Dubbo Council election results: final votes counted
The NSW Electoral Commissioner has rejected a request for a recount after two candidates expressed concerns about the counting of votes in the Dubbo council election.
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NSW Electoral Commissioner John Schmidt has rejected a request for a recount of votes in the Wellington Ward after two Dubbo Regional Council candidates expressed concerns about the counting process.
A spokesman for the Commission said Mr Schmidt had reviewed the recount requests submitted by candidates Anne Jones and Helen Swan.
“The Commissioner is not satisfied that a recount should be conducted on the grounds provided in the request,” the spokesman said on Wednesday.
No further comment was provided.
Mathew Dickerson, Josh Black, Matt Wright, Richard Ivey, Vicki Etheridge, Lewis Burns, Pam Wells, Jess Gough, Shibli Chowdhury and Damien Mahon have all been elected to council.
The first meeting of the new council will take place on Thursday at 3pm when new councillors will elect the region’s new mayor.
UPDATE 3pm, December 21
Controversy continues to plague a troubled council in regional NSW with one former mayor formally requesting a recount of election votes while another has promised there will be no “white-anting” of the new council.
In his first public comments since the December 4 election, former Dubbo mayor Ben Shields blasted his opponents, while his former deputy and one-time Wellington mayor Anne Jones confirmed she has asked the NSW Electoral Commission to recount votes after she narrowly lost her spot on council.
“In the end the smear campaign was just too hard to combat,” Mr Shields wrote on Facebook after final results were revealed on Monday.
“My opposition outspent me and their near 100 per cent control of the media meant my message was impossible to get out.”
Mr Shields served as mayor for three years after Dubbo and Wellington councils were amalgamated.
His time in office came to an abrupt end after a majority of councillors raised concerns about his alleged conduct and called for his removal in March.
He attempted to take his own life and after briefly returning to the role following his hospitalisation, Mr Shields succumbed to pressure to quit in May and said he was going to focus on his mental health.
By October he had announced a comeback plan and attempted to regain control of council with a group of Ben Shields Team candidates contesting the election.
During the campaign, Mr Shields’s former deputy-turned mayor Stephen Lawrence used social media to air a litany of allegations which Mr Shields largely denied.
At the election Mr Shields was defeated by another former mayor Mathew Dickerson and his own former team member-turned Labor candidate Vicki Etheridge.
“My local government career has concluded and I won’t be white-anting and commenting from the shadows,” Mr Shields said.
“I wish the new mayor Matthew Dickerson well. As a former mayor I will be cheering for his success because his success will be Dubbo’s success.”
In his Facebook post, Mr Shields criticised the media for allegedly not reporting on the campaign against him and the election of a record three Labor candidates to council
“The rise of the left wing in Dubbo is without a doubt going to be reflected in the coming state election,” he said.
“With an unprecedented amount of Labor councillors being elected, the snowballing of preferences will lead to the state seat being lost.”
The comments came after election results showed it was preferences from Wellington Labor candidate Helen Swan which helped ensure Jess Gough was the only Ben Shields Team member to be elected.
Like Mr Shields, former Wellington mayor and Dubbo deputy mayor Anne Jones was turfed out by voters after losing by 31 votes to Ms Gough.
“I have requested a recount because there were over 300 votes that were previously declared informal and they were brought back in,” Mrs Jones alleged on Tuesday.
“I note potentially the unusual circumstances in which the election was conducted and the fact that this was the first election where potentially informal votes were decided upon at the very end of the counting process.
“This has caused widespread concern.”
Mrs Jones said defeated Labor candidate Helen Swan had also requested a recount.
“I now need to wait to find out whether my request and the request of Helen Swan is accepted,” Mrs Jones said.
“ If it is accepted they will set a date for the recount, whether that date will be before Christmas or after Christmas I don’t know.
“I’m 31 votes behind Jess, if there are 16 votes there that had been incorrectly allocated, that changes the outcome. It may not, I don’t know but I have concerns and I want it clarified.”
