NSW Council Elections - Results

The counting and final distribution of preferences in my LGA (local government area) were finalised today.

Out of 9 vacancies on council, the voters of this LGA have elected three new faces. Personally, that is a disappointingly modest number. I was hoping for at least four.

Of the three new faces, two of them got my vote.

But, out of the six re-elected councillors, only two got the nod from me.

The mood out there last Saturday was decidedly tense. But was it a mood for change? Council had become complacent in many areas, especially in regards to planning, and had made some very strange decisions that were seemingly at odds with council's own previous rulings.

I have spoken to several people since the voting took place, and I know many of these folk shared my concerns, and were also hoping for four or five new faces on council.

We will have to make do with three.

But, with one of the three newbies being a member of The Greens, I think there will be some very interesting debates in council over the next four years.

Local Council elections

I wasn't going to write about this, but I've started now, so I may as well continue!

Tomorrow, I, like thousands of others across this pitiful excuse for a state, have to vote in local council elections.

My LGA is boasting a record field of candidates this year, including three Green candidates - the first time ever party politics has encroached into my LGA elections.

I admit to having a somewhat perfunctory view of current council - many councillors have been there too long, and the rest haven't really done very much.

But I wish some of the (new) candidates standing for election had made it clearer to residents of certain barrows they are inclined to push.

One candidate is against a proposed development in the town close to where he lives - a matter he has seen fit to write to the local paper about, but conveniently fails to mention his geographical proximity to said development.

Another candidate is a recidivist left-leaning letter writer to my local paper on matters of utter irrelevance to 95% of the paper's readership. If this particular BOF (boring old fart) gets elected, rather than congratulate him, I will be sending him the bill for the blood pressure medication that I know I will be needing!

I am in a quandary: I'm not sure who I am going to vote for (but I certainly know whose box I won't be numbering.)

I normally look forward to Saturdays. Might have to do a rain check on this one, though!

UPDATE - 14/9/08

At the end of the 1st preference counting, it looks certian that my local council will have its first party-political representative - a Green candidate. Words fail me.

Counting of votes in proportional representational elections is full of complex equations and the final make up of council will not be known until the middle of next week; but it looks certain that my council will have four new faces. That is a good thing. Party politics rearing its ugly head in local council elections is not.