Tas Labor's Spending Caps Bill Kneecaps Independents

Tasmanian Labor wants to stop people from buying elections, but they're happy for independents to be senselessly outspent.  This is my conclusion from their Electoral Disclosure and Funding Amendment (Spending Limits) Bill 2026 (49 of 2026).  I'm not sure if they're trying to wedge the Liberals, wedge the independents, or if they actually really think what they've come up with here is fair for Tasmania; it's not.  

An issue of Hare-Clark spending caps having the potential to advantage parties over independents in a way that could inspire independents to create front parties to rort the funding caps is not new.  I raised it (and more in person) at the Tasmanian JSCEM inquiry into the Greens' Electoral Disclosure and Funding Amendment Bill 2024 (No. 9) just a couple of years ago. In that case I pointed out that a proposed spending cap of $83,000 for independents and $830,000 for parties created a perverse incentive for big-spending independents to register front parties in order to avoid the lower spending cap.  

I noted also that lifting a dollars-per-candidate model from the ACT was not a good idea for Tasmania, especially because parties in Tasmania tend to run filler candidates to get their list to seven for formality reasons, while minor parties in the ACT don't need to do that.   There is also another important difference between the ACT and Tasmania - ACT parties run five candidates per electorate, not seven.  

So what does Tasmanian Labor do?  They come along with a Bill that has a spending cap of $60,000 for independents (in 2026 terms) and $1,750,000 for parties, of which a party can spend up to $525,000 on campaigning directed at a particular electorate.  

Overall, Labor's Bill does seem closely modelled on the ACT's spending caps.  It is slightly more generous to independents in some ways in terms of allowing them 1.2 times the spending cap per party candidate, and also because it has a limit on party spending per electorate.  However the ACT is an inappropriate model for Tasmania because its system discriminates hugely against pure independents.  A pure independent in the ACT cannot get their own ballot column no matter how popular they are and is lumped in the ungrouped column on the right of the ballot with other such independents.  With that and the spending cap laws, intending serious ACT indies now register front parties like Fiona Carrick Independents or form parties of quasi-independents with policies and preselections such as the former "Independents for Canberra". 

What is the problem being solved by Labor's Bill?  It seems there are two different rationales.  The first is the hobgoblin of someone being able to "buy an election".  The idea that particular elections in Tasmania have been "bought" is an election denial trope and conspiracy theory, "bought" being just a soft version of "stolen", that pops up here every few cycles.  It especially appears in connection with elections like 2006 and 2018 where the oppositions' losses were self-inflicted on policy and tactical grounds but there were also expensive non-party campaigns in favour of the government.  I don't think any Tasmanian elections ever have really been won by a party just because more money was spent on its behalf.  But at the moment there's a big concern that somebody will try it: One Nation.

Voters aren't actually sucked in by big-spending campaigns (by major or minor parties) that are bad.  Money helps when the campaign is saying something voters are actually receptive to, but maybe not as much as people think. The strongest argument for not letting a Clive Palmer spend megabucks on a Tasmanian election isn't that it actually works, it is that such overt spending is annoying in a way that makes people feel democracy is being laughed at. But let's say that Gina Rinhehart throwing $20 million at a One Nation Tasmanian campaign would be a big problem - fine.  Identify an amount of money that anyone but the most dogmatic libertarian would agree is way too much to spend on a Tasmanian election and ban anyone from spending more than that amount.  That problem's solved.

That concern in no way justifies limiting an independent to $60,000. There would be some amount that politics-watchers generally would agree is a silly amount for an independent to spend, and that amount would be several times lower than it would be for a party statewide.  But that amount would also be a lot higher than $60,000.  Indeed, a cap of $60,000 for an independent puts them on the same level as the Legislative Council's very restrictive spending caps given that the lower house seats are three times more populous.  And this is in an environment where there is expensive statewide party advertising everywhere.  

So the second idea here seems to be a general push for "getting money out of politics" by winding back what everyone is spending.  But that presumes that major parties and independents are overspending to a similar extent.  That might seem true and then some if one considers the major parties' spending on a per-candidate basis, but that's the wrong way to look at it, because there are so many uncompetitive, and in some cases blatant ticket-filler, party candidates.  Even if all a party's candidates were serious there are major economies of scale in promoting several candidates together compared to advertising a lone independent.  

The major parties and Greens always run full slates of candidates (at least) in each electorate because Tasmania's pointlessly strict formality rules mean that to run less invites your voters to not vote formally, and makes explaining what to do harder for the low-electoral-literacy end.  But on current vote shares a major party is no longer seriously competitive for more than four seats in one electorate, and even four is now uncommon.  Labor in particular had well-known problems filling out its slates of candidates for 2025.  

Why should a major party that on the best of days these days might yet scrape up 18 seats (in Labor's case, in the last two elections they won 10) have a spending cap that is just under thirty times that for a  sole independent?  Why should a party be able to outspend the indie by a factor of 8.75 in a particular electorate (at some detriment to its spending cap for others) if it is only seriously in the mix for two or three seats there - or in a minor party's case, maybe just one?

Here my concern is not only with giving the indies a fair go to whatever extent spending actually matters, but also with avoiding perverse incentives for ballot paper clutter.  There are already way too many unnecessary candidates running in Tasmanian state elections.  The Braddon ballot in 2025 was especially excessive and confusing for voters and the TEC was extremely lucky to avoid having to print double-decker ballot papers in any division. Under the Bill as it stands any indie who wants to can simply circumvent Labor's spending caps by registering a front party and running a bunch of non-serious candidates alongside themselves just to boost how much money they can spend on getting themselves elected.  But some indies will prefer just to run by themselves, and I don't see why they should be disadvantaged.

In the 2025 election Peter George ran a non-party ticket with six likeminded independents, who were so low profile in the campaign that a hypothetical "recount" (casual vacancy countback) for George's seat would most likely see it go to the Greens.  Under this Bill if this group were to be registered as a party they would then have access to the same spending cap per candidate as other parties, and could in realistic terms spend whatever they liked.  

Labor's response to such concerns - well so far, failed ad hominems not only aimed at me but also Jack Milroy instead of tackling the substance!  Very strange indeed!  

With the numbers in the parliament the way they are, this may well actually get somewhere, even if the government opposes it.  Parties and candidates who in principle support caps are likely to have a majority in the lower house.  Caps of any kind could well be welcomed by the upper house where members have long been displeased by being subject to strict caps themselves while the lower house is not.  The Greens - who are potentially greatly advantaged in fighting with lone indies by this Bill (but will probably never have enough money to fully realise that) - have called it "great electoral reform".  So we may yet see deals done in which this gets passed with amendments, even if the Liberals oppose it.  Perhaps if the multiplier for lone independents was simply much higher - say, 2.5 instead of 1.2, then that would be enough to solve the problems.

At the very least I suggest this at some point be referred to Tasmanian JSCEM for an inquiry as was also done with the Greens' Bill.  But an alternative would be to refer the general question of finding fair spending caps with a term of reference that any solution must respect distinctive aspects of Tasmanian electoral culture.  

For information, the Bill also includes a spending cap of $75,000 statewide for third party campaigners and associated entities.  I may discuss that further later.  

Candidates Matter: The Blues Strike Back On Hobart Council 2026

This is a review piece of some themes from the just concluded 2026 Hobart Council elections.  The election count just finished featured some very close multi-way battles for councillor positions with winners ducking in and out through the different distributions.  Then we had the crowning oddity of the non-election of Ben Lohberger to council after he won the Deputy Mayoral ballot, which means that he now cannot serve as Deputy and the position will be filled around the table.  This event has previously happened in three smaller councils, but never in a city.  I now expect a lot of debate about solutions, most of which won't have been thought through. The result will for sure be used by those who think we should just ditch direct Deputy elections, a proposal I can make strong arguments both for and against.  The problem has become more likely this year because of the reduction in the numbers of councillors and it could very well keep happening.  

The Poll Position pod had some comments about this election along the lines of "campaigns matter", coming from a winning perspective after Brad Stansfield worked on the winning Charles Wooley campaign.  And campaigns do matter, in that Wooley won the mayoralty by in effect 2.3% over a main opponent (John Kelly) who announced pretty late and then ran what looked to me like a pretty similar and lower profile campaign compared to 2022.  I think that under other circumstances this result might have gone the other way.  For sure Wooley had big advantages as a high profile outsider who was more able to sell himself ambiguously.  I'm also far from believing all he did on the campaign trail was brilliant (especially his line about being home from council for the six o'clock news was a gaffe for the few of us who know that council meeting work is hard) but his campaign did things to keep voters interested, had good signs and made lively use of social media to cover a wide range of issues.  By doing this he was able to get away with skipping a lot of the candidate questionnaires and forums as he had got the message across that he was genuinely trying and wasn't just hoping to lazily cruise in on his profile.  

There was some debate between the hosts about what kind of councillor Wooley will be politically and Alex Johnston was talking about voters who would vote for Wooley who would "never ever have described themselves as blue".  And it occurred to me that there was actually an obvious way to look at how many such voters there were and I should write an article about that and about how candidates matter in council elections.  Because it seems really obvious, but the mechanics are worth spelling out.  At this year's elections, the left side of Hobart council politics has been depleted and then failed almost completely at recruitment, and it's changed the face of the council.  It's not the only thing that's done it, but if the left had more good candidates, then they would still have won five seats.

Assuming everyone now votes the way their campaigns indicated they would, the "blue"/right side now has a 5-4 majority on the council, after the left held a 7-4-1 majority through the previous term.  This won't manifest on every issue (eg cable car) but it's a big change.  And that was close, too.  The count swung back towards the left in the last 50% with the combined Green vote going up 1.5 points, and had the left done about 1.1 points better at the end of the count then the fifth seat could have been saved.  

