Liverpool council election, 2024

This election has been postponed. This guide remains up for informational purposes, and will be repurposed for a new guide when the election comes around.

The City of Liverpool covers parts of south-western Sydney, including Liverpool, Chipping Norton, Warwick Farm, Moorebank, Holsworthy, Casula, Prestons, Lurnea, Green Valley, Hoxton Park, Austral and Badgerys Creek.

Liverpool has a population of approximately 240,000 people as of 2019.

• Wards
• Incumbent mayor and councillors
• History
• Council control
• Candidate summary
• Assessment
• 2021 results
• Vote breakdown by ward
• Results maps

Wards
Hornsby is divided into three wards, with each ward electing three councillors. There is also a directly-elected mayor.

A ward is the northernmost ward, and covers the majority of the council’s land area. It stretches from the Hawkesbury to the Hornsby city centre, and covers Hornsby Heights, Mount Colah, Mount Ku-ring-gai, Berowra and Brooklyn.

B ward covers the centre of the council, including Westleigh, Normanhurst, Thornleigh and parts of Asquith and Hornsby.

C ward covers the southern end of the council, including Beecroft, North Epping, Cheltenham and Cherrybrook.

Incumbent mayor
Ned Mannoun (Liberal)

Incumbent councillors

History
Liverpool has been historically dominated by Labor. Labor dominated the council up until 2004, but the Liberal Party have done well on the council since the restoration of democratic control in 2008.

The first directly-elected mayor of Liverpool was Mark Latham, who won the mayoralty in 1991. He resigned as mayor in 1994 after winning the Werriwa federal by-election.

Latham was succeeded by George Paciullo. Paciullo had a previous career on Liverpool council from 1959 until 1971, including one year as mayor in the late 1960s. He had then served as a state MP from 1971 until 1988, and as a minister in the Wran and Unsworth governments. He returned to the local council after leaving state politics.

Paciullo was elected mayor in 1995 and 1999. Liverpool City Council was sacked by the state government two weeks before the 2004 council election, in part due to issues around the controversial Oasis development. This ended Paciullo’s ten years as mayor.

The council was kept in administration for four years, and in 2008 a new council was elected. This council was led by Labor mayor Wendy Waller. The ten members of the council included four Labor members (not including the mayor), three Liberals, two members of the Liverpool Community Independents Team, along with conservative independent Gary Lucas.

While Labor held the mayoralty, they did not have a working majority on the council, and more often than not the three independents sided with the three Liberals to outvote for the five Labor councillors.

Labor had a poor election in Liverpool in 2012, as they did across Western Sydney. Labor’s vote dropped by 5.9%. The vote for the Liverpool Community Independents Team also dropped by 9.3%, and 7% less chose to vote for independents. Most of this vote flowed to the Liberal Party, who gained a 16.25% swing.

The Liberal Party’s Ned Mannoun won the mayoralty comfortably ahead of the incumbent Waller in 2012. The Liberal Party won five other council seats out of ten, with Labor winning four and the LCIT winning one seat. This gave the Liberal Party an overall majority on the council.

Labor won back the mayoralty in 2016 but fell one seat short of a majority. They only retained their four council seats, needing five plus the mayor for a majority. The mayoralty was only won by a margin of 3.6%.

The Liverpool Community Independents Team also won back a second council seat off the Liberal Party.

The ALP has held the mayoralty but has not had control over the council, with the LCIT more often than not siding with the Liberal Party for a 6-5 majority over Labor.

The 2021 election saw the return of Ned Mannoun as mayor, but there were no other changes to the council. This gave the Liberal Party five seats to four Labor and two LCIT. The Liberal Party solidified a 6-5 majority in alliance with independent Karress Rhodes.

Council control
There have been three deputy mayoral elections during the current term. At each of those three elections, the two LCIT independents split: Harle siding with Labor and Rhodes with the Liberals. Indeed the first deputy mayoral election in February 2022 was contested by both independents. It appears that the two independents have suffered a deeper division over Rhodes’ support for the Liberals. That support has solidified a one-seat majority for the Liberal Party.

Candidate summary
Former councillor Peter Ristevski is running for mayor for Our Local Community.

The Libertarian Party is running Gemma Noiosi is running for the North Ward.

Assessment
The Liberal Party’s current working majority appears to be built on the back of their victory in the mayoral election, suggesting that a Labor win in that contest (which was quite close in 2021) would likely shift the balance of power.

It’s also not clear what will happen with the two independents, who ran together in 2016 and 2021. They won’t be running together in 2024.

At the moment Liverpool has settled into an equilibrium where each ward elects two Labor, two Liberal and one LCIT, and the council balance is decided by the mayoral election. But if LCIT falters, it might create space for one of the major parties to win third seats in each ward.

2021 council election result

2021 mayoral election result

2021 mayoral election two-candidate-preferred result

Vote breakdown by ward
The following tables show the vote in each ward. Unfortunately the mayoral results were not separated by ward, so we can only identify the home ward of ordinary votes.

The Liberal Party generally performed more strongly in the North Ward, while Labor did better in the South Ward, at least for the council election. For the mayoral election, the Liberal lead was larger in the South Ward booths.

Council results by ward

Mayoral results by ward

Election results at the 2021 City of Liverpool election
Toggle between primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor, the Liverpool Community Independent Team and the Greens.

Election results at the 2021 City of Liverpool mayoral election
Toggle between primary votes for the Liberal Party, Labor, and independent candidates Michael Andjelkovic and Peter Harle.

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