Northern Beaches council covers the north-eastern corner of Sydney, including suburbs along the coast from Manly to Palm Beach. The council covers the entire Manly peninsula, and is bounded at its northern end by Broken Bay.
The council covers the suburbs of Avalon Beach, Bayview, Newport, Mona Vale, Warriewood, Terrey Hills, Ingleside, Elanora Heights, Collaroy, Narrabeen, Belrose, Frenchs Forest, Beacon Hill, Dee Why, Cromer, Brookvale, Curl Curl, Freshwater, Manly Vale, Balgowlah, Seaforth, Fairlight and Manly.
The council has a population of about 263,000 as of 2022.
- Wards
- Redistribution
- Incumbent councillors
- History
- Council control
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2021 results
- Vote breakdown by ward
- Results maps
Wards
Northern Beaches is divided into five wards, with each ward electing three councillors.
Curl Curl ward covers south-central parts of the council, including Dee Why, Curl Curl, North Manly and Brookvale.
Frenchs Forest ward covers inland parts of the council, including Allambie Heights, Davidson, Frenchs Forest, Belrose, Killarney Heights and Forestville.
Manly ward covers the southern end of the council, including Balgowlah, Fairlight, Manly, Manly Vale and Seaforth. The former Manly council is entirely contained in the new Manly ward.
Narrabeen ward covers north-central parts of the council, including Collaroy, Narrabeen, Ingleside and Elanore Heights.
Pittwater ward covers the northern end of the council, including Terrey Hills, Mona Vale, Bayview, Newport, Bilgola, Avalon Beach, Whale Beach and Palm Beach.
| Curl Curl | Kristyn Glanville (Grn) | Sue Heins (YNB) | David Walton (Liberal) |
| Frenchs Forest | Jose Menano-Pires (YNB) | Michael Regan (YNB) | Stuart Sprott (Liberal) |
| Manly | Candy Bingham (Good For Manly) | Sarah Grattan (YNB) | Georgia Ryburn (Lib) |
| Narrabeen | Bianca Crvelin (Liberal) | Vincent De Luca (Ind) | Ruth Robins (YNB) |
| Pittwater | Karina Page (Liberal)1 | Michael Gencher (Lib)2 | Miranda Korzy (Grn) |
1Karina Page won a countback on 20 June 2023 after the resignation of Rory Amon.
2Michael Gencher was elected as a Your Northern Beaches councillor in 2021 but joined the Liberal Party in February 2024.
History
Northern Beaches Council was created out of a merger of Manly, Pittwater and Warringah councils in 2016. The 2017 guide covers the previous history of these councils and how much of the new council came from its predecessors.
Manly Council had been mainly a battle between the Liberal Party and the Manly Independents party since former state MP Peter Macdonald won the mayoralty in 2004. The Liberal Party regained the mayoralty in 2008, and won a majority on the council in 2012.
Warringah Council was not contested by Labor or Liberal, but rather was a contest between various local groups. The council was sacked in 2003 and did not face election again until 2008.
The Wake Up Warringah team won three out of nine council seats in 2008, and their leader Michael Regan won the mayoralty.
Regan led a new Your Warringah ticket in 2012, winning five out of nine council seats along with an easy victory for the mayoralty.
Pittwater Council was dominated by independents, without much evidence of independents forming tickets across multiple wards.
The three councils were amalgamated to form the Northern Beaches Council in 2016.
Michael Regan formed a new Your Northern Beaches ticket, while the Liberal Party also decided to run for the new council (which was their first intervention north of Manly).
These two parties each won about the same vote – 31% for the Liberal Party and 29.6% for YNB. YNB won six seats while the Liberals won five.
The Greens also won a seat along with three independents: former Manly councillor Candy Bingham, former Pittwater councillor Alex McTaggart and former Warringah councillor Vincent De Luca.
Michael Regan was elected mayor following the 2017 election and held the office for the next six years. During the 2017-21 term, a majority of YNB, Bingham and the Greens won every leadership vote by an 8-7 majority over the five Liberals and two independents.
The 2021 election saw a small change with the Greens winning a second seat off independent Alex McTaggart in Pittwater.
During the 2021-24 term, the YNB-led majority has continued to hold the mayoralty. Michael Regan held the job until May 2023. Regan had won the state seat of Wakehurst at the 2023 state election, and subsequently stepped down and was replaced by his deputy Sue Heins, also a member of Your Northern Beaches. While YNB held on to the mayoralty in May 2023, deputy mayoral elections in May and September 2023 saw the role won by Liberal councillors Walton and Ryburn, suggesting a possible change in the previous alignment.
