5:50pm Monday – This afternoon we’ve gotten the final results for Georges River, Inner West, Mid-Coast and Penrith. Georges River finished as expected.
For Inner West, Labor won a second seat in Ashfield after a close challenge from the Liberals, winning by just 45 votes. They also won a second seat against the Greens in Stanmore, replacing the retiring independent Pauline Lockie. It should be noted that I briefly called Ashfield for the Liberal but after discussions about the flows of preferences I concluded that Labor did have a chance and uncalled the seat yesterday, and they barely won. This means Labor has retained its majority, losing a seat in Leichhardt but replacing it with a seat in Stanmore.
For Mid-Coast, the eleven seats went as I expected. Labor won a second seat and three Libertarians replace two Liberals, leaving the council with two less independents. Three out of four incumbent independents to run for re-election were successful, along with two others. Plus the Greens held their one seat.
In Penrith, independent candidate Glenn Gardiner won the final seat in the North Ward. This leaves the council with 9 Labor, 2 Liberal, 3 independents and one Libertarian.
Tomorrow morning we’ll start up with Parramatta, Northern Beaches and Sutherland all declaring uncalled seats before 10am. I’ll do a brief update in the morning then a bigger one in the afternoon.
2:30pm Monday – We only have results for the first three wards of Georges River but that includes the only uncalled race in Kogarah Bay, where GRRRP leader Elise Borg has held on. If the other two wards go as expected, that’ll produce a final total of 6 Labor, 5 GRRRP, 3 Liberal, and independent Ben Wang.
2:25pm Monday – There were no uncalled races left in Cumberland, but the final results are in and confirm my calls: 5 Labor, 4 Liberal, 3 Our Local Community, 2 independents (Sarkis and Ouf) and one Green.
2:20pm Monday – For Canterbury-Bankstown:
- Community Voice defeated the Libertarian in Bass Hill.
- Greens beat the second Labor candidate in Canterbury.
- Second Labor candidate beat the Greens in Roselands.
This produces a final council total of 8 Labor, 3 Liberal, 1 Community Voice, 1 Greens, 1 Our Local Community, and independent Coorey. The Libertarian Party missed out.
For Camden, Eva Campbell defeated Cindy Cagney for the final seat in Camden South. This produces a final total of 3 Labor, 2 Libertarian, 1 Liberal and three independents – Suri, Campbell and McLean.
The Greens won the final seat in Campbelltown, giving a total of 6 Labor, 3 CFTI, 2 Community Voice, 2 Greens, 1 Sustainable Australia and independent Zahra.
For Central Coast:
- Eaton and Mouland won the last two seats in Budgewoi.
- In Gosford West, independent Smith won the last seat.
- In The Entrance, independent Lamont won the last seat.
This produced a total of 5 Labor, 4 Liberal and six independents, two of whom are part of Lawrie McKinna’s team (including McKinna himself).
12pm Monday – Bayside and Blacktown have now finished.
In Bayside 2, the Greens won a seat off Labor, defeating independent Hollink. In Bayside 3, Peaceful Bayside has won a seat off the Greens. This produces a final council of 6 Labor, 5 Liberal, 2 Peaceful Bayside, 1 Greens and 1 Liz Barlow.
In Blacktown 2, the Greens have won their first seat on that council. This produces a final council count of 8 Labor, 6 Liberal, 1 Greens.
10:30am Monday – We’re now getting most of the mayoral results in, although none of them were on my list of races to watch:
- The Greens have re-gained the Byron mayoralty from an independent after a strong Labor challenge. This means the Greens will hold four out of nine seats on the council.
- Ross Kerridge has defeated Nuatali Nelmes in Newcastle with a 1.68% margin.
- Clover Moore has won a sixth term in Sydney with a 12.9% margin over Labor. This is down from a 17.9% margin against Labor in 2021, so that’s a 5% swing.
- Patricia White from Shoalhaven Independents has been elected over Jemma Tribe by a 5.3% margin, bringing an end to the Greens-Labor majority.
- Liberal mayor Trenton Brown has won Ryde’s first direct mayoral election with a 6.5% margin.
8:00am Monday – All of the results of NSW council elections conducted by the NSW Electoral Commission are due to be declared over the course of today and tomorrow.
For this campaign I have focused on the 27 most populous councils (2 of which, Fairfield and Liverpool, have employed a private provider to conduct their elections and thus are not part of this process). For the last few weeks I have been tracking the count in the 26 of those councils where parties play a large role (sorry, Ku-ring-gai). This is my most recent post analysing the races I am yet to call.
The NSWEC has published a schedule of when each council result will be declared. Two in fact: one for mayor and one for councillors.
I have converted this schedule into a spreadsheet and then matched that to my estimates of who has won and who is likely to win for the 95 contests being held in the 24 partisan councils being run by the NSWEC.
Of these 95 contests, I have identified 29 where I have been unable to call the final result, covering 30 seats uncalled (thanks to two seats being unclear in Central Coast Budgewoi). One of the tabs of the spreadsheet simply lists these 29 contests in order of when declarations are due.
The mayors are being mostly declared first, and should be done by 10:30am. The last council declarations are due at 4pm tomorrow. Of course there may be some delay in the time between when a declaration is made and when it is publicly available online, but this gives you a sense of where to look first.
Bayside 2 and Blacktown 2 are both due at 11am, with Bayside 3 at 11:15am. The declarations are due in a roughly alphabetical order, with The Hills North being the last uncalled race to be declared at 3:30pm on Monday.
