13 twists and turns in the race for Melbourne lord mayor
The race for the city’s top job finally is coming to an end, with voting to close on Friday at 6pm. We take a look back over the biggest – and craziest – lord mayoral race in recent memory.
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The race for the city’s top job is, finally, coming to an end. For almost four months, 11 lord mayoral candidates have been desperately trying to woo voters. The result? One of the biggest – and craziest – races in recent memory. Here are 13 twists and turns from the campaign trail.
KOUTA’S TOWN HALL GOAL
The lord mayoral race gained some star power when Carlton champion Anthony Koutoufides declared in August that he would throw his hat into the ring.
Rumours had been swirling for weeks that Koutoufides – best known as ‘Kouta’ – would run, but few believed he would seriously give it a crack.
Strangely, the former Blue announced his candidacy while travelling in remote Western Australia, with his team sending out a press release on his behalf.
Members of Team Kouta were soon revealed to include flamboyant former Wyndham councillor Intaj Khan and former Liberal MP Gladys Liu.
Koutoufides admitted from the beginning that he would be “out of his comfort zone”.
“I’ve been living a very peaceful life, so this is going to test me,” he said.
E-SCOOTER BACKFLIP
A slim majority of councillors led by Lord Mayor Nick Reece voted to ban share hire e-scooters from Melbourne’s CBD in August, blindsiding the operators and even some of their councillor colleagues.
Mr Reece moved a motion at a Future Melbourne committee meeting to tear up the contracts with Lime and Neuron, which operated in the City of Melbourne.
He told the meeting he had “run out of patience” with reckless riders, despite having previously been a “strong supporter” of the scheme.
The council was set to tick off on a raft of new measures to crack down on unsafe and dangerous riding, but Mr Reece planned to amend the motion at the 11th hour.
Many including Greens councillor Rohan Leppert were shocked by the last-minute move.
“I’ve been a councillor for 12 years, and (for) the first time in those 12 years I was told by the press before being told by any of my fellow councillors what the motion before the council would be and what the result would be,” he told the meeting.
A Lime spokeswoman said it believed “election-year politics” were behind the decision.
KHAN’S LINK TO $75M TOWER
Koutoufides’ running mate Intaj Khan was this week revealed by the Herald Sun to be campaigning to supercharge building height limits in an area where he had been seeking approval for a $75m development.
Mr Khan outlined his plans for more high-density living in West Melbourne, saying it would help developers build “affordable housing”.
While Mr Khan’s development company Countryland Australia last week listed a 23-storey tower in West Melbourne as “on planning”, the entrepreneur insisted the project had been “withdrawn”.
When asked earlier this month if he had any projects that would benefit from the changed zoning, he replied: “I don’t have any projects, I used to have, but I would not do any project, not in the CBD.
“All my projects are outside the CBD, in the western suburbs. They are land subdivisions. I would not have any conflict of interest.”
Council documents reveal Countryland sought approval for the $75m Khan Waterfall Tower in March 2021, with the City of Melbourne rejecting the plan in May 2023.
The Herald Sun asked Mr Khan on Saturday to clarify his comments about the Jeffcott St building, given its status listing on Countryland Australia’s site.
He said the application had been “withdrawn” and would not proceed.
“We did apply for planning permission but we’ve withdrawn, it will not go ahead.”
DEERING’S RESTAURANT MISSTEP
Mr Wood’s running mate and entrepreneur Erin Deering was forced to apologise after celebrating her 40th birthday at a restaurant boycotted by several businesses because its owner was charged with holding up a Nazi swastika at a pro-Palestine protest.
On Sunday, Ms Deering posted a series of photos of her birthday celebrations on Instagram, including one at Reine & La Rue, owned by disgraced restaurateur Alan Yazbek, who pleaded guilty to the offence on Thursday.
Hours after posting, she deleted the image at the restaurant.
Ms Deering told the Herald Sun: “I visited Reine and La Rue because my husband organised a surprise dinner there for my 40th birthday.
