Sutherland Shire is one of the most populous councils in Sydney, covering a large area in southern Sydney, bumping up against the Georges River, Botany Bay and the northern edge of Wollongong.
At a federal and state level, Sutherland leans towards the Liberal Party, with Labor only winning some of the more marginal seats when they are doing particularly well. But that hasn’t always been enough to give the Liberal Party control of the council, with an alliance of Labor and independents running the council from 2008 until 2011.
The Liberal Party won nine out of fifteen seats in 2012, almost wiping out the Shire Watch team, which had previously held five seats. Since that election, two conservative independents have joined the Liberal Party, putting them in a dominant position.
Sutherland has a history of electing many local independents, with the Liberal Party declining to endorse a formal party ticket as recently as 2008. Yet this year the election will mostly be a race between big statewide parties. There are no independents running in four out of five wards, and in two wards voters only have a choice between Labor and Liberal.
