Tasmania goes to the polls in October to elect local councillors across the state. Tasmania is broken up into twenty-nine LGAs. Tasmanian councils are not elected using wards: instead half of each council is elected every two years representing the entire council area, with councillors serving a four year term. Each council’s Mayor and Deputy Mayor are also directly elected by the voters at every council election for a two-year term.
Nominations have now closed for this year’s council elections, where each council will elect a Mayor and half a council. Voting is by postal ballot and will take place for two weeks from 13 October to 27 October.
I don’t have any particular information about this year’s council elections, although there has been coverage at the Tasmanian Politics blog. I have reviewed my Tasmanian LGA map, which was originally a very large file and difficult to use on slower computers. It should now run smoothly for anyone interested in following Tasmania’s council elections. Consider this post an opportunity to comment on any interesting council races.
Tasmania's local government areas
Ben, I assume that red = ALP, blue = Liberal, green = Green, yellow = Independent?
No, he’s done all the LGA maps with random colouring.
Not too many Greens in Smithton I can tell you.
Not exactly random, chosen so that no two adjacent LGAs are the same colour.
The Greens are the only party in Tasmania who officially run candidates in local government; although, of course many candidates have formal or informal links to the ALP, Liberals or others. Unfortunately the Tas Greens don’t seem to have a campaign website up and running, so I thought I’d give a quick run down of things from the Green perspective for those interested. This is just based upon my own memory, and it has been a couple of years since I was heavily involved in Tasmanian local government so I could well be missing things. Please correct me if so, I’d love to be updated!
Depending on the size of the council, somewhere between 4 and 6 councillors will be elected this time (it’s half every 2 years elected on a Hare-Clark basis across the whole LGA). This puts the quota for election at 14.3% for the larger urban councils with 12 councillors, and ranging up to 20% for the smaller rural ones. The Green vote is much lower in the latter councils in general so no surprises in the pattern of Green representation.
The greater Hobart urban area is covered by 5 councils. The two most northerly of these – Brighton and Glenorchy – are classic labour working class type areas and so elect no Greens; although Marrette Corby has performed solidly in Glenorchy in the past and is an outside chance for a seat there. A solid performance in Glenorchy would bode well for the chances of a second Denison seat at the next state election (a big ask, but it’s got to be the next target for the party to work for).
Seven out of the 12 current elected Greens are from the other three urban Hobart councils. There are two each (i.e. one from each cycle) in the Southern and Eastern commuter areas of Kingborough and Clarence, and three in Hobart itself, where the Greens elected two in the last round and so this time are defending only one of their three seats.
Helen Burnet is the sole Green up for re-election in Hobart and I’d say she is a certainty to be re-elected and could even bring one of her three running mates along with her if the campaign is right (Heatley, who ran second in primaries in the recent Pembroke by-election, Peterson and Rowallan). The fact that all 6 incumbents are running for re-election will make this a hard task though. I’m a big fan of Helen, but I think even an unbiased commentator would say that she has a very high profile in the local government context.
In Kingborough Michele Higgins is defending the Greens’ seat fromt his round (I held this seat from 2001-2003 so I’m watching this race with special interest!). Kingborough is Hobart’s southern suburbs and the rural area beyond. It has a lot of strong Green areas (Taroona, the southern channel) with urban professionals and people moving to the bush for the lifestyle, but also a strong Christian-family type constituency in Kingston and a lot of traditional pro-development conservatives in what has been a very fast growing area. The mix of the council reflects this, but has been shifting towards the ‘lifestyle’ end since 2001 (when half of the elected councillors were new) and the balance is now something like 5-5 with two swing votes. I ran in 2001 because there was no-one to vote for – only 2 of the 12 councillors at that stage had much appeal to Green-leaning voters – but each election from 2001 onwards has seen this balance shift. Only 5 of the 6 incumbents are seeking re-election. This seat is pretty safe for the Greens, and the medium term objective must be to work towards getting 2/6 each round. Watch the votes of Bange and Giblin to see how close they get this time.
