Accountability. Some politicians struggle to spell the word, let alone respect its meaning.

Every election brings a flood of announcements promising to act on all those issues they just couldn’t get right in the previous four years.

Railway to your door, Sir? Not a problem. A job, Madam? No worries. A payroll cut will fix that. And roads? Why we have plans for dozens of them – which one would you like?

• Will Daniel Andrews be the next Victorian Premier?
• Victorian leaders face the public

Nearly every day of the election campaign Victorian Treasurer Michael O’Brien walks into the media room at Liberal Headquarters in Exhibition Street and reads a familiar script, one that hasn’t changed for decades.

How can the Opposition afford such extravagant promises? It doesn’t add up. If they get into power they’ll put up taxes, borrow more, slash jobs and services. We’ll all be ruined.

The trick in Opposition, then, is to hold off until the last possible day before the vote and announce that a respected accountancy firm (it’s never a disreputable company that gets the job) has given the big tick to the promises, deflating the government’s scare tactics and leaving voters scratching their heads.

The tactic is even more important in Victoria’s state election as early voting started last Monday and up to a third of 3.8 million voters are likely to vote early (but not often).

Treasurers and their shadows have provided a rich vein of stories over recent years. Some tactically smart, some funny and others absolutely hilarious.

Steve Bracks beat Jeff Kennett, Robert Doyle and Ted Baillieu in successive elections. Photo: Getty

In the 1999 election, the then Labor Opposition pulled off a master stroke when it revealed Access Economics, a respected company often used by the Liberal Party, had signed off its promises. Check mate. Steve Bracks then pushed the Jeff Kennett juggernaut out of power.

In the 2002 state election, the Shadow Treasurer Robert Dean made a spectacular, red-faced, shoot yourself in the foot exit from politics when he forgot to maintain his electoral enrollment and was ineligible to stand again. Whoops.

The then Liberal leader Robert Doyle went on to lose in a landslide to Steve Bracks.

In the 2006 election, Robert Clark, the super serious, methodical, hard-working, single-minded conservative, stepped up to the Shadow Treasurer’s plate. Unfortunately mathematics wasn’t his strength and Labor blew a hole in his budget by uncovering the double counting of a few hundred million dollars for education.

The then Liberal leader Ted Baillieu had a big blue campaign bus. It was quickly renamed the “Blunder Bus”, and Bracks went on to record his third successive victory, losing just seven seats.

Former Victorian Treasurer Kim Wells.

But wait, there’s more. In the 2010 election, the then Shadow Treasurer Kim Wells announced that a respected accountancy firm was auditing the policies of the Coalition (the Liberals and Nationals joined for this poll).

The accountant turned out to be Frank Angelico, a political supporter of Kim Wells, who I had met socially over the years and sat next to at a Wells-organised lunch at Parliament House some months before where I was the guest speaker. (No payment received but I did get a bottle of red and some weird questions).

Frank runs a small accountancy firm. He’s a competent professional but his office is hardly in the big hitters’ league. Wells squirmed at getting the big tick from his friend but the job was good enough to help Baillieu over the line with a one-seat majority.

And now to this election. The Napthine government is screaming nearly every day that Labor’s Daniel Andrews has promised more than $32 billion worth of policies and projects. The biggest item is transport (accounting for more than $26 billion of the government estimate) for long-term projects like the rail line to Melbourne airport and another underground rail for Melbourne’s CBD.

These projects are more in the category of “we want to do them but we need just one key thing: money” or a script for another Utopia episode.

Daniel Andrews looks on as Denis Napthine talks during a public debate this week. Photo: AAP

Even Premier Denis Napthine admits his airport rail line is up to 12 years away – well after the the promotional billboards and paint work at Southern Cross Station have been pulled down or faded away.

And if it is eventually built, its indirect route is through Sunshine in the western suburbs with an average speed of about 60 kmh. Hardly something to brag about at the next premiers’ conference.

After a bid for a parliament budget scrutiny office fell apart, Dr Napthine says Labor should submit its policies to his Treasury for scrutiny, as he and the Greens have done. Labor says no. It’s paying accountants Moore Stephens to provide the inevitable big tick, to be revealed next Thursday.

No matter who wins on Saturday November 29, both sides have promised there will be no new taxes, fees or fines or increases in them beyond the normal indexation.

That’s a promise you should cut out and stick on the fridge. Along with the fact that both sides of politics are yet to agree that state parliament – the people’s house – will be subject to Freedom of Information requests.

We can’t have that, can we? The public asking questions about how parliament is run?

But both sides will load you up with billions of dollars of promises that go far beyond the next two or three elections and even the life expectancy of many voters.

Accountability. How do you spell it again?

Brendan Donohoe is State Political reporter for Seven News Melbourne.