Council control
Your Northern Beaches has been able to maintain the leadership of the council since 2017. The minutes for the 2021 and 2022 mayoral and deputy mayoral elections did not show a vote count, so it is hard to say who voted for them. If it was a continuation of the previous term, I would’ve expected a 9-6 split with Bingham and both Greens supporting YNB and De Luca supporting the Liberals. Indeed that is exactly what happened when Sue Heins replaced Michael Regan in May 2023 and was re-elected for another year in September 2023.
But there was a hint of a change in style in the deputy mayoral contests in 2023. In May 2023, the Liberal candidate Walton defeated Greens candidate Korzy by an 11-4 margin, presumably with the support of most if not all YNB councillors.
For the September 2023 election, three candidates stood. Liberal councillor Ryburn polled seven votes, one more than the best previous Liberal performance. Then YNB councillor Gencher and Greens councillor Glanville each polled three, despite all six YNB councillors being present at the meeting. That was 13 votes, with two abstentions. Gencher was then excluded, and Ryburn defeated Glanville by an 8-5 margin.
Sitting Your Northern Beaches councillors Michael Regan and Jose Minano-Pires and sitting Liberal councillor Stuart Sprott are not running for re-election. The other five incumbent Liberal councillors are missing from the ballot due to a Liberal Party nomination error.
Your Northern Beaches are the only party running a full ticket.
The Greens are running for four wards, while Labor is running for three wards, although they have only managed to nominate two candidates in Curl Curl and Narrabeen (and thus don’t have an above the line box).
Sitting independent councillor Vincent De Luca is running in Narrabeen Ward and is the only identifiable conservative candidate. Good For Manly is running Candy Bingham for re-election in the Manly Ward.
Assessment
Your Northern Beaches should win a clear majority. In three wards, only YNB and Greens have an above the line box, and they should split the council seats 2-1.
Bingham and YNB should each retain one seat in Manly Ward, with Labor or Greens winning the third seat.
Independent councillor De Luca should be re-elected easily in Narrabeen without a Liberal option, but YNB are the only other option there.
This points to a most likely result of nine Your Northern Beaches, 3-4 Greens, two independents and possibly one Labor councillor. This would leave YNB with a clear majority, and the Greens as the main opposition party.
| Party | Votes | % | Swing | Seats won |
| Liberal | 52,325 | 35.09 | +4.1 | 5 |
| Your Northern Beaches | 46,355 | 31.09 | +1.5 | 6 |
| Greens | 22,385 | 15.01 | +6.6 | 2 |
| Independents | 11,711 | 7.85 | -8.1 | 1 |
| Labor | 9,709 | 6.51 | -2.7 | |
| Good For Manly | 6,629 | 4.45 | -1.4 | 1 |
| Informal | 4,934 | 3.20 |
Vote breakdown by ward
The following table shows the vote in each ward.
The Liberal Party topped the primary vote overall, with a vote ranging from 29.7% in Manly to 42.1% in Pittwater.
Your Northern Beaches came a close second, with a vote ranging from 23.2% in Pittwater to 44.7% in Frenchs Forest. That Frenchs Forest vote was enough to win two seats, the only party to achieve that feat in 2021.
The Liberal Party topped the poll in three wards (Manly, Narrabeen and Pittwater), while YNB came first in Curl Curl and Frenchs Forest.
The Greens primary vote ranged from 12.2% in Manly to 20.6% in Pittwater.
Vote for others ranged from just 4.4% in Frenchs Forest up to 34.7% in Manly, where Candy Bingham’s Good For Manly group polled 22.9%.
| Ward | YNB % | LIB % | GRN % | OTH % |
| Curl Curl Ward | 34.6 | 33.9 | 15.9 | 15.6 |
| Frenchs Forest Ward | 44.7 | 37.2 | 13.7 | 4.4 |
| Manly Ward | 23.5 | 29.7 | 12.2 | 34.7 |
| Narrabeen Ward | 28.8 | 32.5 | 12.7 | 26.0 |
| Pittwater Ward | 23.2 | 42.1 | 20.6 | 14.1 |
Election results at the 2021 Northern Beaches Council election
Toggle between primary votes for the Liberal Party, Your Northern Beaches, the Greens, Labor, Good For Manly, and independent candidates Vincent De Luca and Alex McTaggart.
