NSW local government elections thread

I have nothing to contribute on the subject myself, beyond a vague understanding that Clover Moore is regarded as a shoo-in for another term as lord mayor of Sydney, but here is a thread for those wishing to discuss the results. Background aplenty from George Hasanakos of Poliquant.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

79 comments on “NSW local government elections thread”

Comments Page 1 of 2
1 2

  2. Mayor of Port Macquarie – Hastings will be interesting.
    Besseling is associated by most voters with Oakeshott (although there is a suggestion of a falling out). His performance will give some idea of Oakshott’s standing.
    Secondly his team includes some Liberals – a good performance might give the Libs more reason to stand Matt Adamson in Lyne.

  3. The Mayoral race for Hornsby Council(my area) will be one to watch: Incumbent Independent Nick Berman vs the Liberal Party’s Steve Russell.
    The Libs have waged a dirty tricks campaign against Berman, alleging he’s a Labor Party stooge.

  4. Berman an ALP stooge and yet he was backed by the hard right in preselection for Hornsby? That being said, I didn’t think he was a hard right kind of guy (I stand to be corrected though).

  5. Berman hasn’t been forgiven for running against Matt Keen, the now Liberal state MP for Hornsby, in the last NSW state election in 2011.

  7. I’m just curious whether Hurstville and Kogarah councils continue hold on the last vestiges of the Unity Party.

    It actually surprised me how many asians are contesting these elections this time here, either as part of the Lib/Lab ticket, or forming their own independent groups. Unity used be assured of one councillor just by monopolising the asian vote.

    A long way from getting a Leg Council member elected in 99 tablecloth state election!

  8. [The Mayoral race for Hornsby Council(my area) will be one to watch: Incumbent Independent Nick Berman vs the Liberal Party’s Steve Russell.
    The Libs have waged a dirty tricks campaign against Berman, alleging he’s a Labor Party stooge.]

    He may be a bastard, but at least he’s not a Liberal.

    I voted for Berman for Mayor. Greens for the ward.

  9. [Labor just got 0.7% of the vote at Long Flat booth.]

    Baseball Bat elections always end in grief for the baseball bat wielders.

    The schadenfreude today as I saw the local Cheltenham agitators down in the Beecroft Village railing against the NW Rail Link building a dirty great surface facility right across their oval, their netball courts and their virgin bushland was great.

    Take a baseball bat to an election, expect to be disappointed.

    Cheltenham was the most Liberal booth in the State election. They voted for it. Now they hate what they got.

    It ain’t all beer and skittles.

  13. I think Labor will be 25 – 30 state wide
    Greens 5-8
    Coal 30 -35
    But these are just guesses made difficult by the number of false flag candidates.

  20. Early days (hours?) in Sydney Mayoral, but Greens look like they are having a shocker -7.4% swing

    Clover is going OK given there is a new “independent” Living Sydney to capture the independent-ABC (Anyone But Clover) vote

    OC – agree Sydney is bad for ALP for the by-election. Query will be if Alex Greenwich captures Clover’s personal vote

  21. The Sydney mayoral vote is not indicative of anything except Clover Moore’s popularity. It’s not a party-line vote. What happens in suburban Sydney, the Hunter and Illawarra is much more significant.

  23. Living Sydney have had a bit of a quiet campaign but in the last few weeks I noticed a number of coreflutes around Redfern – promoting their policy of 20% public housing. No doubt that’s a fairly decent vote-winner around these parts. I wasted my vote on the Sex Party.

  29. [PS Sorry Psephos]

    If it helps get Robertson out of the leadership I’m not too upset about it. NSW Labor needs a complete purge and anything that brings that on I’m in favour of. I’m sorry of course that many good candidates have to pay the price.

  30. Psephos, + 1 on that. I was happy to campaign for Carmel last time but humiliated to be handing out head office crap. And now its even worse. Robbo was summed up perfectly by PJK. Robbo is the d..k who is really responsible for (1) NSW consumer electricity prices and (2) the Federal party being able to be blamed for them. I hope something horrible happens to him.

  33. About the Port Macquarie council election –
    My informant in Besso’s camp has just rung and says Peter Besseling is probably the new mayor. They are not claiming victory yet, but it looks good. ‘Slightly loopy’ Lisa Intermann has received strong support outside Port Macquarie. No-one – except me – saw that coming. Closet National Adam Roberts has failed in his bid to becvome mayor, thank God.

