Melbourne council election, 2024

The City of Melbourne covers central parts of Melbourne, mostly on the north side of the Yarra River. The city covers the Melbourne central business district, Carlton, Docklands, North Melbourne, Kensington, West Melbourne and parts of South Yarra, Southbank, Parkville and Flemington.

The council had a population of 149,615 as of the 2021 census.

• Wards
• Redistribution
• Incumbent councillors
• History
• Council control
• Candidate summary
• Assessment
• 2020 results
• Preference flows

Wards
The City of Melbourne is not divided into wards. It is the only local government area in the Melbourne urban area not divided into wards.

Incumbent councillors

• Lord Mayor – Nick Reece¹
• Deputy Lord Mayor – Vacant

¹Nick Reece was elected as deputy lord mayor as part of Sally Capp’s team but assumed the mayoralty in June 2024 upon Capp’s resignation.
²Councillor O’Sullivan Myles was elected as Elizabeth Doidge but has since changed her name.

History
The City of Melbourne was created in 1842 as a town, and became a city in 1847.

The City’s councillors were previously elected to represent wards, but since 2001 the entire council has been elected at large to represent the whole council. The lord mayor has been directly elected since 2001.

John So won the mayoralty in 2001, and held the role until his retirement in 2008.

Former state Liberal leader Robert Doyle moved to local government in 2008, winning the mayoralty. He was re-elected in 2012 and 2016.

Doyle resigned from the mayoralty in 2018 after sexual harrassment allegations. A subsequent mayoral by-election was won by Sally Capp, who went on to win a full term in 2020.

Capp resigned in 2024 in the lead-up to the council election, making room for her deputy Nick Reece to take on the mayoralty.

Council control
No information.

Candidate summary
There are sixteen groups running for council, and eleven of those groups are running a ticket for lord mayor and deputy lord mayor.

Labor, Greens and Liberals are all running a full ticket. Incumbent lord mayor Nick Reece is running his own ticket, with fellow Team Capp member Roshena Campbell running as his deputy.

Former deputy lord mayor Arron Wood is also running his own team.

Sitting councillor Jamal Hakim, who was elected with a tiny primary vote and very favourable preference flows, is the only other sitting councillor to challenge the Reece/Campbell ticket on the mayoral ballot.

Sitting councillors Rohan Leppert, Jason Chang and Elizabeth O’Sullivan Myles are not running for re-election.

Assessment
Reece is new to the role of lord mayor and is largely untested, but he is a successor to previous lord mayors who have attracted votes from the very large business vote in the City of Melbourne.

The Greens always do well but generally aren’t a threat for the mayoralty, but will have a shot at winning two seats.

It’s worth noting that the City of Melbourne is the only local council in the country to use group voting tickets for its council. The sixteen groups creates a great amount of potential for someone to win off a small primary vote with preference harvesting. Team Hakim won a seat with just 0.4% in 2020, and someone could do that again in 2024.

2020 leadership team results

2020 leadership team two-candidate-preferred result

2020 council results

Preference flows
Five seats were filled on primary votes with full quotas: two for Team Capp and one each for the Greens, Labor and Team Wood.

After the distribution of their quotas and the exclusion of minor candidates from each group, the leading contenders for the remaining four seats were:

• Philip Le Liu – 0.749
• Elizabeth Doidge – 0.735
• Mark McMillan – 0.716
• Olivia Ball – 0.631
• Paul Silverberg – 0.588
• Peter Clarke – 0.357

Eleven other candidates were sitting on less than 0.2 quotas, with Jamal Hakim on just 0.046 quotas. Just two other candidates had a lower vote than Hakim.