“I’d never visited the restaurant previously and was so touched by his gesture that I didn’t stop and think about the potential for our visit to cause offence.
“In no way do I support the actions of the restaurant’s owner or the use of antisemitic slogans or placards and apologise for any offence that I have caused.”
REGENT THEATRE SHOCK
Mr Reece stunned Melburnians in September when he announced his plan to sell the City of Melbourne’s share of the iconic Regent Theatre.
Considered one of the most controversial policies of the campaign, Mr Reece said he would sell the city’s 51 per cent stake in the heritage-listed theatre and reinvest millions of dollars into Melbourne’s arts and cultural scene, if elected.
The state government owns the remaining 49 per cent share of the Collins St venue, which is estimated to be worth between $40-50m.
But his plan was widely criticised, with Mr Reece initially unable to guarantee that the 95-year-old building would remain a theatre following a potential sale.
Fellow lord mayoral contenders Arron Wood, Labor’s Phil Reed and current councillor Jamal Hakim pledged the following day to save the theatre and keep it in public hands.
PREFERENCE BOMBSHELL
After a chaotic weekend of wheeling and dealing in late September, Labor’s Phil Reed surprisingly opted to preference Mr Wood over former Labor heavyweight Mr Reece.
Before moving to Town Hall, Mr Reece spent years working as a senior adviser to former prime minister Julia Gillard and former Victorian premiers Steve Bracks and John Brumby.
He also served as the state secretary and campaign director of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party ahead of the 2010 state election.
The controversial move to back Mr Wood over Mr Reece was expected to cause division in Labor, with some figures describing it as a “monumental betrayal”.
Regarding the decision, Mr Reed said: “In terms of policy and personnel, the Reece ticket cannot make any claim to be a progressive ticket or consistent with the views and values of the Labor Party.”
The Herald Sun revealed earlier this month that Mr Reece had emailed Labor rank-and-file members asking “for your #2 vote”, assuming their first vote would go to Mr Reed.
WAR OF WORDS
The team behind Mr Wood launched a stinging attack on Mr Reece’s campaign after preferences were revealed, as swirling rumours prompted Mr Wood to deny his ticket was aligned with the Greens.
A Team Wood spokesman said: “Attacks relating to preferences are grubby and to be expected from the faceless men behind Dan Andrews who locked down Melbourne longer than any city in the world and are now running Nick Reece’s campaign.
“Team Wood is proud to have independent leadership that is focused on getting back to basics and giving our city a fresh start.”
A Team Reece spokesman hit back, saying: “This is a bizarre and unhinged attack. We will not be stepping back from the fact that Arron Wood is in an alliance with the Greens. He has a former Greens councillor on his ticket and is preferencing the Greens accordingly.”
The VEC website shows that Team Wood placed the Greens at No.7 on its ballot paper, while Team Reece has the Greens at No.6.
Mr Reece’s campaign is being managed by FMRS Advisory, spearheaded by former premier Andrews’ staff Lissie Ratcliff, Jessie McCrone, Ben Foster and Adam Sims.
The war of words kicked off weeks of tit-for-tats between Mr Reece, Mr Wood and their teams, with the pair trading barbs over their election promises at a Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry breakfast debate.
PECULIAR PLEDGES
Some candidates have found themselves straying a little far from “rates, roads and rubbish” over the last four months.
Koutoufides got the ball rolling with an early promise to shout city workers a free coffee on Mondays in an attempt to lure people back into the office.
“Let’s put smiles back on people’s faces again,” he said.
“A free coffee can make a big difference.”
Mr Wood then pledged $10m to help bring ABBA Voyage to Docklands, with a decidedly mixed reaction from politicians at state level.
Major Events Minister Steve Dimopoulos was seemingly fed up with the outlandish pledges, telling Mr Wood and others to “stop promising things they can’t deliver”.
But Treasurer Tim Pallas said he would gladly take Town Hall’s money if it was on offer.