Yes there was a general swing in public mood towards the right/"blue" side (some of it demographic in nature as low income earners are increasingly pushed north of Creek Road - heck the Greens got pretty close to two in Glenorchy in the end!) but candidate effects on the results have been at least as big a factor.  From the 2022 election candidate lineup the left side has lost Lord Mayor and Deputy Anna Reynolds and Helen Burnet, while the right side has lost nobody who got that close to winning a seat then and added Charles Wooley and Harvey Lennon.  And the left side has only added one new competitive candidate, Tiffany Ashdown, who was low profile at the campaign start but worked very hard over a long time, without coming super close to winning at the end. 

Given that the holes created by Reynolds and Burnet not being there should have attracted more new serious left-wing contenders, where were they?

This article isn't to argue that having obviously right and left wing candidates on councils is good.  Indeed in my view the very high level of factionalism in the last term was bad for Council.  But it is a fact of life that many voters will want to see their side of politics represented better and this article explains a big chunk of why that, for the left, did not occur.

Why Having Good Candidates Works

One might think that having more good (in relative terms) right wing candidates or left wing candidates isn't really a big deal, after all those voters inclined to vote for either side will just spread their votes around more if there are more candidates, which might even be a bad thing?  Well no.

Many voters in council elections are actually not thinking ideologically, and some who might be don't even engage enough to find out who is on "their" side.  Voters can also be motivated by specific issues (Save Utas, cable car, dogs vs soccer are some recent cases) that cut across left/right lines.  Some voters will know things outside of council politics about candidates that cause them to see some candidates differently to how I might see them.  Some voters vote based on community or business connections to given candidates from across the spectrum.   Some voters may also prefer right or left candidates but draw the line at specific extreme, badly behaved or personally annoying examples.  

For any candidate that does even reasonably well, some of their voters would, had that candidate not stood, have voted 1 for the other "side's" candidates.  Candidates that do well have the following effects:

Firstly, a candidate who does so well that they get a quota on first preferences gets some votes that could have gone to the other side if they didn't run, uses most of those votes' value to get themselves elected, and only passes on a reduced value.  They're also reducing the value of votes that could have gone to others on the same side as themselves, but the net loss to their own side is less than the quota the candidate got in being elected.

Secondly, a candidate who doesn't get a quota but eventually gets in gets some votes (and preferences) that could have gone to the other side if they didn't run, and sucks out all those votes' value except for the exclusion they're elected on (which has a partial effect).  Again, they're taking more votes off their own side, usually, but the net loss to their own side is again less than a quota.  

Thirdly, even a candidate who does moderately well but loses can be useful.  All that candidate's preferences are flowing on to the next candidates just as if they hadn't run at all, but if they've hung around long enough in the count, some of the other side's stars will get elected in the meantime, and votes that are 1 for this candidate and 2 for a strong performer on the other side, are then free to flow, more likely flowing back to the original candidate's side.

There's also some potential for a good candidate to help just with getting out the formal vote for other candidates on their side.  Council ballots are bewildering for many voters and if a voter doesn't know or like any of the candidates they're more likely to vote informally, late or even not at all.  But if they like even one candidate they've got the motivation to cast a formal vote and they may well vote for others of a similar mind, especially if that candidate has obvious alliances.

However none of this means that running just any candidate is useful for a side.  If a candidate is low profile and only capable of getting, say, 200 votes or less, then their preferences won't display any preference discipline to speak of, and adding them to the field means that slightly more preferences are going to exhaust.  So I suspect there's some, modest, minimum level of support at which a candidate helps rather than hinders their side by running.  An obscure or low-effort candidate who gets no votes is worse than useless.

Voters and movements care about and are affected by the issues that councils deal with.  But there's no point leaving it til the last few months before noticing you don't have strong candidates running on those issues and hoping the incumbents will be OK.  At least from the middle of this term on, when we have an idea what this council has been like and what are shaping as the issues for 2030, people in the non-Greens left need to be looking for three or four strong new candidates to run.  

Who Voted For Wooley And Kelly

Fortunately we have a good handle on the politics of voters who voted for Charles Wooley and John Kelly because both those candidates got surpluses so we can see who they put next.  With one exception, we can't see how many voters for one put the other next, and I can say from scrutineering there were lots of those (maybe 20% or so of each of the two's votes).  In the case of a Wooley-Kelly or Kelly-Wooley vote, the table below counts the third preference.  This data has actually been available in rough form from the time the 20% count went up, but the final numbers are quite different to the 50% count.  

Below I've found what percentage of each of Wooley and Kelly's votes flowed to each other candidate except each other, ordered by the number flowing from Wooley.  I've also given an expected alignment based on issue positions and tickets, noting that we don't know how Wooley and Lennon will vote on council yet and either might be closer to centre than the campaign suggests.

Both Wooley and Kelly's voters sent preferences to left candidates that could have been full-value votes for those left candidates had neither of them stood.  Between them in the process of winning two seats they thereby took over half a quota out of the count that could have gone to left candidates, while also taking almost a quota and a half out that could have gone to other right candidates.  So these two running as opposed to both not running is in net terms worth more than a quota - ie a whole seat - for the right.  

The preferencing behaviour of Wooley voters is clearly broader with 31.2% flowing to a candidate I've flagged as left while in Kelly's case 21.5% did so.  Lohberger (who has a degree of cross-factional appeal because of his strong position on Save UTAS especially) did better off Kelly than off Wooley but every other substantially polling left candidate did better off Wooley.  Kelly's preference flow was more heavily concentrated with Zucco, Lennon, Elliot and Behrakis (the four main remaining "right" candidates) and also Bloomfield and Johnstone did better off Kelly presumably through Hobart business circle links.  So Wooley did draw a measure of support from all over the place - more so than 2026 model Kelly anyway.

In 2022 Anna Reynolds (left) and Kelly got quotas on the first count.  Noting again that these flows exclude preferences that flowed between these two, 18.9% of Reynolds' preferences landed with candidates who might (tenuously in a few cases) be placed on the right while 30.8% of Kelly's landed with the left.  If Reynolds had been available as someone who could get Kelly preferences, this figure would have been even higher.  So there is no doubt Kelly's voter base has shifted to the right for 2026, most likely by him losing some of the lefter end of his support base as his voting patterns on council became wider knowledge.  He probably picked up some new friends on the right at the same time.

Women and toxicity

In the end Hobart elected two women out of nine, but went within 64 votes of not electing any, and two out of nine is still not good (Glenorchy to our north elected five!).  One of the two is also facing possible dismissal, which could reduce the number of women on council to one depending on whether there have been other recounts in the meantime.  Two out of nine is the lowest female proportion on the council since before Doone Kennedy and Dee Alty joined Dora Thomson from the 1982 election.  Women recorded only 17.3% of the vote in 2026, down from 38.2% in 2022.  I do not know when that was last that low, perhaps a similar time ago.  

The new Lord Mayor created controversy by saying the result happened because women didn't vote for women, and said that he has "turned [the question] back on them" when women have asked him about it.  He seemed to be saying that female voters were very harsh on other women's failures and hence readily didn't vote for them if anything had gone wrong during the term.  In isolation, women mostly not voting for women this year must be true, but it ignores the fact that there were very few to vote for, and that in my view is the core of the problem.  There were only seven in a field of 32 (down from 14/42 in 2022 and 11/36 in 2018).  Of these two were controversial during the previous council and two were low profile, and most female voters won't just vote for any female candidate because they're female.  

Now this could be just isolated decisions in the face of the reduction deterring new candidates (though as it turns out plenty of new candidates around the state did win); the ratio difference from 2022 to 2026 is not statistically significant.  But alongside the financial cost of running, toxic political environments are one of the factors that can deter many women from running for local government, especially if they're not already there.  Women accounted for only 3/20 Hobart candidates without previous representative experience, compared to 10/29 in 2022.  And one of those three was a previous state candidate while another was a parliamentary staffer.  

Quite aside from (though not entirely independent of) the constant bickering between councillors and council incidents during the term, the social media environment surrounding council now seems way more intense and worse than even a few cycles back.  In particular, there's a coterie of misogynist trolls attracted to the cable car and stadium movements (some of these are also big fans of certain Liberal MPs, who might want to reflect on that a bit).  But I've also seen some left accounts say things about women on the right (particularly Elliot) that they'd not say in such terms about a man of similar views and actions.   

I don't know what the answer is here and I am always very wary of politicians seeking to exploit complaints about social media in order to suppress it.  I do however suspect in this term there will be more anger about council's performance and antics directed at blokes (yep it's starting already and the new Council hasn't sat yet) and the environment for new female candidates will not look so obviously hostile.  Will this council overall be behave itself?  We'll see. Many of the better behaved councillors in the last term were either voted off or retired. 

Governance Matters

Hobart council was long dominated by the "blues" on a councillor numbers level - for as long as my memory allows, and I suspect back even further.  This has been so even though they have often not held the leadership positions in recent decades.  In the 2014-8 term they had only a slight edge, 2018-22 was pretty balanced and 2022-6 was the council's first ever clear green/left majority.  The following is a rough assessment for the terms for which I've compiled voting patterns data.  

These things are relative - a right-wing councillor by Hobart standards could be centre or even moderate left in other parts of the country or even the state.  And they can be influenced by the mix of issues and motions that come up in a particular council.

