crowds attended meet-the-candidate nights in the lead-up to election day.

To me though, the greatest impact on this election was the genuine lack of information available to the public through local media - specifically via the print versions of the Port Macquarie News and the Port Macquarie Express.

Independent and critical-thinking journalists - particularly at these two mastheads' print versions - have provided this community for many years with in-depth reporting of candidates' ideas, their agendas and policies and their thoughts on a range of topics that directly impact this community.

Through no fault of the local journalists, this level of scrutiny and focus was clearly missing from this election.

Print versions of newspapers truly reflect our community, its thoughts, its beliefs and our behaviour.

It was the mirror into which we gazed to see ourselves, warts and all.

Local government is at the very grass roots of our community and at election times we need that intense focus from print journalists.

While our local journalists continue to bring the best stories and information to us in the online space, at times of critical, important events such as local government elections, I genuinely lament the loss of our print versions.

But don't blame the Port News staff. Look to the spooked media owners whom too quickly stampeded from print to online without fully appreciating the nexus between communities they serve and a desire for accurate, independent reporting.

But here we are: a new-look council is about to lead us over the next three years and we hardly know a thing about their plans for our future.

That's their challenge now. To take us along for the ride by accepting their responsibilities to transparency, real community consultation, honesty, integrity and perhaps - just perhaps, a little less finger-pointing across the chamber.

Peter Daniels

Port Macquarie