The City of Blacktown covers parts of north-western Sydney, including the Blacktown and Mount Druitt urban centres and the suburbs of Quakers Hill, Kings Langley, Seven Hills, Rooty Hill, Doonside, Shalvey, Whalan, Kellyville Ridge, Schofields and Riverstone.
Blacktown has a population of approximately 410,897 people (as of 2022), which makes it the four-largest council in Australia. Blacktown is the most populous council in New South Wales.
- Wards
- Redistribution
- Incumbent councillors
- History
- Council control
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2021 results
- Vote breakdown by ward
- Results maps
Wards
Blacktown is divided up into five wards, with each ward electing three councillors.
The five wards are numbered from Ward 1 to Ward 5. The wards are numbered in a clockwise direction, starting with Ward 1 in northern parts of the council.
Ward 1 covers north-eastern parts of the electorate, mostly covering newly-developing suburbs and less developed parts of the council, including the suburbs of Kellyville Ridge, Stanhope Gardens, Parklea and eastern parts of Schofields and Riverstone.
Ward 2 covers eastern areas including Kings Langley, Glenwood, Marayong, Lalor Park and parts of Blacktown, Seven Hills and Quakers Hill.
Ward 3 covers the south-east of the council, including Prospect, Arndell Park, Huntingwood, Woodcroft, most of Blacktown and parts of Seven Hills.
Ward 4 covers the south-west of the council, including Mount Druitt, Rooty Hill, Minchinbury, Doonside, Plumpton and Glendenning.
Ward 5 covers the north-west of the council, including Tregear, Shalvey, Whalan and parts of and Oakhurst.
Redistribution
Changes were made to all five wards. The northern wards 1 and 5 contracted, the south-eastern wards 2 and 3 expanded, and Ward 4 both gained and lost territory.
Ward 1 lost parts of Quakers Hill to wards 2 and 4.
Ward 2 gained parts of Quakers Hill from both wards 1 and 4. Ward 3 gained Woodcroft from Ward 4.
Ward 4 gained the remainder of Plumpton as well as Nirimba Fields from Ward 5.
| Ward 1 | Jess Diaz (Ind Lib) | Chris Quilkey (Labor) | Moninder Singh (Labor) |
| Ward 2 | Julie Griffiths (Labor) | Kushpinder Kaur (Lab) | Michael Stubley (Ind Lib) |
| Ward 3 | Susai Benjamin (Lab) | Kathie Collins (Labor) | Allan Green (Ind) |
| Ward 4 | Peter Camilleri (IndLib) | Bob Fitzgerald (Labor) | Carol Israel (Labor) |
| Ward 5 | Vacant (Labor)1 | Brad Bunting (Labor) | Livingston Chettipally (Ind) |
1Labor councillor Tony Bleasdale died in May 2024.
History
Labor has dominated Blacktown council for decades with the exception of the 2012-2016 term, when their majority was broken.
In 2004, Labor won ten out of fifteen seats. The Liberal Party won the third seat in four wards, with independent Russ Dickens winning the final seat.
Labor managed to hold on to a narrow majority in 2008, holding on to eight of their seats. The Liberal Party won a seat in all five wards. In Ward 1, sitting Liberal councillor Allan Green was deselected, but he was re-elected as an independent. Independent Russ Dickens was also re-elected.
Labor lost its majority on Blacktown council at the 2012 election, retaining seven seats. The Liberal Party gained second seats in two wards, giving them a total of seven seats (including one taken from Allan Green), with Russ Dickens holding the balance of power.
Dickens sided with the Liberal Party in the 2012 mayoral vote, ending a lengthy period of Labor holding the Blacktown mayoralty. The Liberal Party’s Len Robinson was elected mayor, and was re-elected in 2013.
After two years of Liberal mayors, Labor regained the mayoralty in 2014. The election was conducted by secret ballot, and one of the seven Liberal councillors apparently cast their vote for Labor mayoral candidate Stephen Bali, giving him a majority. Bali defeated Liberal candidate Jess Diaz, who was slated to replace his party colleague Robinson.
When the time came to choose a mayor in 2015, Liberal councillor Jacqueline Donaldson decided to quit the Liberal Party. Donaldson supported Bali for a second term as mayor, and was supported by the Labor councillors as deputy mayor.
Labor regained a dominant position at the 2016 election, winning ten out of fifteen seats, with the other five going to the Liberal Party. Dickens and Donaldson both lost their seats running as independents.
The Liberal Party opted out of contesting the 2021 election. Two different groups of Liberal Party members ran as independents, winning three seats between them. Two sitting Liberal councillors (Diaz and Camilleri) were re-elected as independents, while the other ticket (supported by local state MP Kevin Conolly) won a single seat. Two other independents were elected. Allan Green returned to council, while Livingston Chettipally was elected for the first time.
Council control
Labor has a clear majority in the City of Blacktown.
Candidate summary
Sitting Labor councillors Kathie Collins and Chris Quilkey and independent councillors Michael Stubley and Livingston Chettipally are not running for election.
Labor and Liberal are running for all five wards. The Greens are running for wards 1, 2 and 5.
The only other group is the Animal Justice Party in Ward 3.
Assessment
Labor is very strong in Blacktown. In 2021, they managed to win a second councillor in all five wards. They would need to lose at least three of those seats before they would lose their majority. On the other hand, Labor benefited from the absence of official Liberal candidates in 2021. The Liberal Party will likely do a bit better than the independent Liberals who ran in 2021. But they would need to do quite well to deprive Labor of a majority.
| Party | Votes | % | Swing | Seats won |
| Labor | 98,633 | 53.56 | +1.8 | 10 |
| Independent Coalition Team | 33,720 | 18.31 | +18.3 | 1 |
| Independent Liberal | 25,326 | 13.75 | -12.9 | 2 |
| Other independents | 21,841 | 11.86 | -1.3 | 2 |
| Greens | 4,632 | 2.52 | -2.6 | |
| Informal | 12,862 | 6.53 |
Vote breakdown by ward
The following two tables show the vote in each ward before and after the recent redistribution.
The Labor primary vote ranged from 47.6% in Ward 2 to 57.9% in Ward 4.
The Independent Coalition Team polled a vote ranging from 12.7% in Ward 5 to 26.6% in Ward 2 (where they won a seat). The other independent Liberals polled a full quota in wards 1 and 4, and a smaller vote in Ward 2.
Other independents polled a full quota in wards 3 and 5, but otherwise did not make much of a mark.
The main thing to note from the redistribution changes is that Labor’s vote in Ward 2, their weakest ward and the only ward where they fell short of two quotas, was substantially weakened from 47.6% to 44.2%.
Pre-redistribution vote numbers
| Ward | ALP % | IND LIB | ICT % | IND % |
| Ward 1 | 51.6 | 27.9 | 19.4 | 1.1 |
| Ward 2 | 47.6 | 11.9 | 26.6 | 0.6 |
| Ward 3 | 57.1 | 0.0 | 15.8 | 27.0 |
| Ward 4 | 57.9 | 25.2 | 16.9 | 0.0 |
| Ward 5 | 54.1 | 0.0 | 12.7 | 33.1 |
Post-redistribution vote numbers
| Ward | ALP % | IND LIB | ICT % | IND % |
| Ward 1 | 50.3 | 27.9 | 20.7 | 1.1 |
| Ward 2 | 44.2 | 21.6 | 22.7 | 0.6 |
| Ward 3 | 57.3 | 2.1 | 16.1 | 24.4 |
| Ward 4 | 57.6 | 23.9 | 16.1 | 2.4 |
| Ward 5 | 53.9 | 0.0 | 12.5 | 33.6 |
Election results at the 2021 City of Blacktown council election
Toggle between primary votes for Labor, the Independent Coalition Team, independent Liberal candidates, the Greens and independent candidates Allan Green, Livingston Chettipally and John Hunter.