In any case the left majority has coincided with a nasty and contentious term which has contributed to the swing against it, as well as the candidate factors described.  But one thing I will add to this is that the culture on the left side of the council, and at times seeping into some council staffers, too often gave the righties both on council and on social media free kicks.  Incidents like the blocking of Elliot's Town Hall booking on a spurious pretext, at least three separate issues on which councillors voted while conflicted at least by pub test standards, the Property Council forum incident and even the infamous if overblown "snackgate" reflected the lack of an overall culture that said, we're in effect the government here and we need to be not giving the other side this stuff for free if we would like to stay that way.  With one exception I don't remember past left Hobart councillors being prone to such things.  Of course, some of the "blues" (the notional opposition) behaved badly or worse, but the next time the voters elect what appears to be a left-majority council the first order of informal business should be working on the sorts of standards that will earn more respect across the spectrum (or at least not lose it from one's own side) and keep it there.   

This may conclude my council coverage for now; I really need to move to the Victorian election which I've lacked time to do things on!  As usual the interest level in the council coverage has been amazing and in fact there were slightly more page views here last Wednesday than on the Sunday after the 2025 Tasmanian election, which is extraordinary.  I was too busy to put in a donations reminder on the live count pages but donations to support the work I do are always welcome; details in sidebar (if viewing on mobile scroll down and click "view web version" to see it.) 

2026 Hobart City Council Count

Any numbers that may be noted here based on scrutineering are reports of unofficial sampling - which is not necessarily representative - and are not results.  For official results see the TEC website.

MAYOR (Vacant):  

CALLED 4 pm Thursday Charles Wooley wins from off council.

DEPUTY (Incumbent: Sherlock): 

CALLED 12:20 Saturday Ben Lohberger wins Deputy Mayor subject to retaining his councillor seat, which appears likely [UPDATE: Lohberger loses councillor seat, position is VACANT and will be elected by council round the table]

COUNCILLORS (9 recontesting incumbents, 9 vacancies):   

Called off Tuesday scrutineering: Wooley, Kelly, Harvey

Called off 20% count: Posselt

Expected: Lennon [Has been elected]

Likely: Dutta [Has been elected]

Contest 1: appears to be Lohberger substantially leading Sherlock for one left seat [UPDATE Sherlock wins]

Contest 2: appears to be Elliot, Behrakis and Zucco for two right seats, incredibly close [UPDATE: Behrakis and Elliot win]

Three incumbents defeated, for now (Bloomfield, Lohberger, Zucco)

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Introduction

This is my specific page for commentary on the 2026 Hobart council count. Comments on other councils and general themes will be found here. Don't expect to see much on this page on Tuesday; there will be more action on Wednesday.

On Tuesday ballot papers will be removed from envelopes and there may be some computer data entry for some large councils but don't expect official figures.  I may have some indications from scrutineers depending on the pace of counting but the main counting activity for Mayors and Deputies together with the start of data entry is on Wednesday. The TEC expects to have a provisional 20% distribution for Hobart on Wednesday night.  These provisional results are what would happen if only the votes entered to that point were used to decide the election.  Usually most of the candidates who are provisionally elected at the 20% stage end up winning, but often some of those elected to the last few positions change.  It is common to see media misreporting that candidates "elected" in these 20% and 50% interim counts have "won" but it is only when the final, 100%, count is done that the winners are official. 

Where the final few seat results in the interim counts are within 100 votes or so (depending on council) then it's possible the winners will change by random sample error alone.  They can also change if a candidate's victory depends on which of two other candidates is excluded at a certain point.  But there is a more important reason why they can change, and it is this:

Stratification Alert!

It's very important to be aware that interim primary vote figures for the various Councils using automated data entry won't necessarily be unbiased samples of the whole count.  Votes do not reach the Electoral Commission in random order, but rather arrive on particular days, and within each day's sample they may be further stratified by post office of origin (for instance).  There will be political differences between the pool of voters who tend to vote early in the count and those who vote late in the count. Also, campaign events that happen during the postal voting period can have more impact during some parts of the count than others.  

The TEC may well make vigorous efforts to reduce this stratification, but nothing will get rid of it completely.   In 2018 a "green shift" was observed in many (not all) councils, with obviously green/left candidates tending to get a final percentage that was around 1.1 times their vote in the first interim count, and righties tending to drop back accordingly.  In 2022 (the first compulsory election) this wasn't really a thing.

Hence when the TEC release primary figures for various percentages be aware that these are not true representative samples and that past experience shows that substantial changes may occur.  (For instance in 2014 one candidate for one council who was not getting elected on the 20% sample was elected in third place, though that's an extreme example.)  Any result that is even remotely close will therefore not be called on 20% of primaries. 

Please note that I only "call" a seat when I consider it virtually certain that the candidate in question has won.  I ask that people not describe me as having called any seat where I have not explicitly used the word "called" for it.  A summary of how I think the counts are going appears at the top of the page.  Updates in each section scroll to the top.   

Hobart Lord Mayor

7:50 Wooley's winning margin is 55-45.  

4:05 Bill Harvey is going to get his moment in the lead and may perhaps cross 10000 on the Posselt throw. But with a lead looking like only 850 and having seen the action on Kelly's votes in the councillor counts there is no way this holds off nearly ten times as many Kelly votes. CALLED Charles Wooley wins vacant Hobart Lord Mayoralty from off council. (This has never happened in Hobart before.)

3:45 Kelly is not gaining on Wooley on Posselt at all. We are just waiting to see how far Harvey will be ahead of Wooley.

2:05 After the Dutta exclusion, Wooley leads Kelly by 673 and has clearly seen off the Kelly threat, Kelly will finish third. After Posselt Harvey will go to the lead and it might be a lead like 2000 but it is hard to see even 3000 being enough. We have seen this movie before. I am expecting that I will call this race for Wooley early in the Kelly throw. 

1:10 Wooley's lead is 582.  Dutta and Posselt have 7918 votes and Kelly would have to close the gap entirely off those but most will be going to Harvey and some will exhaust.  Harvey is just over 1500 behind Kelly but I suspect he will actually take the lead (to Greens calls of "stop the count!").  It will just not be a big enough lead.  

11:30 It's that sort of time in the count where scrutineers look at the piles in the distributions and over and over say "not enough".  Kelly appears to be gaining on Lennon but it's hard to see it being even 200 votes.  After that any gains would have to be off Dutta and Posselt, and I am not sure Kelly would make any gains off either.  [Update 11:55 - well I was wrong, Kelly actually gained 260 but that's still not enough either.]

10:35 Kelly will gain about 84 on Wooley off Zucco but that isn't nearly enough. To win he will need to gain hundreds off Lennon who is out next and then gain more off Dutta and Posselt, a lot of whom will flow to Harvey. Wooley looking very strong now.

Thurs 10:00 Bloomfield exclusion somewhat favoured Kelly and Wooley over the others and increased Wooley's lead over Kelly by one vote. Now the crucial Zucco exclusion and I would say that while Kelly may be gaining here it does not look like a big gain, which will make things very challenging.

11:15 Unknown to me they did do one more throw of Ashdown before knocking off.  Wooley again did better off a left candidate gaining 102 to Kelly's 54.  Wooley now leads Kelly by 922.  Harvey is already over Kelly into second.  Bloomfield is next and that will be an interesting one, one we don't have much information on.  

5:59 However Wooley unofficially gains 13 off Kelly from Bari and the mountain gets a little steeper. Exclusions to come: Ashdown, Bloomfield, Zucco, Dutta, Lennon, and presumably Posselt. Kelly probably won't get much if any help from the left (though he might get some from anti cable car voters) and needs a lot of it from Lennon, Zucco (these two apparently will help a bit) and Bloomfield.

5:42 Unofficially I have Wooley 861 ahead on primaries. Kelly closes by 6 off McShane. If the great Kelly charge can be a thing, here it begins. Bari being excluded.

3:50 I don't know if the issue with the 100 votes from earlier is fixed yet but with the ib person votes added I expect something like Wooley 19.1 Kelly 16.2 Harvey 15.7 Posselt 11.6 Lennon 8.2 Dutta 8.2 Zucco 8 Bloomfield 6.2 Ashdown 4.7 Bari 1.6 McShane 0.6. Making Kelly's task a little bit harder again.

1:55 I had thought the votes being added up for LM were all of them but they're not; there are still votes coming out of envelopes and still the overall picture can move. But while the votes coming in now are quite left I don't think the number being added is huge. The extras being added are in person handins which will skew left.

12:40   Looks like Wooley's lead over Kelly is about 2.7% (+/- 0.4% as there is a routine counting issue being resolved) with about 43.5% of preferences to throw before the 3CP point. That's not impossible to close but challenging with votes spraying, going to Harvey and exhausting. Advantage Wooley?

11:45 While I am in a VEC media briefing another scrutineer has extremely helpfully indicated that it looks like the Wooley pile is 14% larger than the Kelly pile, not 6% larger in the table previously seen, so that's suggesting a lead of something over 2%.  A significant lead but not unbridgeable.  Also with both these two clear of Harvey on primaries (even though I think Harvey will knock one of them out) I don't see how the left can win this.  The new Lord Mayor will be a green-tinged municipal tory, I just cannot tell you which one!

11:10 Rough unofficial totals from one of the five vote throwing tables Wooley 18.6% Kelly 17.6% Harvey 15.8% Posselt 10.4% Lennon 8.9% Zucco 8.4% Dutta 7.5% Bloomfield 6.0% Ashdown 4.6% Bari 1.8% McShane 0.5%.  I suspect Wooley might actually end up a bit further ahead on primaries than this, maybe a few percent.  With the combined left vote around 40% here I really think this is Wooley vs Kelly. I have heard from other scrutineers that Kelly may also be doing well off Lennon as well as Zucco.  He's close enough if he's good enough.