Mrs Jones said if she did not return to the council, she would continue her work with community organisations like the Geurie Lions Club.
“I’m not going away, I’m going to continue to do what I have done up until now but without a councillor hat on my head,” she said.
Despite the turmoil that plagued the council during the past year, Mrs Jones said she was “proud” to have played a role in forcing Mr Shields to step down.
“At least the Ben Shields Team was not elected … we only have one and that’s the one in Wellington,” she said.
“My fear is that she will be the puppet of Ben.”
Ms Gough hit back at Mrs Jones’s comment.
“I’ve lived through domestic violence, I’ve been a puppet and I will never ever let a male or anyone control me ever again,” Ms Gough said.
“I am a young female and I don’t want to be pushed around. For anyone who wants to continue calling me a puppet, I will prove them wrong.
“I have built up three businesses in this town and raised a child by myself, how does a puppet do that?”
Ms Gough said lobbying the state government and new Police Minister Paul Toole, to fund a 24-hour police station for Wellington, would be her top priority.
She said the news of her victory came as a surprise.
“I knew it was going to be close and I started getting text messages saying ‘congratulations’ and I didn’t know what for because I was at work,” Ms Gough said.
Labor’s Josh Black was another incoming councillor said he was shocked with the support he received.
Off the back of a campaign which tapped into widespread community frustration over the state of local roads, the school teacher ended the careers of former councillors Greg Mohr and Kevin Parker in the South Ward.
“It’s a very humbling experience, I really am overwhelmed but I am committed to delivering on a better Dubbo for everyone, not only the people that voted for me,” he said.
“People drive down Wheelers Lane, they drive down Sheraton Rd … they’ve seen how long the road works have at West Dubbo and the Fitzroy St roundabouts have taken … they’re dodging potholes all over town.”
Mr Black said the council could pour more money into fixing roads by cutting wasteful spending, reprioritising projects and making better use of state and federal government grant funding.
The NSW Electoral Commission has been contacted for comment.
UPDATE 2pm DECEMBER 20
After more than two weeks of counting, the final make up of the new Dubbo Regional Council has been revealed.
The winners and losers from the council elections held on December 4 were announced on Monday by the NSW Electoral Commission’s Dubbo region returning officer.
After critical preference votes were distributed, the successful two candidates from the five wards that make up Dubbo Regional Council were announced on Monday.
Ex-mayor Mathew Dickerson topped the poll in the Central Ward and former Ben Shields Team member-turned Labor member, Vicki Etheridge, was the second councillor elected. Mr Shields ran third.
In the East Ward, local Aboriginal elder Lewis Burns topped the poll, while Damian Mahon secured the number two spot ahead of Ben Shields Team member Jeremy Ellis.
Dubbo Chamber of Commerce president Matt Wright took out the top spot in North Ward, while Labor candidate and Mr Burns’s sister Pam Wells, secured the second position ahead of Ben Shields Team member Mick Catelloti who ran third.
Labor’s Josh Black topped the poll in South Ward, while independent Shibli Chowdhury ran second ahead of former councillor and Ben Shields Team member Greg Mohr. Ex-councillor Kevin Parker was also defeated in South Ward.
In the Wellington ward, Ben Shields Team candidate Jess Gough topped the poll and independent candidate, Richard Ivey, came second ahead of former deputy mayor Anne Jones whose more than 20-year career in local government is over.
The ward system of voting will be scrapped at the next election after a referendum was held in conjunction with the election and more than 70 per cent of voters chose to scrap the system.
Final election results were delayed due to the extension of the postal voting period which came about as a result of the Covid pandemic.
A detailed breakdown of final results and candidate votes will be published on the Electoral Commission’s website.
If no candidate requests a recount in the next 24 hours, the results will be formally declared and the new council is expected to meet for the first time at 3pm Thursday.
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