THE Greens’ Philip Cocker has won the seventh seat on the Hobart City Council after the distribution of preferences concluded on Thursday night.

This confirms my original prediction that the sitting aldermen would win the six full terms and Cocker would win the seventh seat and secure half a term, although the second to fifth aldermen were returned in a different order to the one I expected (mainly because the unexpectedly large crash in John Freeman’s vote not only caused Burnet and Sexton to get in ahead of him, but also deprived Marti Zucco of preferences).

The cutup proceded roughly as I expected. Philip Cocker continued to gain votes every time his Green ticketmates were excluded, giving him a lead too large for the rest to bridge.

Margaretta Pos closed rapidly from 244 behind Donnelly to less than 80 votes behind after Reshma Dutta was excluded.

However, Donnelly then got a far larger share of Heath Michael’s preferences than any other candidate remaining in the count, even including Michael’s fellow Liberal Party member John Freeman. This mild surprise effectively eliminated not only Pos, but also Leo Foley, who had led Donnelly by about 50 votes through the count but fell behind on Michael’s preferences and was eventually eliminated by only 29 votes.

Cocker’s 225-vote lead over Donnelly was far too much for Donnelly to catch up off Foley’s preferences, and Cocker ended up winning by 179. Had Foley outlasted Donnelly the result would have been much closer as Donnelly’s preferences would not have favoured the Greens, but Cocker’s lead would very probably still have been too much.

Cocker’s primary vote is the lowest by far in quota terms (0.128) by a successful Hobart candidate since postal voting was introduced in 1994. I suspect it is also the lowest in quota terms for a successful candidate in any Tasmanian council in this time. I think this mainly reflects the Greens’ success in convincing their voters to vote 1-5 down their ticket, but it will be interesting to see how Cocker’s ability to gather #1 votes compares with Burnet’s.

The contrast between Hobart and Launceston is amusing. Hobart has elected a no-change council, returning its Lord Mayor and Deputy, six sitting aldermen and a new Green to replace the one who resigned before his term was over.

Past his use-by date

There is not even much sign of change in the votes for different types of candidates, except that Freeman’s former voters mostly seem to think the former mayor is past his use-by date and many have defected to Sexton. Launceston, meanwhile, has thrown out its Mayor, its Deputy, and two sitting aldermen, with a third (Graeme Beams) surviving a Freeman-like loss of two-thirds of his votes to fall from topping the poll to scraping in last elected by only 56 votes.

Nevertheless the results do reflect a slight swing to the left and a wake-up call for three veteran aldermen should they wish to continue their careers beyond the next four years (it would not surprise me if some of them do not).

John Freeman appears to have taken his re-election for granted, and while he got away with it easily this time he no longer commands the support he once did and may lose (as Beams nearly did) if he runs such a meagre campaign again.

Marti Zucco’s primary voters have stayed loyal so far, but if his primary vote slips by a few hundred at any stage his inability to gather preferences and the lack of any other non-left candidate to obtain surpluses votes from could spell his end.

Darlene Haigh’s vote has been declining for several elections as the issues surrounding her original election recede into the past and her support base probably ages. She was within a few hundred votes of only scoring a half-term and also can’t afford further declines. One way or the other, I will be surprised if all six of the just-reelected aldermen are still on council after 2009.

With the election over, interest (especially among defeated candidates) turns to who would be elected on countback if any of those just victorious were to retire in this term. The Hare-Clark system’s method of conducting recounts is to take all the votes that the elected alderman had when they were elected, and redistribute them (at their value during the count) to the highest listed candidate contesting the recount. Then candidates are eliminated from the bottom up until one candidate has over 50% of the recount votes.

This system has an intriguing flaw: any candidate who is excluded before the retiring candidate is elected, gets the preferences they gave the retiring candidate back. However any candidate who failed after the retiring candidate won, does not get any such votes back. In this case, if any of Haigh, Zucco or Freeman were to retire, Donnelly (as last excluded) would be disadvantaged.

This effect is most pronounced in the case of Haigh. Nearly half of Haigh’s votes would go back to candidates other than Donnelly. As the recount continued, hundreds of these votes would pool with Pos or Foley, giving them an advantage over Donnelly that would give him no real chance of winning the recount. Based on the cutup the most likely winners (if contesting) of any recount for the seat held by the alderman would be:

Valentine: Pos, Foley or Donnelly (in that order of likelihood)

Burnet: Harvey (virtually certain)

Sexton: Count provides no useful direct information. Probably Donnelly, Foley or Pos based on results in the rest of the count

Freeman: Donnelly or Michael. In this case Donnelly could get over his disadvantage as no other candidate would get especially many votes back.

