Clarence City Council Candidate Guide And Preview 2022

All candidates are directed to the note for candidates at the bottom of this page. 

Introductory Waffle

To see how it goes this year I've decided to expand my detailed coverage of Tasmanian council elections from just one to two, adding Clarence to Hobart.  If it is successful and I have far more time on my hands in 2026 than in this mess of a year I may do even more councils next time.  This guide is similar to my Hobart guide but, partly for time reasons and partly because I don't live there, will be a lot less detailed.  My core aim here is to ensure voters who want to be aware of the past party involvements of candidates have that awareness.  

During the campaign period voters will get official statements by the candidates, with photos supplied by them.  The online version includes web links for those candidates who have submitted them, but surprisingly that's only 17 out of 27.  At the start of this guide I will be including an official web link where a candidate has given one in their TEC statement, and failing that a social media or other web link if I can find one.  Unlike my Hobart guide, I will start with only one link for each candidate, but may add others.

Clarence City Council Voting Patterns 2018-22

(Note: Clarence council guide will be available from about 2 pm  Monday)

Advance Summary

1. This article presents some statistics and comments concerning voting patterns in the Clarence City Council 2018-22.

2. Voting on contested matters on Clarence council has been significantly less factionalised than on Hobart City Council in the same period.

3. While all councillors vote independently and only tend to vote more or less with other councillors, there has been a recognisable "right" grouping of Brendan Blomeley, Dean Ewington and Mayor Doug Chipman. 

4. The most frequent opponent of the "right" grouping is Richard James, followed at some distance by Beth Warren.  James also has a very high proportion of lone-dissent votes.

5. Many of the Clarence councillors do not side especially strongly with one side or the other and some are more or less centrists.

6. The relationship of Clarence council voting patterns with known party memberships or associations is quite weak.

7. A possible "left-to-right" ordering of the 2018-22 Clarence council was James, Warren, Kennedy, Mulder, Edmunds*, Peers (centre), Walker, von Bertouch, Chong, Chipman*, Ewington*, Blomeley.

(* = not recontesting.)