Wed 10:15 Votes are being thrown into boxes and the primary vote order seems to be Wooley, Kelly and Harvey close then Posselt. Ashdown prefs seem to be favouring Harvey over Posselt. If Posselt is knocked out his votes strongly boost Harvey and I suspect Harvey is going to make the final two. Kelly may do better than Wooley off Zucco (the obvious North Hobart vote) but not greatly so. Harvey will need flows on the left to be a lot stronger than on the right to win. I have looked at whether right preferences may exhaust more but so far doesn't seem to be the case 

Tuesday 11:15 My sampling didn't get much further today with Kelly dropping back a little but still ahead.  However on Wooley's strengthening on my councillor sampling late in the night I would not be surprised if Wooley is actually ahead.  In the councillor count I am seeing abundant 1 Kelly 2 Wooley and 1 Wooley 2 Kelly strengthening the case that if one of them is knocked out (which I now lean towards happening) the other wins.  Also if what I have seen on the councillor ballots is representative my previous sample had Harvey low and he could well come up from it.

Tuesday 6:35 I have sampled 500 votes (we'll see how representative these are later) and Kelly leads in my sample but only on 20% and narrowly from Wooley 16.4 followed by Posselt 13 and Harvey 11.8. Earlier it was looking like a right v right top two, maybe less so now but so far the right looks good ... how representative will this be?

Hobart Deputy

LOHBERGER HAS NOT HELD HIS COUNCILLOR SEAT.  DEPUTY MAYOR WILL BE ELECTED ROUND THE TABLE.

Monday: As above.  A perverse result in that Lohberger was certainly preferred to Behrakis by voters, and Sherlock very likely also was although we'll never know, but because Sherlock held her seat narrowly, the left cannot fill the Deputy position unless they can win it around the table on a 5-4 right-left council.  The new Council will elect its Deputy around the table.  

2:42 It's over, Lohberger gained more than four thousand and won by 3439 with 56.87% 2CP.  Close to a 12-point better left-right margin than Lord Mayor - but in one case it's an independent vs a Green and in another it's a well known unofficial Liberal vs a left independent with some crossover appeal.  I will have more to say about related themes when the councillor count numbers are final.

Saturday 12:20 And as with Lord Mayor, Behrakis has not gone as far ahead as he might have, getting just under half of Elliot's preferences.  The lead is 899 and Lohberger will win by thousands.  CALLED.  This is the first time the Greens have missed the final two in the Deputy race since 2005 when they did not contest it.  In that time Helen Burnet won it three times.

Saturday 10:45 And on it goes.  Lohberger now 562 ahead of Sherlock after Wallace.  It's just like the Lord Mayor count in reverse; Behrakis might go 2000 or so ahead off Elliot, whatever it is it just won't be enough as Lohberger will get an enormous flow off Sherlock.  I doubt that Sherlock will even get 562 off Elliot let alone outscore Lohberger on them.  

Saturdaty 9:50 Dale's preferences have been thrown and in a rather stunning outcome given Dale is on the right Lohberger has got more than either Behrakis or Elliot.  Lohberger leads Sherlock by 275, I expect him to gain on Elliot so Wallace is the last chance for Sherlock to make big gains.  

5:20 Johnstone was the last throw of the day and Lohberger has overtaken Sherlock (Behrakis is narrowly back in the lead).  It appears to me that Lohberger is in a rather strong position here, however the exclusion of Wallace as the remaining left candidate will be critical to see if Sherlock can make a somewhat unexpected gain.  Stumps day 4.

4:15 Lohberger is gaining significantly on Sherlock off Johnstone.  At least 50 I'd expect.

3:45 Sherlock will resume the lead off Campbell.  However while she is gaining on Lohberger off Campbell, it's only about 34 votes net.  Sherlock's lead over Lohberger is about 164.   Exclusions to come are Dale, Johnstone, Wallace and Elliot.  These will push Behrakis to a large lead and eliminate one of Sherlock or Lohberger in third. Dale and Johnstone are Liberals and Wallace is Labor, Lohberger is a left indie who appeals to some conservatives on issues like the UTAS move, and Sherlock is a Green.   It's politically logical that Lohberger would gain on all these exclusions and indeed he does get more than Sherlock off the three minor candidates in the councillor exclusions for what that is worth.  However neither will get much off Dale and perhaps not Johnstone either.  The pool of left votes for whoever makes the final two against Behrakis is larger than the pool of right votes, and a lot of this comes from quite a few votes I saw in cutup that had Kelly or Wooley for Lord Mayor with Lohberger for Deputy.  

2:45 Behrakis will take the lead off Alderton but more significantly Lohberger is continuing to catch Sherlock. Sherlock could well get the gains back off Campbell however.

2:15 Final primaries have Sherlock 5449 Behrakis 5416 Lohberger 5251 Elliot 4004. I don't expect the winner today, indeed by the end of this count we could know who of these are councillors [EDIT: That won't happen, Councillor count is likely to run to Monday or Tuesday]. Connor exclusion being thrown.

Friday 12:00 Remaining votes are being counted and my estimate for the votes to be added today is that Behrakis has about 200 more than Sherlock and 300 more than Lohberger. With the votes from last night added including the lot dominated by Sherlock I expect Sherlock to narrowly lead Behrakis and Lohberger with Elliot over 1000 off the pace. If this is true this is good for Lohberger who I think could well win from third if the primary vote margins are modest.  He is currently also best placed to hold his councillor seat.

3:45 Another set of a few thousand was wildly favourable to Sherlock who had as much as her main rivals put together. I think these could have been the drop-in votes but the fact that these even exist bodes well for Sherlock both in this one and the councillor ballot.

Thurs 2:40 The Deputy count has commenced! In the first 1000 Sherlock unofficially leads Behrakis by 4% and leads Lohberger by about 6%. I expect these leads could at least hold to final primaries. If the final two is Sherlock/Behrakis then there are about equal numbers of right and left preferences available. Lohberger does tend to draw some preferences from the right so it's not impossible he'd catch up. 

Tues 11:55 The three main contenders have improved in the councillor count so the risk of the most painful/funniest thing ever (depending on your position) happening is probably less now.  

Tues 6:35 I'm not technically a scrutineer of this count (if someone, anyone, wants to whack me a scrutineering form that would be great - EDIT: thanks to candidates who did this or offered to do so, I will now be street legal for this count tomorrow) but I can report that the masked and anonymous hive mind of the scrutineering forces has detected a surprising new contender ... THE MYSTERY KNIGHT. At the moment nobody seems to be getting a lot of votes here (all under 20%) and while Behrakis has a very slight lead in our samples on Sherlock and Lohberger (who could easily get into the final two and even win on preferences from my sample) with Elliot also not far behind, NONE of these yet look safe in the councillor ballot. So whoever wins will be hanging in for the 100% button press to see if they have two jobs or none.  If the unthinkable happens, the new DLM gets elected round the table with a nice dose of Rats in the Ranks sure to do wonders for the new council's harmony.

Hobart Councillors (9 to be elected)

Monday: IT HAS HAPPENED! Sherlock has leapfrogged Lohberger in the final count and Hobart has no Deputy Mayor pending a round table election.  Zucco also gone.  Examining.  Looks like the handed-in votes saved Sherlock but were not enough to stop the 5-4 split, and Hobart has two women elected (one of whom spent much of the last year hounding the other over the snack saga, and is herself facing possible expulsion.)

This is what has gone down here.  Sherlock care of an improved primary vote survives long enough that one of the blues goes out before her.  In this case it is Zucco.  At this stage the standings are

Dutta 2789.94

Lennon 2610.30

Sherlock 2548.92

Lohberger 2472.99

Behrakis 2378.62

Elliot 2292.32

Zucco (Excluded) 2275.61

So Elliot survives exclusion at this point by 16.71 votes (very close but not recount territory in the absence of concrete evidence of errors).  

One would expect from what we've seen before that on Zucco's exclusion Lohberger might gain enough to get ahead of Sherlock, even though the bulk of his preferences are going to Behrakis, Lennon and Elliot.  Also if there's a multicultural factor some of it should be dampened by Dutta also being in the count.

But somehow (it might be a rotation order effect, but I haven't checked where they were on the rotations with Zucco on top) this does not occur and Sherlock gets 75 votes off the initial Zucco throw of 1914 votes to just 73 for Lohberger.  And although Lohberger then gains strongly on Sherlock off the remainder of the Zucco exclusion and a surplus for Behrakis that's only 500 votes and it isn't enough and Sherlock wins by 47.25 votes.

It's also the end of the road for now for Marti Zucco, first elected to Council in 1992, and the longest serving Councillor for 34 years.  But there could always be countbacks if someone quits or is expelled and he's well placed to fill any vacancy on the blue side.

Sherlock has got up compared to the 50% count because on the final count Harvey's vote went up from 9.0% to 9.6% and hers went up from 3.6% to 3.9%, with the three minor Greens also up from 3.6% to 4.2% while Lohberger stayed on 4.4%.  Overall the final Greens vote is 1.09 times what it was in the 50% count, which is a similar effect to that generally observed for left candidates in 2018 (but not so obvious in 2022).  The extra 1.5% is worth about 450 votes, and though less than half of that flowed on to Sherlock vs Lohberger, just enough did to get her over the line on a near-200 vote margin turnaround.

