Voters in the City of Sydney, along with other parts of New South Wales, are voting to elect new local councils on Saturday. Here’s what you need to know about the City of Sydney council election.
What’s been going on in the City of Sydney for the last four years?
Independent lord mayor Clover Moore has been leading the council from Town Hall for the last 12 years, since 2004. Moore was a state MP covering the area from 1988 until 2012, and ran for the lord mayoralty in 2004 after the Labor state government expanded the council to cover some of her strongest areas.
Moore was re-elected lord mayor in 2008 and 2012, with enough councillors elected on her ticket to give her a working majority on the council.
In 2012, she comfortably won a third term, with more than 50% of the primary vote in the mayoral election. Another four candidates were elected from her team, alongside two Liberals, one Labor, one Green and one local business independent. Moore’s vote is highest in the north-eastern corner of the City, in suburbs such as Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and Potts Point, and is also quite high in the Newtown and Glebe areas.
How have the voting rules changed?
A 2014 bill, sponsored by the Shooters and Fishers party, expanded the rights of businesses to vote in the City. While some businesses were already allowed to vote, most didn’t. Only 1709 non-resident electors were enrolled to vote in the City in 2012. The new law made it compulsory to enrol, and gave each business two votes each.
There were estimates that up to 140,000 business voters could have been eligible, but just shy of 23,000 enrolled after an $8 million enrolment effort from the City. This compares with just over 100,000 residents enrolled in the City of Sydney. So business votes will make up a significant proportion of the voters in Saturday’s election, but residents will still dominate the election.
This law change was the latest in a long history of state government meddling in City of Sydney elections. The City’s elections have been meddled with in every decade since the 1920s, either through the changing of boundaries or the changing of voting rules.
Labor governments in 1948, 1982 and 2004 expanded the city to cover traditional Labor-voting suburbs to the south of the city centre, while Liberal governments in 1967 and 1989 broke those Labor-voting suburbs off, leaving the City of Sydney as little more than the CBD and a handful of neighbouring suburbs.
Who is running in the election?
There will be two votes: one to elect nine councillors, and the other to elect the lord mayor.
Moore is running for a fourth term, and is joined by a team of fellow independents running for council.
Sitting Labor councillor Linda Scott is running for lord mayor, along with Greens candidate Lindsay Johnston, but the main threat to Moore comes from two centre-right candidates. Sitting Liberal councillor Christine Forster is seen as the main threat, but there is also a strong campaign from independent councillor Angela Vithoulkas, who is running an independent ‘Sydney Matters’ team focused on winning votes from local businesses. Sitting Liberal councillor Edward Mandla has split from his party and is running in the second spot on Vithoulkas’ ticket.
What are the stakes of this election?
Moore has been a prominent thorn in the side of the current Liberal state government.
There are other councils with larger populations, such as Blacktown and Sutherland, but the City of Sydney carries more weight thanks to the financial might of the Sydney city centre, and the prominence of the lord mayor’s office.
Moore has used her position, and the resources that come with it, to focus on building infrastructure and services for residents of the City. Her building of cycleways has particularly brought her into conflict with members of the state Coalition government.
What other elections are happening on Saturday?
Roughly half of New South Wales is voting in elections on Saturday. This includes voters in seven other heavily-populated suburban councils: Blacktown, Sutherland, Fairfield, Lake Macquarie, Liverpool, Penrith and Campbelltown. Voters will also be voting in places like the Blue Mountains, Camden, Hawkesbury, Kiama, Shoalhaven, Cessnock, Byron, Lismore, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and Wagga Wagga.
Why isn’t everyone voting?
The state government has been running a large-scale campaign of council mergers. A large number of local councils have also been merged, and a number of other councils are facing impending amalgamations. All of those councils which have either been merged, or could be merged, have been.
This includes the eastern suburbs, north shore, northern beaches and inner west of Sydney, as well as the St George, Parramatta and Bankstown areas. Outside Sydney, elections have been postponed in Wollongong, Newcastle, Dubbo, Bathurst, Orange, Queanbeyan and some other small councils.
The Tweed council area, in the north-eastern corner of the state, was due to hold their election on Saturday but had the election postponed until late October due to the death of a candidate after the close of nominations.