Hakim quickly accumulated preferences from those ranked below him, so after five more candidates were excluded he was on 0.3 quotas:

• Le Liu – 0.753
• Doidge – 0.738
• McMillan – 0.720
• Ball – 0.644
• Silverberg – 0.591
• Clarke – 0.367
• Hakim – 0.304

After three more exclusions, one other minor candidate Rabin Bangaar did well on preferences when he was close to being excluded, but Hakim had started overtaking higher-polling candidates:

• Le Liu – 0.760
• Doidge – 0.741
• McMillan – 0.724
• Ball – 0.672
• Silverberg – 0.596
• Clarke – 0.532
• Hakim – 0.449
• Bangaar – 0.314
• Delahunty – 0.202

Labor preferences from Delahunty partly flowed to Hakim and pushed him into fifth place:

• Le Liu – 0.762
• Doidge – 0.752
• McMillan – 0.732
• Ball – 0.691
• Hakim – 0.600
• Silverberg – 0.597
• Clarke – 0.540
• Bangaar – 0.318

Bangaar’s preferences pushed Hakim into second place:

• Le Liu – 0.763
• Hakim – 0.761
• Doidge – 0.754
• McMillan – 0.734
• Silverberg – 0.733
• Ball – 0.704
• Clarke – 0.542

Clarke’s preferences pushed the Greens’ Ball to the sixth seat:

• Ball – 1.042
• Le Liu – 0.932
• Hakim – 0.766
• Doidge – 0.767
• McMillan – 0.745
• Silverberg – 0.736

Silverberg was then excluded, electing Le Liu to the seventh seat and pushing Hakim into the lead for one of the last two seats:

• Le Liu – 1.483
• Hakim – 0.927
• Doidge – 0.824
• McMillan – 0.754

Le Liu’s preferences elected both Hakim and Doidge:

• Hakim – 1.159
• Doidge – 1.014
• McMillan – 0.815

Candidates – Leadership Team

• Anthony Van Der Craats / David Keith Cragg (Rip Up The Bike Lanes)
• Eylem Kim / Bruce Poon (Animal Justice)
• Cr Jamal Hakim / Esther Anatolitis (Team Hakim)
• Cr Nick Reece / Cr Roshena Campbell (Team Nick Reece)
• Gary Morgan / Liz Ge (Team Morgan)
• Anthony Koutoufides / Intaj Khan (Team Kouta)
• Mariam Riza / Luke Martin (Liberal)
• Arron Wood / Erin Deering (Team Wood)
• Roxane Ingleton / Marley McRae McLeod (Greens)
• Greg Bisinella / Megan Stevenson (Voices for Melbourne)
• Phil Reed / Virginia Wills (Labor)

Candidates – Councillors

• Team Wood
  • Cr Philip Le Liu
  • Cathy Oke
  • Nicolas Paul Zervos
  • Hala Nur
  • Michael-Lee Caiafa
  • Hope Lai Wei
  • Steve Michelson
• Team Morgan
  • Rafael Camillo
  • William Caldwell
• Voices for Melbourne
  • Mary Masters
  • James Vasilev-Robertson
• Team Hakim
  • Michael Smith
  • Lawrence Lam
  • Judy Gao
• Team Kouta
  • Gladys Liu
  • Zaim Ramani
  • Emma Elizabeth Carney
  • Olivia Tjandramulia
• Rip Up The Bike Lanes
  • Sandra Gee
  • Pratap Singh
• Team Participate
  • Asako Saito
  • Sam Janda
• Animal Justice
  • Aashna Katyal
  • Rabin Bangaar
• Innovate Melbourne
  • Andrew Rowse
  • Jesse Greenwood
• Liberal
  • Owen Guest
  • You Li Liston
• Labor
  • Cr Davydd Griffiths
  • Sainab Abdi Sheikh
  • Michael Aleisi
• Your Voice Matters To Me
  • Krystle Mitchell
  • Jayden Durbin
• Greens
  • Cr Olivia Ball
  • Aaron Moon
  • Barry Berih
• Team Elvis Martin
  • Elvis Martin
  • Sophy Galbally
  • Mavi Mujral
  • Jing Lin
  • Paul James Moore
  • Melissa Rymer
  • James Cullen
  • Carole Kenny-Sarasa
• Team Nick Reece
  • Cr Kevin Louey
  • Mark Scott
  • Lisa Teh
  • Jannine Pattison
  • Hamdi Ali
  • Suzanne Stanley
  • Simone Hartley-Keane
• Victorian Socialists
  • Daniel Nair Dadich
  • Ben Fok
• Ungrouped
  • E. Send
  • Jake Land
  • Aishwarya Kansakar
  • Mohamed Yusuf
  • Callum John French

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