Gold Coast City Council election: ‘Perfect storm’ of events leaves Cr Gail O’Neill’s future in doubt

What’s going on in the Deep South? The shockwave from the council poll is the collapse of the vote for Gail O’Neill. Is this just about stopping the trams and overdevelopment?

What’s going on in the Deep South? The shockwave from the council poll is the collapse of the vote for Gail O’Neill. Is this just about stopping the trams and overdevelopment?

Talking to community volunteers and those inside council, is it’s much more complex.

Cr O’Neill can track a “perfect storm” of events before the March 16 poll.

She has 8464 votes (46.14 per cent) ahead of Ms Down on 8375 votes (45.65). On the official count on Thursday, she was only 13 votes ahead. Animal Justice Party candidate Benjamin Theakstone has just more than eight per cent of the vote.

Preferences will be counted next week. Cr O’Neill might just hold on. But here’s the thing – she’s devastated by this result and the council will need to assess its attitude to the South.

The race for the next Division 14 councillor will be neck and neck as the count continues. Incumbent councillor Gail O’Neill. Picture: Amaani Siddeek

To put it in perspective, in 2020 Cr O’Neill won with 62.67 per cent of the vote.

The storm clouds include Mayor Tom Tate, late in the campaign, announcing he would push the green button to fast forward light rail Stage 4 to the airport with only state government and council funding.

Cr O’Neill was honest when asked at a chamber meeting at the Currumbin RSL in the lead-up to the poll about the trams – she supports council’s transport strategy.

Ms Down wants heavy rail and solar electric and hydrogen buses. Inside the council chamber, that debate will have more hot air than a Currumbin Valley balloon.

Ms Down never left pre-poll, which at times resembled World Championship Wrestling in the 1970s with her supporters and Mayor Tate’s mates not getting along.

Division 14 candidate Kath Down scrutineering at the Arundel Returning Officer centre in the 2024 Gold Coast City Council election.

The Community Alliance was opposed to council investing in the airport and kept raising it in the media during campaign.

Residents speculated about their curfew being lost.

Ms Down campaigned for permanent residents at the Kirra Beach Tourist Park – again councillors as far back at 2018 decided it would be holiday accommodation only.

Nearby was the community fight to stop final approvals for the $380m Kirra hotel site.

Cr O’Neill had declared obtaining $10,000 from Ganra Pty Ltd, the developer a month before the 2016 poll. Her conflict stopped her from representing residents in the chamber.

At the Kirra booth, in this poll, Cr O’Neill recorded only 35.70 per cent of the vote. Ms Down has more than 58 per cent.

New graphic showing light rail stage four Gold Coast, and how the trams will cross the Currumbin Creek.

Yet in the valleys, at Tallebudgera and Currumbin, the vote was the reverse.

“Gail won the west but lost the coast,” a council insider says.

The other factor which no-one talks about is Cr O’Neill’s former political neighbour.

Daphne McDonald on Facebook was a Golden Girl for being the voice in opposition to council policy and the mayor – and cultivated that support group.

Respected community people in the south are worried about future representation, fearing their councillor is wounded, or the unpredictable will happen with Ms Down.

“Kath Down will need to represent the community, not a community group,” a source said.

Another told your columnist: “Gail has lost ground, Kath hasn’t won. What we want is meaningful community engagement.”

This is the lesson to be learned and key to the future.

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