In the comments section to this article I hope to provide more or less live coverage of the unfolding Hobart Council count which commences tonight and will hopefully be finished by Friday (especially as I’ll be offline Friday afternoon!)
My primer piece for these elections (issued before the campaign proper) appeared here. The main thing that has changed then is in the aldermanic field. I initially picked Tiina-Liisa Sexton as the most likely outside candidate to break into Council, but in the campaign itself she seems to have done hardly anything in terms of advertising or media presence (which might answer my original curiosity about which of the Sextons was running to increase the chances of the other!) I now think Sue Hickey, whose campaign has been prominent in terms of signage and leaflets if short on press coverage, has more chance than when I originally wrote. Simon Monk and Leo Foley remain the other significant chances in my view of those not on Council at the moment. Most of the rest of the non-incumbent field have not been very active at all apart from the third Green Madeleine Charles, and the campaign troll Dean Parry, who has been quite high-profile online but not so much in the broader media. Some of the incumbent candidates have not campaigned much either, eg Christie (no signs or brochures that I have seen, but some media grabs, newspaper ads and website), Ruzicka (brochures in some suburbs) and Hayes (some signs, a few media grabs, if there was a brochure I haven’t come across it.)
In the mayoral and deputy races, little has changed my earlier impressions. I think Marti Zucco has done enough to get over Ron Christie in the Deputy race, but I’m not convinced that that will be enough to beat Bill Harvey unless the Green vote really crashes. In the mayoral campaign, the Greens did step up a few notches as the campaign progressed while the Sexton campaign remained rather low-profile. The Thomas campaign has been interesting is that he has repeated the political-rainbow building tactics that helped him be elected as alderman, in this case by reaching out to the progress association constituency. At the same time he has from time to time (as TT readers will have noticed) flirted with the types of radical development solutions likely to be opposed by such groups. Briscoe has continued with a curious mix of populism and policy in a campaign that seems to have been long on enthusiasm and completely bereft of quality control. Briscoe’s mayoral brochure, for example, misused an apostrophe on the front page, and then undermined a rather neat Facebook parody like/support gimmick by cramming the page far too full of text. There have not been attacks on Briscoe of the sort I envisaged, probably because he has been seen as campaigning too badly to be worth the bother, so the boys are holding their fire and will deal with him if he should somehow win.
I’ve repeatedly mentioned myths about the Greenness of the Council as among the more pervasive classes of nonsense seen in the discussion of these elections. Another form of invalid argument we’ve seen a lot of is promises by candidates that if elected Lord Mayor they will do such-and-such. Actually election as Lord Mayor gives a councillor no greater power to get policy passed on the council floor than before, and any candidate making such a promise should be asked whether or not they will just push the same initiative even if they don’t win the top job. The position is primarily a leadership and representation role. It is reasonable to expect that Sexton and Thomas, if elected, will be able to control Council while Burnet would struggle with being continually outvoted and Briscoe could well get worked over by the mainline “blues”, from whom he seems to have become estranged.
The official tally room is at the Hound and Horse Bar, Elwick Racecourse, and counting kicks off at 7 pm tonight. This is a great place to be if you want to be able to discuss things with candidates and scrutineers (including me on the rare instances I descend from the counting area!) as they happen. For those who prefer to watch online, I hope to post updates in comments of my impressions. It should be noted that interim (partial count) figures posted on the TEC website in past years have sometimes been unrepresentative because it is very difficult to stop the counting of all candidates at exactly the same time.
Based on previous years, counting tonight may well resolve the Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor positions and it is possible (but not certain) we will get a rough full aldermanic primary count. Then over subsequent days preferences will be distributed so in the case of close results it may take 2-3 days to know who has been elected. Please note that if the mayoralty is remotely close we will likely need a distribution of preferences to know the outcome – thus, for instance, if Burnet has a primary lead Greens supporters should not get their hopes up too early, it will depend on the size of that lead if so.
Elsewhere:
• ABC Online: No on-night coverage
• Mercury: Burnet’s slim lead
• Advocate: Kons back
• Examiner: Jeremy Ball new Deputy
First published: 2011-10-25 04:43 PM
• The official results: HERE
• PARTICIPATION IN LOCAL GOVT ELECTIONS STILL TOO LOW
Call for Investigation of Compulsory & E-Voting
Tim Morris MP
Greens Local Government Spokesperson
The Tasmanian Greens today called on the Premier to investigate options for increasing participation in local government elections, including compulsory voting and e-ballots.
Greens Local Government spokesperson Tim Morris MP said that only about half of all eligible voters took the trouble to vote in the local council elections, which begs the question of what can be done to increase participation.
“Local government is a vital component of our democracy, and we need to remove barriers that prevent some voters from taking up the opportunity to have their say,” Mr Morris said.
“Compulsory voting is already standard at Federal and State Government elections, and the Greens see no reason why this cannot be investigated as an option for not only increasing voter participation, but to encourage more candidates to put their names forward.”
“Some jurisdictions elsewhere in Australia and internationally are already moving toward electronic voting systems, as a means of encouraging greater participation.”
“Young people are particularly under-represented in local government elections, and the option of an electronic voting system could go a long way to increasing participation and representation of young people in municipal affairs.”
Mr Morris also said that the Greens had taken to the 2010 State election a proposal for electronic voting, i-Democracy: HERE