    So much for an anti-Oakeshott backlash.

    Apparently counting the votes for councillors is a nightmare, the below-the-line votes are going all over the place and it’s going to be quite a while before the final result is known.

  38. Mr Greens latest on Marrickville

    “@AntonyGreenABC: Greens could lose their 2nd Marrickville Nth Ward seat to Liberals. A Liberal elected from Newtown!”

  39. Thanks Leone – would you classify Intermann as a small l lib?
    Have RO and Besseling fallen out or did he just resign to look independent?

    My only dealings with Intermann were when she got stuck into me for supporting flurodisation. At the time I noted that she had the worst teeth (and breath) that I had ever seen in a politician but the irony was lost on her.

    Btw who is to blame for Labor in this election? (I know who I blame and its the reason Labor will be in single figures until he retires).

  41. I really hate political people who glottal-stop and Robbo is one of them.
    Cannot we have someone who is more culturally aware than this aspiring for the premiership next time?
    We in NSW pretend to be sophisticated with our Opera House and our schools and our longer history and our moderate climate and still we end up with Robbo whose tactic to correct the anti Labor vote in Lithgow at the last state election (for example) was to turn up and threaten?

    Traditional Labor voters were sick of the NSW Right having too much interest in real estate and not enough interest in social justice.

    No one is going to trust the Labor Party with power anywhere in NSW for at least 4 years unless they are Julia Gillard’s people.

  42. OC

    As far as I know there has been no falling out, Besso just resigned because working for Oakeshott while running for mayor didn’t look good. I’ll have to ask my son if he knows more, but he’s gone home to sleep off a hard day at the polling booth and a few drinks at the Besseling after party and won’t be conscious until some time tomorrow.

    I don’t know where Lisa Intermann fits, maybe small l lib, maybe not. I would have thought she’d be more Green-leaning than anything else.

    Not sure about Labor’s poor result, but being honest and running as a Labor team didn’t help, just as being honest hasn’t helped the Greens. My informant told me that at his polling place – Port High – no-one wanted to vote for the Greens and there were a lot of adverse comments about them. Maybe if Labor took a lesson from the Nats and ran their people as ‘independents’ they’d do better.

  43. Thanks Leone and Intermann may be more Green – at least I think she would be more Oakeshott than Nat

    I have had very little to do with PMQ branch of Labor for the last 8 years – when I did I thought they needed major reform. Running a named ticket was always going to end like this. The unnamed Labor ticket in Greater Taree has done reasonably well in the early count.

  44. You have to hand it to Clover Moore – no matter how much is tossed at her by the 2GB shock jocks, she keeps on winning mayoral elections handsomely.
    Epic fail from Labor – another of Sam Dastiyari’s experiments that went horribly wrong.

  45. Hornsby Council: Liberals have done well overall, as you’d expect in such a blue ribbon LIberal voting area traditionally.
    Mayoral election: Steve Russell(Liberal) ahead on primary votes, but I’d expect that Nick Berman will win when preferences are allocated.

  47. As a Queenslander I have no knowledge re NSW politics.

    So, in advance, please excuse the ignorance and perhaps stupidity in this question.

    Given the huge swings and size of the labor defeat at the state election would the 3.7% swing against labor today ( against 2008 results ) be considered a “less bad ” result than expected ?

  48. Here is one for you Psephos:
    What is the only council and indeed the only government in Australia to ever have a Communist majority?

  50. With one geographic booth to come (why Woolloomooloo is late?), Sydney mayoral election:
    Greens – disaster: -6.8%
    Labor – bad: -4.8%
    Liberals – not great +1.7%
    “Living Sydney” – good: +9.7% (dissatisfaction with parties? donkey vote?)
    Clover – good against new independents: -4.8%

    To my mind, Labor result (3rd, just ahead of Living Sydney), is pretty much as bad as the state general election for seat of Sydney (ALP came 4th). Greens are worse though (were 3rd in general election, 5th in Mayoral)

    Clover’s group also seems to have done well on Councillors’ vote – may get an absolute majority of councillors as well (there goes the Sydney planning system)

    Potential lesson for the state seat by-election for Sydney: major parties (ALP, Liberals, Greens) are on the nose with this voting public at least.

Comments Page 1 of 2
1 2

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *