Fairfield council election, 2024

The City of Fairfield covers parts of western Sydney, including Fairfield, Cabramatta, Canley Vale, Bonnyrigg, Mount Pritchard, Edensor Park, Bossley Park, Wetherill Park.

Fairfield has a population of approximately 207,000 people (as of 2022), which makes it the thirteenth-most populous council in New South Wales.

• Wards
• Redistribution
• Incumbent mayor and councillors
• History
• Council control
• Candidate summary
• Assessment
• 2021 results
• Vote breakdown by ward
• Results maps

Wards
Fairfield will be divided up into two wards, with each ward electing six councillors. The council also directly elects a mayor, adding up to a total of thirteen councillors.

The Fairfield/Cabravale ward covers the eastern half of the council, including Cabramatta, Cabramatta West, Canley Heights, Canley Vale, Carramar, Fairfield, Fairfield East, Fairfield Heights and Lansvale.

The Parks ward covers the western half of the council, including Abbotsbury, Bonnyrigg, Bonnyrigg Heights, Bossley Park, Edensor Park, Fairfield West, Greenfield Park, Horsley Park, Mount Pritchard and Wetherill Park.

Redistribution
The suburb of Mount Pritchard was moved from the Fairfield/Cabravale ward to the Parks ward.

Incumbent mayor
Frank Carbone (Independent)

Incumbent councillors

History
Fairfield has been historically dominated by Labor. Labor has lost at least one seat at each of the last four elections, culminating in Labor losing its majority in 2016 and being reduced to a rump in 2021.

Labor’s Nick Lalich won the mayoralty in 2004, and Labor also won eight out of twelve council seats, giving the party over two thirds of the council. The Liberal Party won three seats, and the remaining seat was won by the Unity Party.

Labor held on to a comfortable majority in 2008, losing one of their eight council seats. Labor held seven seats, the Liberal Party four, and independent Nhan Tran one. Lalich won a second term as mayor, shortly before winning the state seat of Cabramatta at the 2008 by-election.

In 2012, the Liberal Party decided not to contest the Fairfield council elections, although a number of Liberal candidates contested the election as independents, including multiple sitting councillors. Unofficial Liberal independents won four seats on the council, while Labor won six. The remaining two seats were won by independent Nhan Tran and the Unity Party. Labor’s Frank Carbone won the mayoralty, giving Labor a slim majority.

Carbone broke with his party before the 2016 election, and formed a loose independent alliance with Liberal Party member and councillor Dai Le, former Liberal state MP Andrew Rohan and another Liberal independent in Charbel Saliba. Both Carbone and Le contested the mayoralty, polling 46% between them. Carbone ended up winning the mayoralty by just 233 over Labor’s Del Bennett.

Labor won six out of twelve council seats, against three independents (not counting Carbone as mayor) and three Liberals. This left Labor short of a majority for the first time in many years.

The partisan balance on the council was fluid in the first term of Carbone’s independent mayoralty. Labor won the deputy mayoralty unopposed in 2017 and 2018, after Liberals supported a Labor deputy mayor in 2016. The deputy mayoral election in 2019 and 2020 saw Liberals defeat Labor candidates with independent support.

Frank Carbone ran a ticket across the council in 2021, and Dai Le ran her own separate ticket, with both supporting Carbone’s mayoral candidacy. The Liberal Party did not contest the election. Carbone was re-elected in a landslide, with over 70% of the vote. Carbone’s ticket won six seats along with Dai Le’s three seats (as well as Carbone himself), giving the Carbone-Le faction ten out of thirteen seats. Labor was reduced to just three seats.

Council control
The Carbone-Le faction has a clear majority on the council, as demonstrated in deputy mayoral elections. The December 2021 deputy mayoral election saw Dai Le defeat the Labor candidate by a 9-3 margin. Reni Barkho similarly won the September 2022 election by a 10-3 margin, and Charbel Saliba won in September 2023 without any Labor opposition.

Candidate summary
Sitting Labor councillors George Barcha and Carmen Lazar are not running for re-election.

Frank Carbone and Dai Le’s team has repeated past practice by running two tickets in each ward – one independent ticket led by Carbone and Charbel Saliba, and the other with the Dai Le party label led by Dai Le (despite her also serving as a federal MP) and Kevin Lam.

Labor is also running in both wards and also running a mayoral candidate.

Two other independent tickets are running in the Fairfield/Cabravale ward led by Kate Hoang and Nguyen Khang Phan.

Assessment
The Carbone-Le alliance is very strong in Fairfield. With the Liberal Party again not running, the governing team should again win a comfortable majority.

2021 council election result

2021 mayoral election result

Vote breakdown by ward
The following tables show the vote in each ward before and after the recent redistribution for the council election. Unfortunately the mayoral results were not separated by ward, so we can only identify the home ward of ordinary votes, and it’s not worth recalculating for the redistribution.

The Carbone-Le group generally polled more strongly in the Parks ward, by 8.6% on the council vote and by 10.5% on the mayoral ordinary votes.

The redistribution slightly reduced the gap between the wards, increasing the Carbone-Le vote in Fairfield/Cabravale and lowering the vote in Parks.

Council results by 2021 ward

Mayoral results by 2021 ward

Council results by 2024 ward

Election results at the 2021 Fairfield City Council election
Toggle between primary votes for Frank Carbone’s independent ticket, Labor, the Dai Le party, Basim Shamaon and Our Local Community.

Election results at the 2021 Fairfield City Council mayoral election
Toggle between primary votes for independent candidate Frank Carbone and Labor.

Candidates – Mayor

• Basim Shamoan (Labor)
• Cr Frank Carbone (Independent)

Candidates – Fairfield/Cabravale

• A – Independent
  1. Kate Hoang
  2. Tien Nguyen
  3. Minh Hoang
  4. David Cao
  5. Van Le
  6. Tony Nguyen
• B – Independent
  1. Cr Charbel Saliba
  2. Sam Yousif
  3. Jennifer Shahin
  4. Helen Nguyen
  5. Gina Carbone
  6. Antonia Carbone
• C – Independent
  1. Nguyen Khang Phan
  2. Van Dong Pham
  3. Thanh Dan Huynh
  4. Duc Thang Tran
  5. Van Sai Truong
  6. Kim Khanh Vo
• D – Dai Le
  1. Cr Dai Le
  2. Cr Marie Rose Saliba
  3. Dennis Suro
  4. Leonie Le
  5. Emma Tran
  6. Ngoc My Tang
• E – Labor
  1. Cr Kien Ly
  2. Stella Kina
  3. Mickey Ngo
  4. Michal Walczak
  5. Joseph Huan
  6. Ngoc Trinh

Candidates – Parks

• A – Independent
  1. Cr Frank Carbone
  2. Cr Reni Barkho
  3. Cr Hugo Morvillo
  4. Cr Milovan Karajcic
  5. Cr Michael Mijatovic
  6. Martina Hanna
• B – Dai Le
  1. Cr Kevin Lam
  2. Cr Andrew Rohan
  3. Marsha Kozlova-Gao
  4. Monica Falco
  5. Valentina Prkic
  6. Jose Luis Miranda Garcia
• C – Labor
  1. Ninos Khoshaba
  2. Basim Shamaon
  3. Peter Pavisic
  4. Abrahem Wannous
  5. Jarrod Hawkins
  6. Inocenta Janina Marco
• Ungrouped
  • Nathan Athavle (Family First)
  • Huu Tam Luong (Independent)

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