Former lord mayoral aspirant Sam Newman praises incumbent Sally Capp but doesn’t rule out a Town Hall run
Footy personality Sam Newman had wanted to run for Town Hall in 2018, but pulled out due to work commitments. Does he still harbour aspirations to be lord mayor?
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Former Town Hall aspirant Sam Newman has praised Lord Mayor Sally Capp as candidates start preparing for this year’s council elections.
The footy personality said Cr Capp was doing “a pretty good job”, but council parking inspectors were acting like Melbourne was “Syria”.
“Most of the things that I was interested in, I notice seem to be fairly high up on her priority list,” he said.
Newman had wanted to run in the 2018 lord mayoral by-election, but was forced to pull out when a Channel 9 work trip to the US stopped him from nominating in person for the council poll.
“I wasn’t doing it for the notoriety, what people think,” he told the Herald Sun.
“I was an eager and willing participant in the process but the ducks didn’t align on the particular week, so I was precluded from doing it.”
The former Footy Show star said he had no immediate plans to run for council this year, especially “if I was satisfied with the incumbent”.
Newman said he had met Cr Capp a few times, and she had appeared on his podcast.
“People will be bemused to think that I’m monitoring her progress, but I had four or five main things that I was interested in — I think she’s not just paying lip-service to them,” he said.
“She’s being diligent and credible.”
Newman, who is a big fan of US President Donald Trump, said his main issues of concern were homelessness, law and order, and parking inspectors “swooping and preying on motorists”.
“They should cut us all a bit of slack, we’re not living in Syria,” he said.
“Just take it easy a bit without making it a frustrating experience to go into the city in light of what is going on at the minute with parts of the city in gridlock and closed down because of the (Metro) tunnel, which I support, of course.”
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Cr Capp will seek re-election, but is yet to finalise a campaign team.
Deputy Lord Mayor Arron Wood may run against Cr Capp at the October poll, while the intentions of Cr Nicholas Reece, an active ALP figure, are being closely watched.
Also of interest is how Chinese-background councillors Kevin Louey and Philip Le Liu will line up given their links to Asian voters and businesses.