Rockhampton mayor by-election: Tony Williams ahead of Pineapple Hooper

Rockhampton’s “accidental mayor” Chris “Pineapple” Hooper appears on the way out as a longtime councillor firms in counting.

Councillor Tony Williams is leading the race to be Rockhampton’s next mayor, with 80 per cent of the by-election vote counted for the central Queensland town’s top job.

Rockhampton residents took to the polls on Saturday to vote in the by-election sparked by the shock resignation of Margaret Strelow in November.

Seventeen candidates threw their hat in the ring for the job, and last night Mr Williams, who has served in local government for 16 years, was leading the pack with 25 per cent of the vote.

“Accidental mayor” Chris “Pineapple” Hooper was third with 12 per cent of the vote, and Russell Claus was second with 15 per cent.

Acting Mayor Neil Fisher (left) with Tony Williams celebrating at the Kalka Shades Hotel on election night.

According to the Electoral Commission of Queensland, about 80 per cent of the 55,885 votes had been counted by last night.

Mr Hooper hasn’t given up hope of securing the job despite the deficit, saying, “You never know.”

“You just gotta go with the flow I suppose, you know with what’s happened with all the Annastacia stuff and that, we got pretty good mileage out of it,” he said.

“I don’t know how them preferences are going but it might be a change in preferences but I don’t know how that's going to pan out yet, so I can’t admit defeat yet, well sorta.”

Pineapple expects he will find out the official result today or tomorrow, but whatever happens he vows to stay active in the community.

“We’ll still do things, we’ll do protests around town and all that sort of stuff,” he said.

Cr Williams said he was glad the race was over, and although he was looking forward to putting his feet up, there wouldn’t be much time for rest.

“We’ve got work next week,” he said.

“Not much time to relax at all.

Accidental mayor Chris “Pineapple” Hooper isn’t giving up hope yet.

“I’ll just sit back and watch the results and see how it goes.

“I’d just like to wish all the other candidates all the best.”

Mr Williams has secured more than 10,800 of the counted votes.

Mr Claus has 6748 votes, Mr Hooper has 5346 votes, Cherie Rutherford has 4428 votes and

Donna Kirkland is in fifth position with 3977 votes.

The by-election was sparked after long-time mayor Margaret Strelow resigned in November after the Councillor Conduct Tribunal ruled she had engaged in misconduct by failing to declare a benefit from Adani.

The ruling related to a trip to a remote Adani solar farm in India in 2017, with Mrs Strelow has previously told The Courier-Mail the flight was on an Adani-owned plane as no flights went to the regional location.