The left were actually quite close to holding on to five with Elliot finishing on 2926 Sherlock 2633 and Lohberger 2586.  So just in isolation moving 0.76% equally from Elliot to the two candidates behind her results in a 5-4 left-right result.  But accounting for Lennon and Dutta being both short of quota a more realistic swing estimate spread across multiple candidates is 1.07%.

Friday night A post by Thomas Chick has reminded me that the large council counts aren't likely to finish til Monday or Tuesday so a weekend of suspense for the candidates!  

Friday 4:55 Unknown unknowns!  There is a widespread rumour (which I have some basis for considering credible, though not for being certain it is true) that John Kelly is considering quitting his council seat.  If he does, his recount would be very likely to elect the loser of the final seat fight between Elliot, Zucco and Behrakis.  That is significant because Kelly is anti cable car while the others are likely to support it.  

Elliot is facing potential expulsion from the council for a third suspension.  She is still free to take and hold her seat (if she wins) until such time as her appeal fails (if that occurs) and the Minister then decides to dismiss her.  There is a lot of debate about the meaning of "may" in the legislation that states that the Minister may dismiss a councillor with three suspensions - what are the reasons why the Minister might not ever do this?  

Thursday 5:10 The 50% count is up and surprisingly given the 20% where he was looking quite strong Zucco is now losing to Elliot, while less surprisingly Lohberger now beats Ashdown. Examining ... in this one Ashdown is now out before Bloomfield, and more at a point where I'd expect, by 46 votes.  Bloomfield then drops out 133 behind Elliot (this suggests that it's now very hard for either of these to still win). Sherlock is then out and is nearly 100 behind Elliot and Behrakis.  Dutta has done well off Ashdown so is by this stage well up the road.  Ashdown's exclusion is also good for Lohberger who now gets elected off Sherlock's surplus cascading off Dutta.  Lennon is way ahead of Elliot, Behrakis and Zucco and crosses leaving all these three short of quota and Elliot beats Zucco by 21.32 votes while Behrakis beats Zucco by ONE POINT SEVEN FIVE VOTES.  So we are now 21 votes off an all-male council and the alternative is a council where the only female councillor is Elliot.  I'm not sure Sherlock is gone yet - if the hand-in votes are not yet added this is close enough to perhaps still get her over Lohberger.

Thursday morning: I suspect we get a 50% count tonight so the 20% count will soon be history.  It is worth noting that as well as the way Ashdown currently wins being incredibly lucky, Dutta bolts in in seventh but he is actually close to losing too. He benefits for obvious reasons from Sherlock going out, but if Ashdown goes out instead that might save Sherlock and leave Dutta in trouble or in a close contest with Lohberger.  Behrakis too only just wins, outlasting Elliot by 15 votes, which might even change if Ashdown were to go out at this point and before either.  Zucco however seems to be reasonably clear of the fray in this one and is in a good position.

7:50 I hadn't noticed it before but in this provisional count Hobart is three votes away from an all male council!  Two of the three incumbent women had controversial terms.  For Sherlock, a part of her problem is that Harvey and the minor Greens are not doing quite as well as in my sampling, but the bigger problem is that she is only getting about a third of the preferences when the final fellow Green Trenton Hoare is excluded, which is remarkably low.  How much of this is down to her recent arrival in the Greens and how much to snackgate is difficult to say.  

Wed 5:07 A sensational 20% count with Behrakis and Ashdown (!!) provisionally winning and FOUR incumbents (Lohberger, Elliot, Sherlock and Bloomfield) provisionally out. That would be 5-4 for the right but not a majority for the cable car. I will study this very soon. 

I accidentally deleted some analysis here but to recap it Bloomfield is excluded narrowly ahead of Elliot; I am not sure if it makes any difference if it's the other way round. The insane bit is that Ashdown beats Sherlock by 6 votes then narrowly outlasts Elliot then ends up beating Lohberger by 3. The chance that at least one of these falls over is very high unless the count shifts in Ashdown's favour. So this may not all happen.

Wed 2:40 The in person votes being added are likely to drag things somewhat to the left compared with my sampling, boosting whatever chance there is of the left still holding 5. This can't be easy though as Dutta and Lohberger will have few preference sources and a few strong right candidates would be excluded.

Tues 11:20 With more sampling I am now up to a sample of 1000 and on this basis I am calling Wooley and Kelly who I am tracking to break quota, and Harvey who I am tracking to be close to quota but doesn't really need to be.  Posselt is now a strong fourth in my sampling and I expect him to be re-elected but have not called this yet.  Beyond that it's a mess.  I have Lennon ahead of the rest but not by as much as earlier, and I have Lohberger, Sherlock, Dutta, Behrakis, Zucco, Elliot and Bloomfield all extremely close together on primaries with Ashdown not far off these either.  

However - and an irony given his past form in crawling across the finish line - Zucco appears on my sampling to do well off Wooley and Kelly, while Sherlock is bound to benefit from nearly half a quota in minor Greens votes assuming Harvey crosses quickly.  That may lift Sherlock out of that pack and Zucco to the head of the rest of it, but we will see.  Even 1000 votes is quite a small sample for this one.  

Tues 5:30 I've been sampling during the unfolding of the ballot papers and off a sample of 500 the right seems to be doing rather well (also the case in the mayor ballots but I will update with more sampling), at this stage Wooley and Kelly would both get quota if my sampling was accurate. The following are so far also doing well in my sampling: Harvey, Posselt, Lennon. Ignoring the impact of preferences I then have a lot of candidates fighting for at least four seats: Behrakis, Bloomfield, Elliot, Dutta, Sherlock, Zucco, Lohberger and perhaps Ashdown. But 500 is not a big sample and it is always possible the votes seen so far are stratified.

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RANT: SLOPPY VOTING - Sheesh guys and guyettes bang the rocks together! For such an engaged city the quality of some of the votes I've seen today was effing embarrassing and some of you lot should be done for wasting TEC time in coming days. Get in stocks in the sea you people who think voting 1 on the Lord Mayor paper them 2 on the Deputy paper is clever, they're different elections!  (Maybe they should come separately in the pack but then some of you would lose them up your nose or something.) Not far behind can go the people who think the object of voting is to write your 1 so that as uncannily as possible resembles a 7 or even a 2. I saw one LM paper with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and a thing that was probably meant to be a 1 but could as easily be a 7. I'd actually call that informal; how do we know the 1 wasn't on the DLM paper?

Anyway best informal to come that I saw was a vote that went 1 Posselt 2 Ashdown 29 Behrakis 30 Bloomfield 31 Zucco 32 Elliot. Yes, "number at least 5 boxes to make your vote count" but, um, not like that 

2026 Tasmanian Council Counts: General And Councils Other Than Hobart

Numbers noted here based in scrutineering are reports of unofficial sampling and are not results.  For official results see the TEC website.

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Introduction

This is my general page for commentary on the 2026 Tasmanian council counts.  Specific comments on individual councils will be added where time permits below (my main focus being on the Hobart count) and there will also be some comments on general themes.  Don't expect to see much on this page on Tuesday; comments will be added on Wednesday especially on Wednesday night.  I aim to cover all mayoral races at least to the extent of one line.  

On Tuesday ballot papers will be removed from envelopes and there may be some computer data entry for some large councils but don't expect any official figures.  I may have some indications from scrutineers depending on the pace of counting but the main counting activity for Mayors followed by Deputies together with the start of data entry is on Wednesday and first figures are expected by Wednesday night. The TEC expects to have at least provisional 20% distributions for all councils and 50% distributions for smaller councils at some stage on Wednesday evening.  These provisional results are what would happen if only the votes entered to that point were used to decide the election.  Usually most of the candidates who are provisionally elected at the 20% stage end up winning, but often some of those elected to the last few positions change.  It is common to see media misreporting that candidates "elected" in these 20% and 50% interim counts have "won" but it is only when the final, 100%, count is done that the winners are official.   Mayor counts will occur at least to the first primaries stage before the Deputy counts.  

Where the final few seat results in the interim counts are within 100 votes or so (depending on council) then it's possible the winners will change by random sample error alone.  They can also change if a candidate's victory depends on which of two other candidates is excluded at a certain point.  But there is a more important reason why they can change, and it is this:

Stratification Alert!

It's very important to be aware that interim primary vote figures for the various Councils using automated data entry won't necessarily be unbiased samples of the whole count.  Votes do not reach the Electoral Commission in random order, but rather arrive on particular days, and within each day's sample they may be further stratified by post office of origin (for instance).  There will be political differences between the pool of voters who tend to vote early in the count and those who vote late in the count. Also, campaign events that happen during the postal voting period can have more impact during some parts of the count than others.  

The TEC may well make vigorous efforts to reduce this stratification, but nothing will get rid of it completely.  It's also hard to say how compulsory voting might affect it, since the pools of early and late voters will be different.  In 2018 (optional voting) a "green shift" was observed in many (not all) councils, with obviously green/left candidates tending to get a final percentage that was around 1.1 times their vote in the first interim count, and righties tending to drop back accordingly.  This wasn't noticeable however in 2022.

Hence when the TEC release primary figures for various percentages be aware that these are not true representative samples and that past experience shows that substantial changes may occur.  (For instance in 2014 one candidate for one council who was not getting elected on the 20% sample was elected in third place, though that's an extreme example.)  Any result that is even remotely close will therefore not be called on 20% of primaries. 

Please note that I only "call" a seat when I consider it virtually certain that the candidate in question has won.  I ask that people not describe me as having called any seat where I have not explicitly used the word "called" for it.

General Themes: Counting

Count Delay: On Saturday a power outage KOd the northern counting centre (which was already running behind the south) for a few hours.

