Warning for mayor hopefuls

THIS month’s council elections are shaping up to be some of the biggest ever, with more than 10 people expected to put their hand up to be Darwin’s Lord Mayor

THIS month’s council elections are shaping up to be some of the biggest ever, with more than 10 people expected to put their hand up to be Darwin’s Lord Mayor.

But is the job all it’s talked up to be? Former Lord Mayor Graeme Sawyer said there were issues with the role that a lot of people didn’t realise.

“People need to go into it with their eyes open,” he said.

“They need to manage their expectations and do some homework, because it’s often different to what people expect.” One particularly tough thing Mr Sawyer said he dealt with were the differences between NT councils and those in other states. “The Local Government Act in the NT is very strange compared to the rest of the country, so the perceptions around the position of mayor and the realities don’t match up too well,” he said. “This is highlighted in two key areas: planning and social policies (such as alcohol policies).”

Mr Sawyer said there were aspects of running Darwin that were “incredibly frustrating”.

“In places like Adelaide and Melbourne, (mayors) make quite significant impacts around social aspects in the city, through planning decisions and permits,” he said.

“The public up here think its council’s role to fix that ... But it’s not. There’s always a target on you for all of this stuff that you can’t actually do anything about.” Mr Sawyer said the role needed to be taken seriously. “You’d be wise, if you were going to go for the job, to have a clear perception in mind of what you wanted to get out of it,” he said.

“But the role does have an enormous amount of flexibility.” Nominations for those wanting to run for council close on Thursday at noon.

Local government elections take place August 26, with early voting from August 14.