Clarence has attracted a huge field of 17 candidates, including incumbent Green Kay McFarlane and candidate Max Bahrfeldt. While the Greens do have a seat each round in Clarence, this area has been weaker for the Greens than Hobart or Kingborough. The strong performance in the Pembroke by-election, covering this area, may mean that the vote rises to sit more comfortably at or above quota.
The other Council where the Greens have two seats is the southern rural council of Huon Valley. This is a very strong Green area with lots of tree-changers and a long history of environmentalism and alternative lifestyles. It’s tough though because there are only 9 councillors so a round of 4 and one of 5 make the quota higher. This is the round of 5 with Tony Richardson the Green up for re-election; he needs a primary close to 17% as preference flows from non-Greens are particularly weak in rural areas where other candidates are often very anti-Green.
There is one incumbent Green in Launceston – which is Tasmania’s largest council and is very hotly contested with 20 candidates. Jeremy Ball is not up for re-election. I’m not sure if the Greens are running someone this time, but I really hope they are as this is an area where the Greens really need to consolidate as the state seat is marginal. The pulp mill issue also makes this council pertinent. Anyone know anything?
The pulp mill resulted in the first Green getting elected to West Tamar council last time round, so this election is a chance for a second although there are only 4 seats up for election so the quota is high. I’m not familiar enough with the Greens in this area to recognise any of the names in the candidate list so not sure if there is anyone running. This has not historically been a great area for the Greens, but the pulp mill is changing this at least temporarily. The challenge will be to hold onto these people for the long term, and getting people on council would be a great start.
The 12th Green currently elected in Delia Thompson on the rural Southern Midlands council (tiny – with only 4333 enrolled and about 2 800 voting!). She is up for re-election this time; one of 8 candidates seeking 5 places. She ran a few times, gradually building up her vote before being elected in 2005. It’s not a very strong Green area in general, but she got elected in a field of 10 last time and got a good preference flow. In such a small council it’s all about personal connections so she has a good shot at re-election provided she has worked the ground well as a councillor.
The Greens seem to have disappeared from Sorell Council, where they used to have a councillor. I’m not aware of Greens running anywhere else, but it’s been quite a few years since I was in Tasmania so it’s quite possible that there are candidates whose names I don’t recognise. If anyone from Tas has any more intelligence please post it!
Of other interest is state ALP parlimentarian Steve Kons running for Burnie Council (of which he was Mayor before running for parliament). One would presume he will be easily elected as a councillor, it will be interesting to see how he goes as mayor. He’s been mired in a few controversies at the state level and is not recontesting at the March 2010 state election.
An excellent analysis! Thank you Simon.
Sorry Ben, not at all related to Tassie, but Ian Cohen MLC has decided not to contest the next NSW election. I for one will be sad to see him go.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/08/2708319.htm
For all those people following these elections with bated breath, I heard that Monique Huyskens is running for Launceston City Council. She has a facebook site which is pretty informative as to what the campaign is up to there.
I’m rather surprised the Tasmanian Greens have no list of candidates on their website. Other than the ones Simon has mentioned I can’t find any information on whether the Greens are running in other places. Surely there would be one or two trying to break new ground, but if so the party isn’t publicizing it.
I know they’re running (and I believe only running) in the following places, but couldn’t tell you who is running:
Launceston City Council
West Tamar Council
Southern Midlands Council
Hobart City Council
Glenorchy City Council
Kingborough Council
Huon Valley Council
Clarence Council
Please note that details for all Greens local government candidates are now uploaded onto the Tas Greens website…
http://www.tas.greens.org.au/story/support-your-greens-candidates-local-government.
Apologies for the delay.
Monique.
Thanks for the info Monique and good luck with your Launceston campaign. It looks like there is a good group of candidates running, but it seems a shame that there has not been more of a push into new areas. I thought a place like George Town would have been a possibility – surely there’s at least 15% of people there annoyed by the pulp mill who would vote Green?!