Candidates – Ward 1
- A – Labor
- Cr Moninderjit Singh
- Ahalya Rentala
- Jordan Hedi
- B – Greens
- Shabir Singh
- Kayal Rajasekaran
- Parker Colborne
- C – Liberal
- Cr Jess Diaz
- Cr Allan Green
- Rahul Rawal
Candidates – Ward 2
- A – Greens
- Damien Atkins
- Palaniappan Subramanian
- Hannah Tall
- B – Liberal
- Mohit Kumar
- Damian Milne
- Cara Middleton
- C – Labor
- Cr Julie Griffiths
- Cr Kushpinder Kaur
- Emma Willis
Candidates – Ward 3
- A – Animal Justice
- Emma Kerin
- Ingrid Akkari
- Rigel Best
- B – Liberal
- Pradeep Pathi
- Richard McDonald
- Jacob Crews
- C – Labor
- Cr Carol Israel
- Cr Susai Benjamin
- Caitlin Mahony
Candidates – Ward 4
- A – Labor
- Cr Bob Fitzgerald
- Dorothy Del Villar
- Shoaib Shams
- B – Liberal
- Cr Peter Camilleri
- Cassandra Mullard
- Fiel Santos
- Ungrouped
- Maywand Hanifi (Independent)
Candidates – Ward 5
- A – Greens
- Talwinder Singh
- Len Hobbs
- Arif Rahman
- B – Labor
- Cr Brad Bunting
- Talia Amituanai
- Neeraj Duggal
- C – Liberal
- Jugandeep Singh
- Waqar Nasir
- Jigishaben Patel
Labor will retain control of this council, including the Mayor.
With the Ward system used in Blacktown, it’s very difficult to get elected if you are not affiliated with Labor or Liberals. However Blacktown Greens are already campaigning to maintain our profile and to build on the promising result from the last council elections where we got our highest ever vote of 16%. We are confident of improving our showing in 2024, and despite the difficulties faces by smaller parties, we feel we have a real chance of getting our first ever Greens councillor in Blacktown.
I reckon the Liberals will gain seats. They could potentially win a majority in Ward 1.
Agree NP i think they can get a majority in Ward 1 which is entirely demographically friendly for them and as i mentioned in the past a spillover of the Hills District. With respects to the other wards there are pockets of affluent/middle class territory such as Ropes Crossing, Michinbury, Kings Langley, Glenwood etc but it is mixed in with Rock Solid Labor areas.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t be surprised if an alternative to the same old Labor/Liberal sneaks in. Blacktown is not happy. They have one of the most significant budgets of any council in NSW, and they are the largest council by population. Yet very few parties contest ALP/LIB in this LGA. Straight out of hard lockdowns———- “The Blacktown City Council will no longer increase rates, with the Mayor concerned residents were already struggling to get by.
Rates were to be hiked by 15 per cent in 2023-24 and 5 per cent the following year to permanently boost rates revenue by $25 million annually.
Blacktown Council had previously said if rates didn’t go up, then opening hours at public pools and the council library would be drastically cut.
Blacktown Mayor Tony Bleasdale told Jim Wilson he has listened to the community and can no longer support the increase.
“The feedback has been enormous, people are hurting and doing it tough.”———– How kind. They could still build state-of-the-art facilities, win architectural prizes, and spend more on councillor fees and expenses than other surrounding councils. That is BOTH Labor AND Liberal making these decisions. Don’t be fooled.
Within Labour, there is displeasure for Ward 1 candidate, the story goes that a group called “Sovereign Sikhs” were against him, and wanted someone honest, when they were ignored they aligned with Greens to punish labour and send a message, anyone from Greens who can confirm this. This came to me by one of the candidates in labour ward 1 at breakfast this morning
I am part of the Sovereign Sikh’s and I can confirm there was NO alignment with any political party, we do not do that as a community. Though we did support Greens as their candidates were honest & Greens policy were better during this Blacktown Council Election. We as a community do not align with any political party we will always support candidates that we believe are good for the society and are honest irrelevant of their political alignment.
Congratulations to Ward 2 on electing a Greens Councillor! This choice reflects a desire for diverse representation in our council, rather than simply an endorsement of the Greens party.
While I may not support the major parties in local government, it’s clear they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. What we must continue to advocate for in Blacktown is a truly diverse council that represents our community. We should not be a stepping stone for those seeking easy access to state or federal politics. Local government is fundamentally about our people and our community, yet this essential focus seems to have been lost in recent years.
Our local roads are becoming increasingly congested, and our communities are facing rising temperatures. While major developments are on the rise, essential small improvements are often overlooked. I’ve had enough of this, and I know many in our community feel the same way.
It is difficult to take on the two larger parties with their financial backing and support base.
Change is coming.