General Themes: Results

The Turnout Is Fine: There were concerns about the turnout on Wednesday with turnout sitting in the low 70s but in fact that wasn't final.  Turnout is now showing in the mid-80s, a substantial increase on 2022.

The Step Up: It's notable that where there is a Mayoral vacancy and the Deputy Mayor contests it, that Deputy Mayor is winning in several cases, often easily: Circular Head, George Town, Latrobe, Meander Valley and West Tamar

(Not So Much) Mayhem in The Southern Cities: The 20% distributions for councillor feature four incumbents losing in Hobart, three in Clarence, four in Glenorchy and three in Kingborough.  Of course the reduction in council numbers without any reduction in recontesting councillors is triggering a lot of this, but it's impressive how many new candidates are disposing of incumbents even despite the shrinkage.  On the 50% distribution however two of the previously losing Hobart incumbents, one in Clarence, and one in Kingborough were now provisionally retaining.

Party Success:  There is an increase in the number of Mayor and Deputy winners who have known party memberships or strong party/movement ties.  I don't think this is because joining a party has become more of a way to get ahead, rather I think it's because more local government figures were recruited by parties to run in the two state elections in the previous term, both of which were for 35 seats rather than the previous 25.  Considering candidates who are known members of parties, closely associated, prominently endorsed by MPs from parties or recent state or federal candidates (unless known to have left the party), I find the following changes from the 2022 election

(in the form Mayors elected (change) / Deputies elected (change)

Lib 6 (+2) / 5 (+3)

ALP 4 (+3) / 1 (-2)

GRN 0 (=) / 0 (-1)

SFF 0 (-1) / 0 (=)

teal/green INDs 1 (=) / 2 (+1)

none known 18 (-4) / 20 (-2)

(1 Deputy position vacant following Lohberger defeat on councillor ballot.)

The above numbers are very rubbery! In any case no evidence of the Liberal brand struggling in the leader contests at least in the north of the state where Liberal women have had some big wins.  

Specific Councils

Comments on specific councils will be added here, by council in alphabetical order. All mayoral results will be noted when I've seen them.  Selected councillor results will be covered.

Mainly to help me keep track of them I am putting the word "(done)" after each council once its counts are completed.

Break O'Day (done)

Mick Tucker has been easily re-elected as Mayor, winning over 61% against Liz Johnstone.

Brighton (done)

Leigh Gray easily re-elected Mayor, with nearly 70% against John McMaster.

In the 20% councillor count, former One Nation candidate Tenille Murtagh is provisionally losing her seat by 25 votes.

Friday: Final - Murtagh is off Brighton council by 50 votes.

Greg Irons of Bonorong Sanctury has been elected as Deputy Mayor

Burnie (done)

In the 20% councillor count incumbents Ken Dorsey and Alwyn Boyd are losing to Ricky Charles, the other incumbents are retaining. Boyd is only losing by about 30 and may yet recover but Dorsey is well behind. Controversial councillor Trent Aiken is currently on track for re-election.

8:00 Deputy Mayor and former state Liberal candidate Giovanna Simpson has a hefty (9.4%) lead over incumbent Teeny Brumby with three exclusions to come.  It will be interesting to see what happens with former federal Labor candidate Chris Lynch's preferences here.

Thursday 11:40 Mayor Defeated A massive flow from Ken Dorsey has put Chris Lynch over Brumby and Brumby is out in third!  Simpson leads Lynch by nearly 10 points with 26 points of Brumby to decide the outcome.

12:50 Simpson wins Mayor easily.  

Thursday 9:30 On the 50% count Boyd is now surviving over Charles.  He is however only beating Dorsey by 35 so Dorsey isn't gone just yet. 

Tuesday: Dorsey survives and Boyd is out!  What happened here is that in the 50% count Craig Hensley went out before Boyd (who was 54 votes behind him) and elected Boyd over Dorsey.  But this time it is Boyd that is out at this point (by 10 votes) and Boyd's preferences stretch Dorsey's lead over Hensley causing Dorsey to win easily.  Had Hensley been knocked out at that point instead, Dorsey also wins but less comfortably.

Central Coast (done)

8:00 Cheryl Fuller has retained the mayoralty easily with a 2-1 win over former JLN official Glynn Williams.  

Central Highlands (done)

Lou Triffitt after a bumpy term has been returned as mayor with a 53-47 win over Jim Allwright.

Circular Head (done)

Incumbent Mayor Gerard Blizzard taken to preferences but his opponent John Oldaker needs a very strong flow off Melissa Wells.

Update: Blizzard wins.

Clarence (done)

7:45 Wed: The 20% count has Mayor Brendan Blomeley easily topping the poll; I imagine this bodes well for his chances of retaining his position. Incumbents Allison Ritchie, Emma Goyne, Tony Mulder and Wendy Kennedy are all getting back but Heather Chong, James Walker and Daniel Hulme are all currently losing.  New onto council would be the Greens Carly Allan and also Drew Jenner, Zac Morrisby and former state Franklin Liberal MP Dean Young.  However Chong is only losing to Kennedy by 20 votes and Young by 14 so she could yet save at the expense of those two.

Thurs 11:40 Mayor papers were still being thrown recently so Clarence is some way behind the other big southern councils.  First primaries are out and Blomeley has 24.1% from Jenner on 16.3% and Goyne on 14.3%.  24.1% isn't that much for an incumbent but it is a strong field; I don't know if there's any reason to expect there could be any life here.

1:40 Drew Jenner got an absolute stack out of Kerry Heatley and is now only 5% behind; I'll be keeping an eye on this one as Blomeley did not do well on those first two throws.

2:50 Blomeley (an ex Liberal whose party membership was deemed to have instantly ceased when he canvassed to the media that he might run in a state election as an indie) has gained a few hundred on the preferences of Young, a Liberal. Now another Liberal, Walker, but one with a very different Council voting pattern to the Mayor.

5:47 Down to four in the Mayor race (well three as Mulder is eliminated) and it's Blomeley 31.7 Jenner 27.6 Goyne 22.9 Mulder (excluded) 17.8.  Blomeley still has a meaningful lead but hasn't put Jenner away yet and I doubt Mulder will be much use to him (they don't get on, though Mulder is pretty centrish politically these days).  

8:10 MAYOR DEFEATED Drew Jenner defeats Blomeley from off council!  After Tony Mulder's preferences actually slightly favoured Blomeley (which I doubt would amuse Mulder at all) Blomeley was 1586 ahead but got overrun by preferences from Emma Goyne splitting almost two to one (ignoring exhaust) against him.  Wowee.  

Drew Jenner's name is Andrew Jenner but he ran as Drew Jenner to avoid confusion with ex JLN MP Andrew Jenner, who also ran.  Drew Jenner is an ex Peter George group candidate who was also endorsed by retiring Green Beth Warren so that's +1 for the greens/teals.  

Thursday 9:29 Daniel Hulme - a former Labor MP - has made a great recovery from the 50% count dislodging Young from the winners list from the 20% count.  What now happens is that Chong gets cut out (by over 100 so not that likely to change) and this benefits Hulme who in the end beats Walker by 117.  This doesn't look that likely to change either.  

A concession post from Blomeley has been interpreted by some as suggesting he might quit council.

Friday 11:00 No such problems for Allison Ritchie who has a 40% primary as Deputy in a field of five and a huge lead so I need not concern myself with that one.

Monday: And the 50% result is confirmed without further drama, Hulme beats Walker by about 250.

Derwent Valley (done)

A close race for the Councillor final seat on the 20% count with #politas star and ex SF+F candidate Phillip Bigg currently missing out but just 6-7 votes behind two (!) others, including former Mayor and Derwent Liberal candidate Ben Shaw who served part of the last term on Sorell council. Incumbent and former state Liberal candidate Justin Derksen is currently losing his seat.

8:05 Wed: A very close Mayoral primary result with incumbent Michelle Dracoulis on 22.86%, former Lyons Labor state MP Casey Farrell leading on 24.94% and Neil Biggar on 19.85%.  Julie Triffitt has 13.62, Jess Burns 12.1 and Wayne Shoobridge 6.64.

9:10 The 50% councillor count is already up and Bigg is now 30 behind Shaw and 50 behind Browning, so not so competitive but not yet out of it.

Thursday 10: After two exclusions Farrell is now nearly 5% ahead.

11: I can say that Farrell and Dracoulis are the final two.

11:35 Mayor Defeated: Dracoulis avoided exclusion before Biggar by 50 votes but with Farrell leading by nearly 10% Casey Farrell will be the new Mayor of Derwent Valley.  (Update, big win for Farrell, 60-40ish)

Friday 7:35 Councillor count finished.  Former Mayor Ben Shaw - who was on Sorell council for part of the previous term - is back as the last elected, defeated Bigg by just 12.34 votes.  

Devonport (done)

Alison Jarman easily retains mayoralty winning her rematch with former Mayor and Senator Steve Martin close to 65-35

Thursday: It is notable that former JLN MP Miriam Beswick is not even getting onto council at this rate.

Monday: No changes from the previous count in elected councillors, and the final margins were not close.  

Dorset (done)

Mayor Rhys Beattie has been easily re-elected with over 70%.  

Flinders Island (done)

Mayor Rachel Summers has been easily re-elected with 74%.

George Town (done)

Deputy Mayor Greg Dawson leads ex JLN candidate Angela Armstrong by 4.2% for the vacant mayoralty with over 30% from Jason Orr to throw.

8:10 New Mayor: Greg Dawson elected.

Sunday: A very close one for Deputy, Winston Mason over Thomas Gunn by 20 votes.

