Lord Mayor Sally Capp strong position after council election teams reveal preference flows
Lord Mayor Sally Capp is frontrunner to remain in the top job at next month’s Melbourne council election after securing election preference flows from key rivals.
Victoria
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Lord Mayor Sally Capp is in a strong position to be re-elected after getting election preference flows from key rivals.
Labor, which is expected to poll well, has preferenced the Capp team ahead of her main rival, Deputy Lord Mayor Arron Wood.
Ms Capp and her deputy running mate, ALP member Nicholas Reece, will also benefit from pollster Gary Morgan’s preferences.
However, the Greens have preferenced Mr Wood and his deputy candidate Lisa Teh ahead of the Lord Mayor’s team, with Greens councillor Rohan Leppert taking a swipe against Capp’s free parking policy on social media.
Ms Capp has also announced that she will extend the current freeze on council rate increases to 2021-22, saying “I want to do everything I can to ease the burden for ratepayers”.
Mr Wood has previously said he would do the same.
The Lord Mayor is considered the frontrunner and would be expected to poll at least 30 per cent at the October 24 postal vote.
Some pundits believe that Mr Wood and unofficial Labor candidate Jennifer Yang are the most likely candidates to challenge her for the keys to Town Hall.
Both have preferenced each other ahead of Ms Capp.
Mr Wood said the Capp team and the official Labor ticket led by Phil Reed had done a deal as expected.
“I guess I just want voters to know that I don’t think a Labor-dominated council is a good thing for our city,” he said.
“That’s nothing against Labor, it’s about keeping party politics to a minimum. The focus should be on ratepayers and small business during our greatest economic challenge in Melbourne’s history, not on party tricks and backroom deals”.
Mr Reed said Labor was in it to win it, and ultimately it had preferenced Capp over Wood after much consideration
“Arron Wood has shown throughout the year an inability to engage with the Labor team and the Labor government, so we have to question his ability to be an effective mayor,” he said.
A Capp Team spokeswoman said “we did no deals … we have chosen people not parties”.
Other lord mayoral candidates are Nick Russian, Kath Larkin, Wayne Tseng and Apsara Sabaratnam.
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