That’s it for now, but I’ll drop in every few hours with updates over the course of today and tomorrow.
Michael Megna becomes the first ever popularly elected Liberal Mayor of Canada Bay Council in its over 2 decade history since amalgamation.
Libs pick up an additional 4 councillors, 3 Labor and 1 Green.
Worrying signs for Federal Labor MP for Reid Sally Sitou, where Canada Bay Council makes up around 50% of her seat.
Also to note the count took way too long, coupled with Burwood and Strathfield. An argument to go down the path of Liverpool and Fairfield councils of using the independent Australian Election Company instead of the exhausted NSW Electoral Commission.
Look for Canada Bay to also institute Wards at the next council election, as
flagged by multiple candidates due to the growth in Rhodes and the overall population increase
Why did the count take too long, last postals could arrive COB Friday, count completed Monday morning / lunchtime.
(Most places seemed to have done some counting / checking over the weekend).
Re Canada Bay council
Alp just missed out on Mayor. Rest of council 4 lib
1 green 3 alp
This is a better result than the state seat of Drummoyne. The alp mp for Reid has nothing to worry about. A narrow loss in half the electorate more than balanced by the other 50%
Re canterbury Bankstown council
Alp 8
Lib 3
Gr 1
Ind 1
Cva 1
Olc 1
The libertarian party narrowly missed out in a seat in Bass Hill ward
@fatty
I think a nswec run ballot allows more transparency .the question of delay can be improved via increased staffing
Agree Mick, the mayoral 2PP was under 51% and much closer than the 2CP count for the previous 2021 election where it was Labor vs OLC and ex Labor councillor Angelo Tsirekis who was functioned technically as a de facto Liberal with his outspoken views against his former party. Also, the Labor primary vote increased from 27% to 37% but most of that was due to fewer parties contesting both the Mayoral and councillor positions.
Right, so the disproportionality of the mayoral seat gives the Liberals a council majority in Canada Bay?
David, what delay? Postals finished coming in on Friday and they’re doing the declarations asap.
Mick Q- Strathfield Council which is 1/4 of Reid also had the Libs outperform Labor, with the remaining being Lib friendly independents.
Burwood is Labor’s only real saving grace for Reid.
On Canada Bay, Greens preferences came to the rescue, barely l, to make the result seem closer than it was. Megna and ATL Lib ticket outperformed Labor by about 8%.
If Independents crowd the ballot and direct preferences to Libs, Labor will have trouble holding Reid. But I will concede Libs have a better chance of winning it back in 2028, when they select a better candidate.
I don’t see how NSWEC is any more transparent than an independent private operator. Put it to tender. It should be what is in the best interests and value for taxpayers.
Throwing more resources (ie money) isn’t always the answer. The booth I scrutineered at, the Electoral officers thought we were operating under First Past the Post. I replied, I wish we were.
@ Yoh An, somewhat disagree with that analysis as the Libs performed only slightly better with Tsirekas in the race. Angelo took more from the Labor vote last time around. Libs have now in increased by 1 and Labor by 1, and Greens saw a drastic increase.
The problem was Ferguson, and a lack of coordinated ground game by both Labor and Greens. Greens vote increased in the east of the council, which not surprising is the least culturally diverse and most affluent.
Canada Bay council largely overlaps with the state sear of Drummoyne. Nsw election lib almost 52%
Alp almost 48%
This compares favourly with mayoral vote
I worked for almost 33 years in the federal public service. I consider a lot of the delays and stuff ups could have been much reduced if
more staff
Better trained staff
Adequate relief including such for people under going training
A rhetorical question
Why have nearly all councils
Opted for electoral commission run ballots?
Ok Mick and extrapolating both Council and State elections, even marginally, Libs are ahead.
You only have to win 50 + 1. In saying that I think Stephanie’s margin will swing back significantly in Drummoyne. It is no longer a traditional Labor seat, and by the time Fed comes around the stink of Albanese government will be well and truly wafting from Iron Cove to Olympic Park.
Labor need to squash Libs in Burwood and Rhodes, which I think will be a lot more difficult given they are running an Chinese-Australian who is a slightly better campaigner than Sally (who has been more invisible than Fiona Martin and John Murphy)
I’ve worked in the Public Service as well, and training only helps so far. I’d sooner outsource, and have lower rates and taxes. Public servants generally have too much of an agenda in ensuring one party stays in power. Given their job relies on them doing so.
Look at the Morrison govts action re tenders.. lots of time there was only ONE
tenderer and lots of liberal party “mates”. The federal ICAC if they did their job properly would have a field day . You must measure things more broadly the outsourcing of functions means less govt control and does not measure the advantages of say a prompt processing of a Age pension claim
Anyone voting should realise that the olc and libs
are basically two wings of the same bird. They preferences each other and on Cumberland council they act together.
I have never heard of elections being privatised. What’s this about? Who makes this decision?
Libby, the NSW Coalition government changed the law after taking power in 2011 to allow councils to choose a private election provider instead of the NSWEC. Quite a few councils used it in 2012 but it has now dwindled down to only two councils in 2024.
I assume the other commentator advocating for “tendering” has not had the misfortune of having to interact with a private provider. Information is much harder to come by and in a less useful format. There have been issues with councils advertising booths that were not open on election day. And when I worked as a campaign coordinator in 2012 I found that ROs employed by private providers were very inconsistent in how they applied the rules and there was no higher authority to decide on a consistent procedure. Despite non-NSWEC options being substantially cheaper, practically no councils choose that option.