Glamorgan-Spring Bay (done)

No mayor figures yet but Greg Raspin is dominating the 50% councillor count. This could make life difficult for incumbent Cheryl Arnol on the mayor count.  There's a reasonably close race for the last council spot with Pam Sharpe currently 28 ahead, and Michael Symons currently 19 ahead, of Jenny Walker at the point where Walker provisionally drops out.

Thursday night, yep, mayor defeated: Raspin defeats Arnol with 58.7% after preferences.  

Friday: Final - it was close but Sharpe defeated Walker for the final seat by 15.35 votes.

Sunday: The Deputy result is of some interest, Michael Symons who won easily last time was dumped in third and the new winner is a climate/environment independent Dr Elizabeth Grey.  Symons did however keep his council seat.  

Glenorchy (done)

Sue Hickey has nearly 50% of mayor primaries and has clearly been re-elected.

In the 20% count incumbents Shane Alderton, Justin Stringer, Peter Ridler and veteran Steve King (the first two elected on recounts or by-elections) are all losing with only Sue Hickey, Russel Yaxley and Stuart Slade winning.  Slade over King is 43 votes so might change.  It looks very much like Lachlan McCarthy, the Greens' Nathan Volf, Mala Crew and former Liberal candidate Marilena Di Florio will be coming on to council and for your free entertainment Kelly Sims will be back from contentiously forfeiting her seat in the previous term. 

Thursday 12:40 Hickey is finally over the line as Mayor, I expect the Deputy count to start soon if it hasn't already.   

2:10 The Deputy count is underway and a more even spread of papers I have rarely seen. The primary leaders may be in some order Sims, McCarthy and Di Florio but Slade and Clark are also thereabouts. This will be a very long distribution. I'm scrutineering this but having no idea who the final 2, 3, 4 etc makes it hard to know who to sample!

3:40 Sims will lead Deputy on primaries, narrowly - I have her on about 2667, McCarthy 2464, Di Florio 2300 as the leaders. Some might wonder why McCarthy is not leading when he's bolting in as councillor - the answer is that if someone voted for Hickey then Sims or Di Florio as councillor then some of that vote was used electing Hickey. But Sims and Di Florio are getting these voters' votes at full value for Deputy. Not as many voters voted Hickey-McCarthy.

4:30 Those were not all the primaries; a smaller batch (about 7000 to the previous 20000) is being added now, which I don't think is changing the picture much.

5:00 In anticipation of the final three being as above (though that could be wrong) I did a sample of 3CP preferences of Alderton, Clark, Slade and Stringer (why these? Because they're at the end of the table hence easier). Sims (44) got slightly more of these than Di Florio (38) and both had a lot more than McCarthy (21). Also plenty of exhaust. Small sample (125) but interesting.

7:45 The final primaries won't be posted tonight because of a minor balancing issue but I am expecting the leaders to look something like Sims 3628 McCarthy 3309 Di Florio 3046 Clark 2765 Slade 2219 King 2140 and the others not all of whom I got between 1000 and 2000.  Nobody has 15% and it's just a long long cutup all the way to the flag.  

9:05 The 50% councillor count is up and the provisional winners are the same but Slade over King is down to 30 votes and if I recall correctly King has got out of this hole before.  The remaining councillors appear settled.  

Friday 12:15: the final Deputy primaries are taking a long time to appear because the bottom three candidates are very close together and the TEC needs to be very sure it has the primary numbers right before excluding anyone. 

12:30 We're on to exclusions starting with Marks so I expect the primaries will be posted soon. The preferences aren't doing much and my samples of the preferences of the preferences aren't doing much, it is turtles all the way down. Sims and Clark probably doing best on this throw.

12:40 Yep Clark and Sims the biggest gainers on this one with about 134 each. 

1:50 I'm expecting this count could go into tomorrow but we'll see. Kernke is out with McCarthy making a slight gain on Sims and Di Florio not getting much on either exclusion so far.  Green out now.

2:15 Green preferences not doing much. (Very little change between the top three.)

3:50 Rahat preferences not doing much either.

5:10 McCarthy has gained 63 on Sims off Alderton (Di Florio has also gained 5).  With six candidates left Sims is about 325 up on McCarthy and close to 700 up on Di Florio.  

Saturday 10:30 Update I thought I did last night where I mentioned this contest is IND vs Lib vs ALP (both the latter not officially endorsed) went missing somehow.  Anyway McCarthy ran as a very obviously Labor candidate (several ALP member candidates around the state have run in Labor red despite the party not endorsing anyone) and was personally endorsed by Josh Willie.  Sims has just gained 50 on both opponents off the preferences of Stuart Slade.  Next King, this is the last chance for the bloke vote to show any muscle it may have as after that McCarthy is the only guy left in this count.  This isn't Hobart, indeed Glenorchy seems to have returned a majority female council.

11:00 Sims gains on McCarthy off King as well! There must actually be a chance now that Di Florio knocks McCarthy out (she needs to beat him by 541 off Kate Clark's 5186) and leaves the final two as Sims vs Di Florio.  In either case unles Di Florio gets a really massive share off Clark and goes to the lead, for Sims to lose a major party candidate's voters will have to choose the other major party over her.  

3:40 Sims wins easily! Non-exhausting Di Florio preferences split 62.8% to Sims and she wins with 55.76% 2CP.  That 12-candidate epic is the last of the leadership counts that was still going in the state.

Monday: All over for councillor and Slade retains while King is out after 18 years on council.  King was actually knocked out just over 100 behind Slade and also behind the second Green Suzie Schulz (Greens almost getting two on Glenorchy even despite the reduction, a remarkable result), with Slade going on to beat Schulz by 276 votes.

Huon Valley (done)

Mark Jessop very narrowly leads Labor Huon candidate Abby McKibben for the vacant mayoralty.

8:10 Wed: Jessop leads McKibben by 2.53% with a massive 26.87% from the Greens' Paul Gibson to throw.  Interesting to see what happens with this distribution.  Both the Mayor and Deputy retired at this election.

Thursday 10:00 New Mayor: Wow that was a close one! McKibben got up on Greens preferences by 39 votes!

Saturday 11:20: Councillor count done.  Former JLN candidate Marshall Callaghan is elected to council after leading on the early distributions then missing on the final count in 2022.  

Sunday: Noticed that Debbie Armstrong, a relative of former MLC Robert Armstrong who ran against him for the position, has won Deputy Mayor.

Kentish (done)

No mayor ballot, Kate Haberle re-elected unopposed

King Island (done)

New mayor: and another win for Liberal aligned women in the north, Sarina Laidler wins vacant mayoralty easily after controversially forfeiting her seat then winning her own by-election in the previous term.

Kingborough (done)

In the 20% councillor count, Will Perry tops the poll from former state Liberal candidate Aldo Antolli and returning ex-Deputy Jo Westwood.  Incumbent veteran Flora Fox and Deputy Mayor Christian Street are currently provisionally losing their seats as is Mark Richardson.  On to council would come Teisha Archer, Kim Phillips and Andrew Kerr. The margins are pretty substantial for a 20% count so it will be interesting to see if anything changes.  

New Mayor: In the mayoral ballot Westwood is leading Aldo Antolli 43.33-38.58 with the Greens' Gideon Cordover on 18.09%.  Given what Greens voters think of Antolli, Westwood will be elected.

Thursday 3:35 I omitted to mention earlier that it was obvious from the size of the piles within a minute that Will Perry was winning Deputy from off council. Perry has an enormous primary of nearly 40% and none of the other six candidates including three incumbents has anything much.

Thursday evening: In the 50% count Street now wins instead of Kerr, and Fox is also closer to retaining.  Street wins by 68 votes, which might stand.  It's close between Kerr and Fox as to which goes out first but I don't know if the order matters

Friday 11:00 Perry has won deputy with a majority at the three candidate point saving the TEC from doing a final exclusion.  

Saturday night: Councillor count done and Flora Fox finished 10th but has been defeated (for now, there's always recounts!) after 38 years on Council.  I understand she's the longest serving Kingborough councillor ever and the longest serving Tasmanian female councillor.

Latrobe (done)

New Mayor: Deputy Mayor and recent Liberal candidate Vonette Mead has easily won the vacant mayoralty with 53% in a field of four, defeating former Braddon federal Liberal MP Brett Whiteley.  

Thursday 11:50: In the 30% councillor count (that's a thing) serial council antagonist and former JLN candidate James Redgrave is the highest loser.  The margins are pretty large in that so the town has no need to feel nervous.  I suspect everyone's noticed by now that my posts are mostly stolen song lyrics.  

Saturday: Redgrave just over 100 behind in the 60% count.  

Sunday: Latrobe avoids being under the Redgrave sky by 170 votes.  

Launceston (done)

I've heard that Matthew Garwood is very easily retaining as Mayor. (Update: yep, he got a massive 48.3% in a field of 8 and is currently on 49.99% in the cutup awating another three votes.)

7:30 Garwood has a mere three quotas if you don't mind as councillor on the 20% count.  The recontesting councillors are all winning handily except for Alan Harris who is currently missing out, but is only a few dozen votes behind some candidates who are winning at this point, so this may not be the end of it just yet.  (I haven't looked at the preference dynamics).  On to council but down the elected list would come mayoral challengers Kyle Barrett and Rose Diamond, Labor state candidate Melissa Anderson and former Examiner editor and journalist (later DPAC staffer) Martin Gilmour.  

Thursday night: In the 50% count Alex Britton is now winning instead of Gilmour.  The final seat margin for Anderson over Gilmour is 49 votes which is within the range of results that can change.