Graffiti has been a hot-button topic for many candidates, but Mr Reece perhaps went a little far when trying to demonstrate his commitment to cleaning up the city.
He promised to personally attend court hearings for vandals and ask his staff to write victim impact statements about the clean-up process in a bid to get tougher penalties for vandals.
And Labor’s Phil Reed had a niche pledge to retire the ceremonial lord mayoral robes and put them behind museum glass, if elected.
That would at least protect them from Kouta, who in a nod to his footy career had joked about cutting the sleeves off and putting a 43 on the back.
REECE GOES GLOBAL, FOR WRONG REASONS
Mr Reece suffered an embarrassing blunder when he published AI-generated images of one of his proposed parks under a freeway at Southbank.
When Mr Reece posted the image to X in late September, members of the public were horrified to spot what appeared to be a dead body smack bang in the middle of the park.
Other abnormalities included ceiling fans hanging under the freeway, a woman with two right arms and a shoe suspended in mid-air.
The renders from Hassell Architects went global, with his post on X garnering 520,000 views.
Mr Reece went into damage control, joking “you should have seen the originals”, but not before copping a spray from members of the arts community for taking work away from real creatives.
HOW-TO-VOTE … JUST NOT LIKE THIS
Weeks later, two leading contenders were forced into an embarrassing backdown after their election material was found to have contained incorrect how-to-vote advice.
Social media posts from Mr Wood suggested that voters should vote above and below the line on the councillor ballot paper, while Koutoufides’s flyers indicated that people only needed to fill out four boxes to vote for his councillor team.
Team Wood deleted the post from its social media platforms and posted an updated version, while Team Kouta ordered a costly reprint of thousands of new leaflets.
One election observer said the teams had made a “rookie error”.
“In a close poll, these errors cost money and could cost them the election,” they said.
LIBERAL PARTY JOINS THE RACE
For the first time in its history, the Liberal Party decided this year to endorse a candidate to run for lord mayor and deputy lord mayor.
Over the past two decades, several Liberal Party members have run for the city’s top job – including disgraced former lord mayor Robert Doyle – but none have ever had the endorsement of the party.
One source told the Herald Sun back in July that the Liberals decided it was time to enter the field after years of “political control” by Labor and the Greens at a local council level.
Their picks? Business strategist and consultant Mariam Riza for lord mayor and local business owner Luke Martin for deputy, with Victorian Liberal Party’s former state treasurer Owen Guest and Chinese language teacher You Li Liston on the ticket.
PICTURE TELLS A THOUSAND WORDS
Mr Wood pulled no punches when it came to unveiling his graffiti policy, calling out Mr Reece and the “failings of the current administration” with a simple photo.
Mr Wood posed up with an unsightly tag on the heritage-protected Sandridge Bridge, which is the responsibility of the City of Melbourne, that had been there for at least a month.
Mr Reece had one month earlier posed up in the same spot, scrubbing brush in hand.
“People are sick of the endless announcements of graffiti blitzes with no action from the Town Hall leadership,” Mr Wood said.
“The City of Melbourne deserves better than a Lord Mayor who is more concerned about winning an election than getting anything done.”
He said Town Hall’s approach to graffiti must be three-fold to focus not only on the court system and the clean-up, but to stop it from occurring in the first place.
The Herald Sun understands a council worker was ordered to scrub off the graffiti within hours of Mr Wood’s photo appearing in the paper.
AND … GARY MORGAN
Serial lord mayoral candidate Gary Morgan has provided light relief on the campaign trail.
At the VCCI breakfast debate, Mr Morgan declared that it was about time people voted for him since it was his seventh time running, even offering jobs at his Roy Morgan Research firm to any unsuccessful candidates.
Koutoufides thanked Mr Morgan for “brightening up my morning”, referring to him as a “comedian”.
Among other policies, the octogenarian has called for the Yarra and Port Phillip councils to be abolished and incorporated into an expanded City of Melbourne supercouncil.
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