Council mergers string out NSW elections for four more years
The NSW state government has written to councils laying out the timetable for council elections for those councils which have not yet been amalgamated. This timetable could well see council elections...
View ArticleClik here to view.
NSW council elections – turnout drops statewide
It’s taken some time to pull together the data, but I’ve now got a complete set of booth-level data from the 2012 and 2016 local council elections. The most interesting stat from the elections is that...
View ArticleNSW council mergers hit a wall – and may go backwards
After multiple years of making plans and implementing them, the NSW government is now on the verge of announcing something which should have come much sooner. For councils that have already been...
View ArticleYet another by-election coming up on Saturday
In addition to three state by-elections which will be held on Saturday in New South Wales, there will also be two council by-elections: for Ward 2 of Blacktown council, and for Lithgow council. I...
View ArticleNSW council elections – read the Tally Room guides
Voters in 46 NSW local councils will be voting on September 9 to elect new councils. The rest of the state voted last September, but elections were postponed in all of those councils which had either...
View ArticleElection night coverage – NSW council elections 2017
10:21pm – Let’s look at Bayside. Labor is on six seats (thanks to a massive vote in the Port Botany ward), the Liberal Party is on five, there are three independents, and one seat is still in play....
View ArticleRun of the board – NSW council elections
In this post I will quickly summarise the state of play in the 14 most populous councils I have analysed (excluding Ku-ring-gai, where no tickets are standing across multiple wards). I’ll be back later...
View ArticleSwings and vote totals – NSW council elections
I’ve pulled together the primary vote totals as of this afternoon and calculated swings for each council and ward in urban NSW. I’ve restricted my analysis to councils between Newcastle and...
View ArticleNSW council elections – results rolling in
After a week of counting, we are starting to get final ward results declared in some of the fifteen big councils I’ve been covering. I’m going to use this post to update as we get waves of results over...
View ArticleBreaking down the Inner West Council results
I’ve been paying quite a bit of attention to the Inner West Council results. It’s my former council area, but it’s also one of the most interesting councils. The Labor, Liberal and Greens parties all...
View ArticleNSW government moves to end random sampling in council elections
Last year I testified before the NSW state Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) about the issue of random sampling in NSW local government elections. You can read my submission, the...
View ArticleKerryn Phelps and council countbacks
A story in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning discussed how Kerryn Phelps would keep up doing both her jobs as a City of Sydney councillor and federal MP if (as expected) she comes out the winner...
View ArticlePodcast #12 – Tasmanian council elections
Kevin Bonham and I have just put together a bonus episode to discuss the Tasmanian council elections, focusing on the results of the Hobart City Council race and the features of the Tasmanian council...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Help back in proportional representation for QLD councils
The Queensland government has recently announced plans to introduce proportional representation to some council elections as part of a broad set of reforms. This proposal is a significant improvement...
View ArticleHow many numbers is too many?
I wrote yesterday about the Queensland government’s slate of reforms to Queensland local government elections, most of which I think are excellent. I focused on the shift to proportional representation...
View ArticleVictorian government vs local democracy
In the wake of the federal election you may have missed a story about how the Victorian government is planning to change the way that Victorian local councils are elected, something which will be...
View ArticleSouth Australian council voting – back to cheap and ugly?
South Australia is now the third state government to announce plans to tinker with the voting system for local councils this year, joining Queensland and Victoria. I’ve given cautious support for parts...
View ArticleBrisbane City – draft redistribution margins
The Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) last Friday released the draft boundaries for the Brisbane City Council election, due in March 2020. I’ve now put together a map of the electoral...
View ArticleNSW to raise council election costs to make private providers “competitive”
New South Wales council elections are due in September 2020, which means that local councils right now are having to decide who they will contract to run their election. This may seem strange to people...
View ArticleVoting system change boosts Labor and Greens in Brisbane City
I posted back in March about the Queensland government’s proposed reforms to local government in that state. The reforms include a bunch of other changes to electoral finance and council procedures,...
View Article