Helen Burnet has a very reasonable chance of becoming the Deputy Lord Mayor of Hobart, which would be a first. Something to watch on election night.
I noticed that the endorsed Green elected in Huon Valley four years ago is standing for re-election but not as an endorsed candidate – anyone know what happened there?
Yes, in the north it is only Maddie Colam (West Tamar) and myself. There are a lot of candidates running for the LCC that are anti-pulp mill which is good – plenty of choice of candidates there…
Please could you let us know who is more favourably disposed towards Green and environmental issues in those districts with no Green candidate. In particular- Sorrell where I have NO information about anyone’s platforms except 2 who have listed qualities about what upright citizens they are but with little/ no direction of their attitudes to important issues.
This totally doesn’t belong here, but there isn’t a WA thread. Some Green folk have had a good day in our council elections – remember that they’re non-partisan our side of the Nullarbor, but the Sunday Times is still calling this as a win for the Greens. Brad Pettitt is the new mayor of Fremantle, which was somewhat expected. The other notable winner was Kelly Howlett, in… would you believe, Port Hedland? 1500 km up north from Perth, notable mainly for exporting iron ore, and they just elected the local greenie for mayor over the existing fella. I’ve got no idea how that happened, but kudos to her.
Hi Elizabeth,
I’m sorry I don’t have any info on other electorates…maybe best to ring candidates directly to find out their viewpoints. We have also had very limited coverage in the local paper here, with no interviews/profiles of candidates (exc. mayor/deputy), and people are also saying that they just don’t know the candidates.
It’s interesting that the Greens are the only party that run in Tasmania. I get the impression that Greens got into local council in Tasmania very late relative to when they got into state politics. So Tasmania traditionally had non-partisan elections for council like in WA and SA?
As far as I can tell, there are the following numbers of endorsed Greens on councils around the country:
-74 in NSW
-20 in Victoria
-12 in Tasmania
-2 in the Northern Territory
As well as two Greens elected as independents in Palerang council in southeastern NSW and any Greens elected in WA and SA.
The Greens first ran in tas in 1999, but the first major coordinated campaign was in 2000. Prior to this no endorsed candidates ran in local goverment, and today it is only the Greens who officially endorse. so, yes, local government did come pretty late as a priority for the Tas Greens. there was some opposition to them going in officially, as there were a number of ‘independent greens’ who thought it would be a threat. Ultimately it’s been quite sucessful though I think. The only example I can think of where a sitting green-ish Councillor lost a seat was when I was elected in Kingborough in 2000 and Julian Bush lost his seat – but he chose to ran as an endorsed green in 2002 and was easily re-elected. It’s also not totally clear that the Greens standing was the sole cause of his 2000 loss – that year 3 of the 6 sitting Councillors lost their seats and two of the non-imcumbents finished 2nd and 3rd on primaries (that was myself for the Greens and Graham Bury who is now Mayor) so it was a tough year for incumbents anyway.
Here’s the blurb from the history part of the Tas Greens website:
“The Greens first stood Local Government candidates in 1999, with Paul Thomas (Huon Valley) and Deidre Wilson (Clarence City) becoming the first endorsed Greens Councillors in Tasmania. A growing Green vote in 2000 saw Patsy Jones (Hobart City), Simon Baptist (Kingborough) and Mary O’Doherty (Huon Valley) elected. Mary retired in 2002 and was replaced by Adam Burling.
After the 2002 Local Government elections the number of Green Councillors rose again, to 7, with Mat Hines (Hobart City), Sharon Prior (Sorell), Liz Smith (Huon Valley) and Julian Bush (Kingborough) elected and Deidre Wilson (Clarence City) re-elected. Paul Thomas and Adam Burling did not recontest their seats. In 2003 Simon Baptist retired, to be replaced by Greg Whitten.”
Jeremy Ball first ran as a Greens-endorsed candidate for the Launceston City Council in 2005 but was unsuccessful. In 2007 he ran again, easily winning a seat on primaries. In 2009 Jeremy ran for deputy mayor but was unsuccessful (47% of vote).