Zucco: Pos.

Haigh: Foley or Pos.

Cocker: Harvey (not certain: some chance for Vincent.)

And now, I feel inclined to dish out some awards. Please note (and I have resisted the temptation to put this disclaimer in 72-point for the benefit of the inattentive) that these comments are intended to be far more biased and cheeky than the above:

Strongest result: Helen Burnet for more than doubling the previous highest vote by a Green #1 endorsed candidate. Party machine or no party machine, for an alderman who had been on council less than a year this is an exceptional result.

Worst result by a serious candidate: John Freeman for losing two-thirds of his support base, narrowly edging out Marti Zucco for polling only 11% in a three-way mayoral race.

Best result by an outsider: Robert Vincent, whose 221 votes as Greens-endorsed #4 was almost double the total for the endorsed #3 Bill Harvey, and not that far below the endorsed #2 Philip Cocker. I am still baffled that the Greens endorsed Vincent, with his huge experience of Council issues as a former HCC planner, in an unwinnable position — unless of course he wanted it that way.

Sponge award for soaking up preferences: Margaretta Pos, who without the advantage of being an elected alderman or on a ticket, gained 714 votes from a primary vote of only 425 before being excluded and remained a threat for far longer in the cut-up than expected. If only her primary vote had been even half-decent. Second place to Peter Sexton for scoring a massive 23% of Rob Valentine’s #2s.

Caterpillar award for crawling over the line: Marti Zucco, who was 88 votes ahead of Freeman and 598 ahead of Haigh on primaries but had to wait until the last exclusion to get in, having dropped over 200 votes relative to Freeman and almost 450 relative to Haigh. This plus his low Lord Mayor vote again suggests that Zucco owes his seat on council to the way the Hare-Clark system protects minority views.

Most pointless campaign: Mark Furmage. His candidate’s statement consisted entirely of motherhood statements and then argued “A new candidate, fresh to the municipal stage is necessary. That candidate must be Mark Furmage” but did not say why. I am not aware of anything else he did throughout the campaign.

AWOL Award for least effort by a serious candidate: John Freeman whose campaign consisted of a few signs and some direct mail letters (which were not authorised) plus a very late ad in the Mercury. I believe he was overseas during some of the campaign period.

Try-hard award for most effort for least result: Jeff Briscoe — although I am not sure whether voters found his methods (eg his brochure alarmingly pronouncing “Position Vacant” — technically true I suppose, but the incumbent was recontesting!) too in-your-face or whether he would not have done better by any other method.

Most disciplined: The Greens for convincing 76.5% of their voters to put their #1-endorsed candidate first and 78.6% of those to direct preferences to their endorsed #2. Preference flows like this are virtually unheard of in local government and were crucial to their success in the otherwise tight corner created by Mat Hines leaving the building.

Least disciplined: The non-Green left-progressives (Valentine, Foley, Edwards especially) for polling almost three and a half quotas between them yet only getting one candidate elected. Although tickets generally don’t seem to work very well, even a 10% flow from Valentine to Foley rather than the actual 5% would have resulted in Foley winning. If Valentine wants a council that is more on his side rather than one that frequently attempts to undermine himself and Ruzicka he is going to have to return to actively linking himself to likeminded-ish candidates.

Most disorganised: Margaretta Pos — a significant proportion of her campaign action (including ads in the Saturday Mercury and on this site) came in the second half of the campaign when many people had already voted, as if she realised too late that she actually had a chance of winning. Given her ability to pick up preferences through the count, had Pos polled a half-decent primary vote, she probably would have won.

Best recycling: Marti Zucco for employing almost the same candidate’s statement (the changes have typically been minor or cosmetic) when running for leadership roles for over a decade. I guess if it works, stick to it? However after pledging to work for “— a council responding to the needs, aspirations of all ratepayers. Not on the wants of sectional interests” in 1994, 1999 and 2000, Zucco dropped the reference to sectional interests in the 2005 version.

MOR award for playing it safe: Peter Sexton, whose candidates’ statement and brochure are masterpieces of running on one’s record and community involvements and saying nothing even remotely controversial or interesting.

Biggest double standard: The Mercury for insulting the lack of intelligence and vision (oh yes, that word again) of the campaign but contributing to the problem by giving the standard tedious dispute about signs on candidate’s cars far more space than it deserved.

Kevin Bonham, in the limited scrutineering the rest of his life allowed him to do this time around, has developed a pathological dislike of the galeswept expanses of the Royal Showgrounds and requests that the Electoral Commission never hold another count there again.