After the first night of counting in the Hobart City Council elections it is clear that at least one of Darlene Haigh and John Freeman has been voted out, and there is a serious chance that both of them have been defeated. It was quite a strange night to scrutineer, with the early figures issued for both Councillor and Deputy Lord Mayor rather poor for the Greens (and completely inconsistent with my sampling – votes for Burnet in particular appeared to be under-represented in the early), but this later turned around dramatically to produce results more in line with expectations.
The Lord Mayoral contest was the expected whitewash with Rob Valentine defeating Marti Zucco 80.8% to 19.2. This was towards the upper end of expectations but I did note in my preview ( Here )that it was quite possible Valentine could get into the low 80s. However, standing for Lord Mayor was a good decision on Zucco’s part as it contributed to a significant increase in his aldermanic vote.
Deputy Lord Mayor was much closer. Provisionally, the primaries show the Greens Helen Burnet on 42% to 38% for Peter Sexton and 20% for Darlene Haigh. When Haigh’s preferences were thrown, almost ten percent exhausted, and the rest favoured Sexton over Burnet by a margin just below 60:40. That’s not enough, and if the margin holds up in the Wednesday morning recheck then Helen Burnet will be the new Deputy Mayor. However, as the provisional margin is a mere 80 votes, this result is unconfirmed. If a single bundle of 50 votes is found in the recheck on Wednesday that could yet swing it the other way. Either way, a notably competitive result by the Greens who also went surprisingly close for the same position in Launceston.
For the six aldermanic positions, five winners are clear and three candidates are fighting for the final position. All figures are provisional.
Two aldermen have, as expected, been elected on the first count. Rob Valentine (7127 votes) has actually increased his primary by a couple of points, which together with his mayoral result shows that long-term incumbency is doing his vote no harm. Helen Burnet’s 3589 votes at the top of the Green ticket is also a good vote which leaves almost a thousand surplus votes to assist the rest of her ticket.
Marti Zucco (1717) has polled an impressive primary vote of .65 of a quota, which is about what he had after the surpluses of Valentine and Burnet last time. He will be at around .9 of a quota after the election of Valentine and Burnet and will be elected, most likely third or fourth.
Peter Sexton (1017) has actually polled a slightly weaker primary vote than in 2005, but is getting around a quarter of Rob Valentine’s massive surplus. This will lift him up into a similar position to Zucco and he will most likely be third or fourth elected. It appears that Zucco’s status as a high-profile mayoral candidate compared to Sexton’s relatively low profile during the campaign may have knocked Sexton’s primary vote down slightly.
Damon Thomas (1592) has polled an excellent first up-vote as expected and will have no problems getting over the line, most likely in fifth position.
The battle for the sixth seat is where things get interesting. John Freeman (801) lost around two-thirds of his voter base in 2005 and this time around has lost over a third of those he still had remaining. Darlene Haigh (548) has also continued to decline, from 3.7% last time to 3.0% this time. In limited sampling I was able to conduct, Haigh was doing much better than Freeman on Valentine’s surplus, and this is also consistent with past form, so it is likely that after Valentine’s surplus is distributed, Haigh will be within 50 votes of Freeman, and quite competitive with him.
The problem for both Haigh and Freeman is they are not only fighting each other but also fighting the second Green, Corey Petersen. Although Petersen’s primary is not that high (370 votes) and those of ticket-mates Heatley (306) and Rowallan (110) are also lower than expected, the boost from Burnet and from the minor Greens is likely to put Petersen well ahead, perhaps 400 votes or so, of Freeman and Haigh. Whichever of Freeman and Haigh leads the other after the exclusion of Foley will need to catch Petersen largely on the votes of the other. Although the flow between fellow aldermen is always strong, it could be difficult for either to bridge the gap especially if Thomas, Sexton and Zucco are also still soaking up the votes they need to cross the line. The situation is not all that different to that involving Bill Harvey in 2007, and the Green vote level (23.8%) is effectively the same given the competition from the Mayor. At this point I am not prepared to predict as to the winner of the final spot between Petersen, Freeman, and Haigh.
Of the remaining candidates, Leo Foley (611 votes) has polled a little less strongly than his 2007 result suggested. He is polling reasonable preferences from Valentine but will finish ninth. Dina Alexopoulos (281 votes) has done a little better than I expected but still has not much troubled the scorers, and nor has Peter Brownscombe (309).
I will be posting updates now and then as time allows; expect a final result on Thursday or Friday.
The other elections:
Mercury: Incumbents retain seats
ABC Online: Defeat for Kons in mayoral race
Picture: Here
