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)

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.  

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.