Local government election results have now been posted on the website of the Tasmanian Electoral Commission, showing primary vote figures from election night. I don’t know about most of the races, but a few key points of interest:
- Mayor of Hobart Rob Valentine has been reelected with over 80% of the vote.
- Greens councillor Helen Burnet was 80 votes ahead on the election night preference count for Deputy Mayor of Hobart. Burnet polled 41% of the primary vote to 38% for Peter Sexton, and she polled 50.22% after preferences. I don’t know if that is the final result.
- The four Greens council candidates collectively polled 1.67 quotas in Hobart, with 1.37 quotas received by Burnet herself.
- In Burnie, incumbent mayor Alvwyn Boyd has survived a challenge from Steve Kons of the ALP, with Boyd polled 51.26% after preferences.
- In Dorset, incumbent mayor Peter Partridge only managed 13% of the primary vote, with Barry Jarvis polling almost 57%.
Post any other interesting results you have seen in the comments thread below.
Update: The Greens haven’t made any major gains in terms of council representation, although the election of Helen Burnet as Deputy Mayor of Hobart is an achievement for the party. Five incumbent councillors elected in 2005 were up for election: in Clarence, Hobart, Huon Valley, Kingborough and Southern Midlands. Four of these seats have been retained, whilst the Greens have lost their seat on Southern Midlands council. So far the party has won no extra seats, but is in with a good chance of electing a second Green on Hobart council and outside chances of a second councillor in Kingborough and a councillor in Launceston. The Greens polled much less in Launceston than in 2007, despite narrowly missing out on the Deputy Mayoralty. If the Greens win a second seat in Hobart it will give them a total of 4 seats and the Deputy Mayoralty, which puts them in a strong overall position on that council. As it currently stands, the party should win 11-14 seats, compared to 12 since the 2007 elections.
In Launceston, Greens councillor Jeremy Ball is narrowly trailing the primary vote leader in the deputy mayoral vote, with 38.2% of the primary vote, whilst Monique Huyskens has 0.37 of a quota in the crowded field of 20 candidates for the 6 council seats. No preference count up yet.
In Kingborough the Greens candidate Michelle Higgins is leading on primary votes in the deputy mayor’s race. No preference count yet.
It would appear the Greens will retain their seat in Clarence with the three candidates polling a combined 0.91 quotas. They will also hold the seat in Huon Valley with the four candidates polling combined 1.39 quotas, including 1.15 quotas for lead candidate Rosalie Woodruff.
Also interesting to note 55% turnout across the state, for a voluntary postal ballot.
Looks like Burnet’s win is final, albeit very close. The other Green deputy mayor candidates seem to have missed out.
Can anyone tell me what the significance of the Deputy Mayor position is? Does it mean an extra salary and roles, or is it just that you stand in when the mayor is away? In Vic most councils don’t have them, and when they do they’re pretty insignificant positions.
Still, the fact that the Greens could win a single member position is a real boost – a good sign for next year.
I think it could be seen as a stepping stone to the mayoralty or possibly Parliament.
In Launceston, where the Greens only got their first council seat in 2007, Jeremy Ball got something like 47.5% of the vote in the deputy mayoral race.
There’s not doubt its good having it, but it would be interesting to know how good. Let’s say that Jeremy Ball had got up as deputy mayor but we didn’t get the second councilor up on Launceston City Council. I’m wondering if that would be a good trade – does they position offer enough to be worth more than an extra position on council, or is it just a minor prestige bonus?
And why do the Greens contest the DM elections but not the mayoral ones? Surely there’s no harm in having a name on the mayoral ballot – I assume there’s some unusual local factor as to why this is not done. Anyone know?
Seems Marrette Corby will miss out in Glenorchy. With four seats remaining to be decided she’s in 6th place of the remaining contenders. Though I know nothing about the other candidates so have no idea how other preferences may flow.
Stephen L. – NSW Deputy Mayoral positions do just what they say – deputise for the Mayor. Most Councils have them, but they are all elected from the floor of the Council. While I’m not sure they get any extra pay they do get to move Mayoral Minutes, which from memory would normally have to be disallowed (which means no need for a seconder and instead of voting something up, other Councillors have to move to disallow it). This usually provides a head start on getting things passed. And of course you do the functions rounds as well as making the public statements!
Stewart, the privileges regarding moving Mayoral Minutes might be different procedures for different councils according to each council’s Code of Meeting Practice, because the DMs in my area certainly don’t get to do that.
I think every council in NSW has to have a DM, and as you say, they are elected by councillors, usually for one year terms each September, although councils do, as I understand it, also have the option of making the appointment for the full four year term (I think this is very rare). They don’t get any extra pay, although they do of course get more expenses reimbursed for the additional meetings and functions they get to attend and so forth.
Nick – Randwick allows the moving of Mayoral Minutes by DM’s – maybe SCC is different, I don’t know – you could be right about their Code of Meeting Practice, but I thought it was taken from a Model Code.
There is a model code, but councils can modify various bits of it, so that’s obviously what’s happened. I don’t think the Act says anything about mayoral minutes, which would mean that it is one of the things councils can decide at their discretion.
