Women to dominate mixed bag of new councillors for Logan

Women will take up more than half of the seats in Logan City Council as results slowly trickle in more than three weeks after the local government election.

Division 12 will be held by former Beenleigh-Yatala Chamber of Commerce president Karen Murphy.

A WORLD champion kick boxer, an electorate officer, a 20-year-old, a teacher and a Chamber of Commerce president have all won seats on the next Logan City Council.

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The results were posted online 20 days after the March 28 election, before they were removed and reposted again the next day.

It was just one of the glitches that played out with the Electoral Commission’s website since two candidate’s names were left off the initial published registered list on March 11.

There are still four seats and the mayoralty to be officially declared by the ECQ, more than three weeks after the city’s 190,000 voters went to the polls on March 28.

However, former councillor and known whistleblower Darren Power will return to chambers as the city’s next mayor.

If initial results do not change, the council will be dominated by women with at least seven divisions held by women.

The seats declared more than three weeks after the March 28 election.

The Battle of Beenleigh was finally won by former Chamber of Commerce president Karen Murphy, who won 3953 votes to beat artist Nate Hamon who ended up with 3100 votes.

Former Beenleigh Yatala Chamber of Commerce president Karen Murphy has won Logan’s Division 12 seat, which covers Beenleigh.

Ms Murphy initially said she would be sworn in on Monday but it is believed the ceremony will now be held later in the week.

The Division 12 seat was previously held by Jennie Breene, who was charged with fraud last year and did not re-contest her seat.

Former One Nation member Scott Bannan “The Cannon”, who was once a member of the Hells Angels and has three world Muai Thai boxing championships, will be the city’s next Division 9 candidate, replacing the former Water and Roads chairman Phil Pidgeon.

Father of three Scott Bannan will be the next Division 9 councillor in Logan.

Mr Bannan will represent Munruben, North Maclean, Jimboomba, Cedar Vale, Veresdale and Tamborine.

The Jimboomba concreter and father of three, unsuccessfully ran in the 2017 State election for the seat of Logan for the One Nation Party.

He won the council’s Division 9 seat with 38 per cent of the primary vote, or 4103 votes, behind his closest rival Helen Cowley who scored 25 per cent of the vote with 2677 votes.

Mr Bannan thanked voters. “I’ll never forget the people that gave me this opportunity and I won’t let you down,” he said.

“I couldn’t be more excited to work with our new council team. Truly an awesome crew. Thank you to all the other candidates for a good clean battle.”

Electoral office worker Teresa Lane won the Division 2 seat, which covers Logan Central, Woodridge, Underwood and Kingston and was held by long-serving councillor Russell Lutton.

ALP member Teresa Lane is the next Division 2 councillor.

She is a member of the ALP, and of the Greenbank RSL Sub Branch, the Australian War Widows, the Karrawatha Forest Protection Society and a union member.

She grew up in 4114, which covers Kingston, Logan Central, Trinder Park and Woodridge, where she went to high school and raised her family.

She said she was “getting in there and getting on with the job of providing core services to our local area and Logan as a whole”.

“With COVID-19 taking a fair chunk of federal, state and local government budgets with concessions and extra support, the job definitely got harder.”

The youngest Logan City councillor will be 20-year-old Jacob Heremaia who will take up the Division 8 seat, replacing the former acting mayor Cherie Dalley to represent voters in the suburbs of Park Ridge, Chambers Flat, Logan Reserve, Crestmead and Heritage Park.

Logan teacher Natalie Willcocks will suspend her job at a Logan high school for the four-years she will be a councillor.

Last week, Natalie Willcocks was named as the new councillor for Division 11 along with the former councillors Lisa Bradley in Division 1; Laurie Koranski in Division 4 and Jon Raven in Division 5.