Northern Beaches Council election: Massive protest vote for Liberals dominates count
A massive protest vote, seemingly spearheaded by locals frustrated after being robbed of any chance to vote for Liberal Party candidates, has dominated the count for the Northern Beaches Council election.
Manly
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A huge informal “protest” vote, seemingly spearheaded by angry locals robbed of their chance to vote for Liberal Party candidates, has dominated the Northern Beaches Council election count.
In early counting on Saturday night, the number of votes deemed ineligible by election officials was hovering at 20 per cent of all votes cast.
A number of informal ballot papers seen by the Manly Daily, clearly showed voter frustration with the fact there were no endorsed Liberals candidates due to the party’s late local government election nomination form debacle.
This left 14 of the 15 preselected Liberal candidates, across the council’s five wards, without their names on the ballot papers.
On one ballot, a voter simply pencilled in a “Liberal” square under “Group C’ and voted with a tick.
Another paper had a drawing of the Fat Controller, a character from Thomas the Tank Engine, in a clear jibe at NSW Liberal Party HQ following its blunder.
A disaffected Liberal voter, in the Narrabeen Ward, wrote the name of former Liberal councillor Michael Gencher, who was meant to be running again, on their ballot and gave him their “vote”.
Voting figures in the Narabeen Ward, released at 10.15pm, showed more close to 24 per cent of the votes were deemed informal. The figure in Curl Curl was 23, Frenchs Forest was 22 per cent; Pittwater Ward was 16.5 per cent, and Manly Ward at 16 per cent.
There were 42 candidates in the running for the 15 seats at the council table, with three councillors elected from each ward.
Four former Liberal councillors — deputy mayor Georgia Ryburn, David Walton, Karina Page and Michael Gencher — were supposed to be running, but missed out because their nominations were not lodged on time, or properly, with the NSW Electoral Commission, after the administrative bungle by NSW Liberal Party HQ.
One preselected Liberal Party member, Mandeep “Sunny” Singh, a Narrabeen cafe owner, managed to edge his way into the council election by sending in his own nomination form to the NSW Electoral Commission.
But he was banned by the party from using any Liberal-branded posters, flyers, T-shirts and corflutes on Saturday. It is understood Liberal NSW HQ made the decision, even though Singh was the only Liberal, because it didn’t want to flout strict election rules.
Singh, as an “ungrouped” candidate for Pittwater Ward, technically ran as independent, but he has substantial behind-the-scenes backing from prominent local Liberals.
He had attracted more than 40 per cent of first preference votes, with about a third counted at 10.15pm on Saturday.
“I’m not actually representing the party,” he said. “I’m a Liberal Party member, but I’m an independent.
“I’m standing for myself I did the application myself so I can make sure my community is in good hands.
“The people want to see a fresh face.”
The Your Northern Beaches Independent Team, headed by former mayor Sue Heins, was polling well in early counting.
It had five members on the last council, but Ms Heins was confident it could grab more another two seats at the table.
Late on Saturday night figures showed the Team of independents was set to dominate the new council, with seven or eight candidates set to jag seats at the 15-member table.
The Greens looked like having at least three on council.
In Frenchs Forest ward, where Ms Heins headed the ticket, the group had attracted 75 per cent of the vote, ahead of its only competitor, the Greens, with close to a third of the vote counted.
The team was also well ahead in Curl Curl, where Labor and the Greens had candidates, and doing OK in Manly where it was up against popular Good For Manly independent Candy Bingham.
In Narrabeen, independent Vince De Luca’s group had attracted 51 per cent of the vote.
Ms Heins said she had received a fair bit of feedback from voters about the Liberals having no candidate in the poll.
“I feel that the far-right Liberals are, quite deservedly, frustrated and angry, but I’m reminding them that it’s not our problem, it’s not our fault.”
Ms Heins said she was confident that the new council would be more “collaborative” without the Liberals.
“We are fairly centrist in our views, and I do see that if there are more Greens (the last council had two Greens) we may have to negotiate,” Ms Heins said.
“No one ever gets want they want, 100 per cent, so it just mean working together to see what’s best for the community.”
Sue Wright, a Labor candidate for Narrabeen, said she picked up a “different feel” this election in what was not, traditionally, a Labor-friendly area.
Ms Wright said she was thrilled a lot of voters were grabbing Labor how-to-vote flyers outside polling booths in conservative neighbourhoods.
And, she said, there was not a lot of chatter to her about the lack of Liberal representation on the ballot papers.
“It hasn’t been mentioned a lot, to tell you the truth,” she said.
RYDE
Meanwhile, in the City of Ryde election the four-way mayoral contest was heading towards a victory for the incumbent, Liberal Trenton Brown.
With about two-thirds of the votes counted in the race for mayor, Brown had grabbed about 40 per cent of the vote.
Labor’s Bernard Purcell was hanging on in second place with 24 per cent of the vote, just ahead of veteran outspoken independent Roy Maggio with 22.65 per cent.
The Greens Tima Kordrostamiwas was lagging behind in fourth place with 12.8 per cent.
HUNTERS HILL
In Hunters Hill, incumbent Liberal mayor Zac Miles looked to have secured another term in the top job.
Mr Miles, who had drafted in some influential Liberals, such as NSW deputy party leader Natalie Ward, to support his campaign, grabbed 62 per cent of first preference votes with about 65 per cent of the votes counted.
He appears to have seen off the concerted challenge of popular independent Ross Williams.
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