In Tas the DM positions are more about prestige and position rather than formal responsibilities. Formally you stand in for the Mayor when required, but the more important element is that it makes you more ‘senior’ than other Councillors and so politically it’s useful/significant. There were some great performances in the DM races – Michele Higgins in Kingborough especially.
The Greens just lost the seat on the Southern Midlands council and it doesn’t look like they have picked up any new ones although Hobart is a reasonable chance. But overall I think it is a pretty good result for the Greens – votes in a lot of places were really good. Top in primaries in Huon Valley, first ever DM in Hobart, third on primaries in Clarence (a relatively weaker area), second on primaries in Kingborough (increasing vote while that of most other sitting councillors is slowly declining). It’s disappointing not to make more progress in Launceston, Glenorchy or West Tamar but in general it is a good sign that Greens keep performing better in those councils where they are well established.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/29/2727036.htm
According to the ABC the Launceston Mayoral race was won by…. 3 votes.
Both Hobart and Launceston councils look to be thrillers, with the Green candidate very narrowly in 6th spot as the eliminations occur. Given that Greens usually don’t seem to do very well on preferences in Tasmanian local government elections I’d have to suspect neither will make it, but it looks set to be very tight.
Bear in mind in Hobart that Wendy Heatley has been excluded but her preferences not yet distributed. If they mostly flow to Greens candidate Corey Peterson he should be set to win. Launceston is much more difficult.
Final results in Hobart are in, and Corey Peterson has missed out, so only 1 seat for the Greens this election there. Monique Huyskens is still hanging in there in Launceston, third highest of the remaining candidates with three seats still to be decided. Out of the running now for the second seat in Kingborough, so the best result for the Greens overall would be status quo in terms of state-wide seat numbers.
UPDATE: Monique leads by 60 votes with the last set of preferences to be distributed.
Monique lost by 19 votes. Out of 23,000 that’s less than 0.1%. I hope she’ll ask for a recount. Margins like that don’t get overturned often, but it does happen. I imagine the RO’s pretty sick of it though, after the 3 vote margin for Mayor.
PS, I see that the Victorian Green’s tendency to lose elections by really tight margins has now jumped Bass Straight.
We’ve lost plenty of close races in NSW too. We lost out on a second Manly seat by 2 votes, and in Waverley, Blue Mountains and Ashfield we missed out on winning in the fourth ward by a small number of votes.
And in NSW you have to pay if you want a recount. Were there recounts in any of those?
Of course, tight margins in council elections are to be expected given the smaller numbers of voters.
I have a final wrap on the HCC count up at
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/article/council-haigh-retains-but-freeman-gone/
In short, the Greens missed out on getting two by just 115 votes and the main reason for that was that preference flows from the minor Greens candidates to the #2 candidate were not as strong as last time. In said article I discuss a few possible reasons why this was so.
Sure Nick, but in 2008 the Greens had seven losses whose (from memory) *combined* margin was larger than our smallest winning margin – one by 1 vote. This wasn’t exceptional, we’ve had many many close losses over the years, and only ever had two close wins, plus Colleen’s state win of course.
No worries Stephen, I didn’t mean to be critical. That’s terrible luck.
So what’s the situation with recounts in Vic? Do candidates have to pay, or are there provisions to request one without having to pay under certain circumstances?
Hi Nick, I wasn’t offended or thinking you were being critical, I’m just dumbfounded how unlucky we’ve been. You don’t have to pay for recounts, but the commission often refuses them and you have to take a court case if you want them. Some of the ones refused last time seemed to me a bit much – sure they weren’t likely to change, but it was hardly out of the realm of possibility. They did recount the two were we originally lost by 1 vote, one of which confirmed the result, the other had us end up losing by about a dozen.
Thanks
At least it’s a little fairer than NSW, it costs about $5,000 if I recall, though I think you get it back if it reverses the result.
I was reacting to Ben’s examples because I knew Ashfield has very small wards. I’ve looked those up now – the margin in Ashfield-North was 35 votes out of about 5,000 (quite unlucky because the surplus votes from the Green-aligned independent mostly exhausted). Waverley was actually a wider margin, but still, if it wasn’t for votes exhausting there’d probably be a fair few more seats won. The other example to add to Ben’s list was Tweed, where the second seat was missed out on by 48 votes, out of 43,000.
And in answer to my question, there was a recount in Manly, which resulted in a 6 vote margin, closer than the original count.
Just following up, belatedly, on the Launceston election. After missing out by 19 votes I did request a re-count, as suggested, but it was refused on the grounds that the sorting through preferences provides for accuracy and the margin wasn’t close enough. There was a possibility, which I didn’t pursue, of appealing to the Electoral Commissioner. Regarding the allowances, for aldermen on the LCC the allowance is $27k, DM, about $45k, and I’m not sure for mayoral, maybe $60-70k.
So for both Launceston (myself) and Hobart (Corey Peterson, Greens candidates ran 7th. (But the small consolation is that we are technically not excluded, just not elected (!), so should there be any resignation in the period up to 6 months prior to the next election (ie. the next 18 months), we will fill that position up to the next election…
Cheers
Monique
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