Candidates – Curl Curl Ward
- A – Your Northern Beaches
- Joeline Hackman
- Nicholas Beaugeard
- Nick McDonald
- B – Greens
- Cr Kristyn Glanville
- Judy Lambert
- Roberto Suares
- C – Labor
- Jasper Thatcher
- Carolyn Howells
Candidates – Frenchs Forest Ward
- A – Greens
- Ethan Hrnjak
- Fathimath Ibrahim
- Cooper Holdsworth
- B – Your Northern Beaches
- Cr Sue Heins
- Jody Williams
- Penny Philpott
Candidates – Manly Ward
- A – Good For Manly
- Cr Candy Bingham
- Taylah Schrader
- Peter Greentree
- B – Your Northern Beaches
- Cr Sarah Grattan
- Rachael Martin
- David Cowell
- C – Labor
- Brandt Clifford
- Celine Varghese-Fell
- Sam Pigram
- D – Greens
- Bonnie Harvey
- Pamela Dawes
- Terry Le Roux
Candidates – Narrabeen Ward
- A – Independent
- Cr Vincent De Luca
- Robert Giltinan
- Tammy Cook
- B – Labor
- Sue Wright
- Ryan O’Sullivan
- C – Your Northern Beaches
- Cr Ruth Robins
- Chris Jackson
- Adam Hughes
Candidates – Pittwater Ward
- A – Greens
- Cr Miranda Korzy
- Evan Turner-Schiller
- Felicity Davis
- B – Your Northern Beaches
- Rowie Dillon
- Judy Charnaud
- Ian White
- Ungrouped
- Mandeep Singh (Independent)
- Philip Walker (Independent)
Final Result from NBC:
Curl Curl Ward: YNB X2, GRN
Frenches Forest Ward: YNB X2, GRN
Manly Ward: YNB, GFM, GRN
Narrabeen Ward: De Luca x2, YNB
Pittwater Ward: Singh, YNB, GRN
The final make-up:
YNB – 7
GRN – 4
Cross-Bench – 4 (GFM, De Luca x2, Singh)
The mayoralty election will get uber spicy now. If YNB wants stability, they may have to make an alliance with De Luca and Singh. The shortest pathway will be with GFM, but that leaves them 1 seat away from disaster.
Even without official Liberal candidates, no Labor candidate was elected. When was the last time Labor won a council seat on the Northern Beaches?
Would YNB and Greens be compatible enough to just work together?
@Blue Not John
The last 2 terms of Council, the Greens have held the swing vote, so presumably yes. VDL and Singh would be much harder for YNB to strike any deals with.
Is it possible for Labor to ever win a Council seat here or when did they last do that?
@Nimalan, as its an amalgamated council, there hasn’t been one since Northern Beaches Council was created in 2016. There had been Labor councillors on former Warringah (although none were elected at its last election in 2012). I’m not aware of any Labor Councillors being on Pittwater or Manly Councils in any recent times prior to amalgamation.
I think the Northern Beaches is a tough area for Labor. Progressives locally tend to vote Green or teal independent. Centrist voters vote for YNB at a council level. There is not a traditional large unionised local workforce. While to some degree the results in this election in Narrabeen and Curl Curl wards reflect that they only had BTL voting boxes (which may have made it more difficult for their voters and/or less likely to pick up casual voters), although they didn’t do particularly well in Manly where they did have an ATL box (but a more competitive race, and typically their primary is lower in Manly anyway). Curl Curl ward was in spitting distance for them the last 2 elections but they were pipped by the Greens both times.
My general sense is that if they really put all their energy into Narrabeen or Curl Curl ward and campaigned a year out, they could perhaps win it, those being their strongest areas relatively speaking. However I don’t think that they are ever likely to do well enough to form a large voting block – Labor just generally isnt electorally popular enough, and before the advent of the teals, it was not unusual for the Greens to outpoll them at state/federal elections. Their head office I also gather is not particularly helpful at Local Government generally, but on the Northern beaches specifically, so its unlikely to ever have much strategic assistance to break through. I also think the factional issues don’t help them to ever put up such an effort, with the Southern Branches being more LEAN/Labor Left and the Northern Branches being more Labor Right, it does not seem there is much will to just concentrate on one ward, and as a result, they were spread very thin even though they only ran in 3 wards.
@ Annoycat
Interesting points and i agree with your analysis. Maybe two decades ago the Middle Part of the Northern Beaches (Narrabeen and Curl Curl Wards) were more middle class with some lower income pockets so there was a decent Labor vote in some suburbs. As Greater Sydney has grown and the amount of Beachside real estate between the Hawkesbury remains the same these areas have become more affluent and i would expect there to be a long time decline in Labor primary vote in the Northern Beaches. There is also little CALD communities here so little chance for Labor to see a revival. If the Teals did not i exist i think Mackellar and Warringah would be LIB v GRN now.