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.  

Unlike Hobart, which has had over 500 contested votes in this term of Council, for Sorell in four years I found ... twenty-nine!  It's very common for a meeting of this council to pass without a single contested vote being minuted.  Furthermore, 21 of these contested votes were lone dissents/"abstentions", with 13 of these being cast by the same councillor, Marisol Miró Quesada Le Roux.  So if I used my usual standard of kicking out the lone dissents/abstentions, I would only be left looking at eight votes, which is hardly any sort of sample size.

A further issue with doing any kind of meaningful voting pattern measurement for Sorell is that the council, of normally nine members in this term, had three mid-term changes of office.  Meg Brown resigned in late 2023 to run successfully for state parliament for Labor and was replaced on a "recount" (countback) by Beth Nichols.  Mayor Kerry Vincent's seat became vacant in May 2024 because he was elected to the Legislative Council seat of Prosser for the Liberals.  Janet Gatehouse fairly narrowly defeated Melinda Reed in the mayoral by-election (which Wooley did not contest) and Michael Larkins narrowly won the by-election for Vincent's councillor seat.  Finally in September 2025 Deputy Mayor Wooley resigned his seat as he was moving out of the municipality and his seat was filled on a recount by Ben Shaw (himself a former Derwent Valley mayor and state Liberal candidate).  Only six councillors have served for the full term and some of these have very patchy attendance records.

Under the circumstances, any kind of percentage table for who votes with who on contested motions is going to be meaningless because of the small sample sizes.  What I've given instead is for/against breakdowns by raw numbers of contested votes where both councillors were present for the vote.  (Note that in Shaw's case he had two lone abstentions counted as votes against; I have not counted him abstaining on motions regarding minutes for meetings before he was on council).  I've also given numbers for how often each councillor was on the winning or losing side of these motions.  In the case of a tie (and there was one) the winning side is the status quo.

(Click on image for larger clearer version.  MQLR = Miró Quesada Le Roux.  "Absent" does not include votes where not on council at the time).

So, some observations here.  Firstly all the original councillors have a less than 50% agreement rate on contested motions with Miró Quesada Le Roux, because of the latter's high lone dissent percentage as a share of all contested motions.  But looking at the motions where this occurred, I am very sure that this is not just a case of one councillor dissenting as a matter of style or attitude; rather it's that this councillor has a different view on some issues to other councillors and just happens to be the only councillor with that view (or who is regularly expressing it on motions that are foregone conclusions) out of nine.  I would call it a more guarded view on developments.  Also I should again note that the number of contested votes on this council at all is really, really low.

Three councillors, Vincent, Wooley and Brown (the three no longer on the council!) always agreed with each other. Gatehouse/Brown and Gatehouse/Nichols are two other pairs that agreed on all motions.  Agreeing all the time with Vincent (a Liberal) might be fodder for those who want to say that this shows Wooley is a closet Liberal, except he also agreed all the time with Brown (ALP).  And again, the sample sizes here are tiny.

Gatehouse went the whole term without being on the losing side of a single vote that I saw, and Brown and her replacement Nichols between them did the same thing.  There was one vote where Vincent and Wooley were both on the losing side and no-one else was, but that was a rather odd vote where everybody else voted to amend a proposal to endorse a proposed Audio/Visual Recording and Livestreaming of Council Meetings Policy to a proposal to lay it on the table.  I tried to make sense of the debate on this item from the YouTube stream but the sound quality defeated me.  

To the extent that Wooley's voting patterns were at all distinctive - including the other case where he was on the losing side of the vote - there were a few votes where he took a less restrictive attitude to development approval conditions (like the magnitude of public space requirements) than some or most other councillors.  While this is consistent with what I'd expect, the sample size is tiny.

Like many other Councils, Sorell has felt the sting of the cutdown in councillor numbers and it will elect only seven this year.  Natham Reynolds, Shaw and Miró Quesada Le Roux are all retiring so there are only six incumbents (Shannon Campbell (a recent state Labor candidate), Gatehouse, Reed, former Mayor Carmel Torenius, Nichols and Larkins) recontesting.