Friday 11:00 Suzie Cai has a lead of a few points over Joe Pentridge and Andrew Palmer in the Deputy race.  Her remaining four opponents are all blokes so we'll see if this could be a problem.  

Friday night: Nup!  Andrew Palmer was the primary vote leader (narrowly) but Cai after taking the lead on the first exclusion was never headed.  Cai wins by 1589.  

Tuesday: All over, button press confirms the 50% result with Anderson beating Gilmour for the last seat by just 20.53 votes.  

Meander Valley (done)

New Mayor: Deputy Mayor and state Liberal candidate Stephanie Cameron has had a monster win for the vacant mayoralty with 64% in a field of three.

Northern Midlands (done)

Paul Terrett has a narrow primary lead over Alison Andrews for the vacant mayoralty.  The Mayor and Deputy both retired in this council.

8:50 Andrews now leads by 58 votes with the preferences of Adam Barnett to decide the winner tomorrow.

Thursday 1:00 New Mayor:  Andrews has won a very close race by 69 votes.

Monday: An unusual example of a change from the 50% count to the final count with Nicole Graham who was previously tenth now making it in instead of Joanne Clarke.  Previously Graham was out just behind Angela Offord and Graham's preferences went everywhere meaning Offord was excluded and Andrew McCullagh vs Clarke were the final two.  The flow from Offord to McCullagh was weak and Clarke was the previous winner.  But in the final count Graham's primary vote came up from 5.4% to 6.1% with Clarke up from 6.3% to 6.7% and Offord down from 5.3% to 5.1%.  This meant Offord was out first, and although Graham was still behind Clarke by a few votes at this point the above-mentioned weak flow from Offord to McCullagh now put McCullagh out instead and Graham passed Clarke and won by 30 votes.

Sorell (done)

In the 20% councillor count, replacement councillor Beth Nichols is provisionally out with mayoral challenger Kristian Horvath and Jon Daly in. 

Thurs 1:00 Janet Gatehouse re-elected mayor comfortably, almost 60-40.  Not surprising given the councillor count and the number of councillors whose support bases would likely be closer to Gatehouse than Horvath.

Friday: the final council is as expected from the 20% count, and clearcut in margins terms.

Southern Midlands (done)

Mayor Edwin Batt has been very easily re-elected with 58% in a field of three

Tasman (done)

Mayor Rod Macdonald has been easily re-elected beating former Mayor Kelly Spaulding 60-40.

Waratah-Wynyard (done)

Wed 9:00 Waratah-Wynyard mayoralty is vacant and off-council candidate Chloe Foster has a lead approaching 20% over Michael Johnstone and should be the new mayor easily.  

Thursday 11:45 New Mayor: Foster elected easily, over 60-40.  

West Coast (done)

9:00 Wed: Mayor Shane Pitt has a fight on his hands; he's trailing Lindsay Newman by nearly 10 points, needing a nearly 2-1 flow off Liz Hamer to retain.

Thursday: Mayor Defeated: Newman wins easily

West Tamar (done)

The vacant mayoralty will be won by Rick Shegog or state Nationals candidate Carl Cooper, with Shegog 6.2% up on primaries. (My commiserations to the whole of southern Trevallyn on the lack of a left candidates in this field.)

9:15 New Mayor: Shegog narrowly wins 51.8-48.2.  

There is an amazingly colourful cast of provisional losers in the 20% distribution including SF+F state candidate Michael Frydrych who nearly won a seat in Bass last year, serial candidate Sven "Turtle" Wiener, former Greens candidate then independent Jack Davenport, former Labor candidate Will Gordon who "withdrew" after ballot papers were printed, Mayoral candidate and One Nation member Josh Manticas, recent Greens candidate Charlene McLennan, and incumbent councillor thanks to one of the more insane recount outcomes ever Caroline Larner (a frequent Australian Citizens (ex-CEC) candidate somehow elected on Jess Greene (Labor)'s recount).  Julie Sladden (controversial state Liberal candidate, culture warrior and COVID vaccine opponent) however is on course for comfortable re-election after being elected extremely narrowly last time. 

Thursday night: All the above mentioned are still losing in the 50% count. 

Friday: Sladden elected Deputy Mayor After a very narrow win as Councillor in 2022, Sladden has gone up one rung beating Joy Allen 50.62-49.38 (166 vote margin).  Allen, who declared to Tasmanian Times that she is a Liberal Party member, also lost narrowly to Jess Greene (now a state Labor MP) last time.  

Tuesday: This is the last council going!

10:55 But not for long.  No change from the 50% distribution winners and no close margins.  

Requiring Local Government Candidates To Declare Party Membership

As you're voting in the Tasmanian council elections there's a fair chance that some of the non-Greens candidates on your ballot are also members of a party.  You might have a good idea who some of them are, because they've run in or tried to run in state or federal elections recently, or because they're very open and loud about their party membership (this is the case with a few One Nation members at the moment).  Beyond that it can be hard to find out.  I've listed several of them for Hobart to the best of my knowledge but there are a few I'm not sure about, and there is only one of me and I don't have time to do this work for every council.  

For some councils there will be local coverage of community forums or candidate surveys where candidates may have been asked to disclose if they are a member of any party, and most candidates will actually be upfront about their memberships when asked.  However for the average voter who doesn't know where to look, this information can be difficult to find.  Tasmanian Times has asked candidates what parties they are a member of but several have not filled out the survey, have declined to answer the party membership question, or in a few cases have claimed to be independents when I strongly suspect they are actually party members.  In total, eleven Liberal, eight Labor, two One Nation and one Nationals members have so far publicised their unendorsed party status on the TT survey but of these 22 candidates, nine had recently run as endorsed candidates at other levels, or sought endorsement.  

Attrition Rates In Tasmanian Councils: The 2022-6 Term And The 2026 Elections

At the end of the last Council term I wrote an article called Have Tasmanian Local Council Attrition Rates Increased?  The point of this article was to assess whether Tasmanian councillors had become more likely to quit.  I found that both Mayors and Councillors (especially Councillors elected at the previous election) had been more likely to stand down in 2022 than 2018.

In 2026 there's an obvious reason why Councillors might be more likely to quit: there aren't as many seats.  The number of councillors is being reduced from 263 to 213 so the chance of winning is lower.  On the other hand, the seats pay better.  There has been a decline in the number of candidates (very welcome in the case of the large councils) but there are also more candidates running for mayor or deputy, probably because winning councillor seats is harder so they are more inclined to try to get some extra publicity.

Here are the attrition figures for this term and the upcoming election.  I should note one other change is that in 2022 councils were elected by compulsory voting for the first time.  

Mayors

Of the 29 Mayors elected at the 2022 elections, two were elected to Parliament during the term and three resigned.  Seven are retiring from their councils at the election.  In all 17 original Mayors and four replacements are recontesting their positions, for a total of 21/29 (72.4%) of Mayors recontesting, up from 19/29 last time. All of George Town, Hobart, Huon Valley, Latrobe, Meander Valley, Kingborough, Waratah-Wynyard and West Tamar have a vacancy in the top job.  

Sorell Council Voting Patterns 2022-6

 A few times on this page I have teased readers with the prospect that I could do a voting patterns analysis for a mystery third council this year as well as Hobart and Clarence.  And here it is, the lucky winner is Sorell!  Now, why would I bother analysing Sorell when Launceston, Glenorchy or Kingborough would surely be more obvious candidates, and even West Tamar could be amusing?  The reason I'm doing this is its relevance to the Hobart contest.  For the Hobart incumbent councillors (or recent former incumbents) there's very strong evidence of factionalisation based on their voting record, except for arguably one - but for outsiders they can say whatever they like about how they would vote on council and it is often hard to test.  

This is particularly relevant in the case of Charles Wooley, who a lot of people think is one of the frontrunners to be the next Hobart Lord Mayor.  Wooley has made plenty of comments dismissing right and left wing labels and suggesting he is motivated by "reason".  At the same time his endorsements are coming overwhelmingly from the blue/right side and his signs often appear on the same fences as that side's candidates.  He also self-describes as a "libertarian", a position in Australia largely associated with the right (left-libertarians in Australia tend not to call themselves that), though I am not sure he means it in a Libertarian Party style sense.  Wooley was, however, recently on Sorell Council for a few years and I hoped that his form there would provide a useful guide as to how he might vote if elected to Hobart Council.  In this I was to be largely disappointed, but it didn't take me long, and so here it is, with a warning that this might be the most underwhelming voting patterns analysis ever!  I'm releasing it anyway.  

Clarence Council Voting Patterns 2022-6

Advance Summary

1. Voting on the Clarence City Council in 2022-6 was much less factional than on Hobart council, with also far fewer seriously contested motions. 

2. The overwhelming feature of Clarence council voting patterns in this term is not a right vs left axis but rather the tendency of certain councillors (particularly Richard James) to dissent more frequently than others, while most others seem to vote in a more consensus-like manner even if their views may differ somewhat.  

3. To the extent that there are groupings on the current council there might be considered to have been a slightly right-leaning grouping containing Mayor Brendan Blomeley, Deputy Mayor Allison Ritchie, Daniel Hulme, Wendy Kennedy and Emma Goyne.  There is also a left-leaning grouping containing the two endorsed Greens Beth Warren and Jade Darko, and debatably Bree Hunter.

4. Heather Chong does not fit easily into either grouping as she often votes with the right-leaning grouping but also often votes with one member of the left-ish grouping (Hunter).

5. Removing votes involving the most frequent dissenter (James) does not create a much clearer left-right picture, and indeed shows that the council more has some pairs of councillors who often vote with each other, rather than strong clusters.