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.  

Councillors

Of the 263 councillors elected at the 2022 elections, three died during the term.  Eight were elected to parliament, one of whom (Simon Behrakis, Hobart) has since lost his parliamentary seat and is now running for his council seat again.  Two were disqualified from office for missing three meetings, both controversially, but one of those (Sarina Laidler, King Island) was re-elected unopposed to her own vacancy.  The other (Kelly Sims, Glenorchy) is running for her seat back at this election.  At least 26 original councillors resigned this term, one of whom (Charles Wooley, Sorell/Hobart) is now running for a different council.  Another (Mike Wilson, Huon Valley) resigned without taking up his seat.  Of the 224 original councillors to still be on council without interruption, I count 64 who are retiring from their seats at the election, though at least one of these (Richard James, Clarence/Southern Midlands) is running for a different council.

Of the 39 vacancies of original councillors during the term, two were not filled as they were too close to the election (there may have also been some other late breaking resignations I didn't notice here).  Of the 37 councillors elected on recounts or by-elections during the term three resigned during the term.  Another eight have retired, as has one of the replacements for the three who resigned.  Overall 160 original (uninterrupted term) and 28 replacement councillors are recontesting (one of them a replacement for themselves). This number (188/263=71.4%) is in fact very slightly higher than in 2022.  The slightly higher number of mid-term vacancies can be attributed to there being more seats in state parliament now and two lower house elections in the term instead of the usual one.  

Overall therefore the changes to the number of councillors don't seem to have scared existing councillors off recontesting their seats - which is interesting - but they (or something) have scared off more off-council challengers.  The impact of this is quite stark with the number of non-incumbent candidates (including second rounds for unfilled positions) falling from 324 to 253.  

One off-council candidate, Will Gordon (West Tamar), a former twice state Labor candidate, has announced that he has "withdrawn" from the election after nominations were closed.  This means his name still appears on the ballot paper and he could in theory be elected (but presumably won't be); if elected he would then have to formally resign the seat creating the same situation as Wilson where there is an immediate recount for that seat.  

Some examples

Nine councils have had no changes in membership during the term and two councils are having no retirements at the election.  However these aren't the same councils, and some of the councils with no mid-term resignations are seeing as many as four retirements at the election.  The most continuous councils in terms of candidates recontesting are Break O'Day (with one mid-term resignation but no retirements at the election) and Brighton (with no mid-term resignations and one retirement at the election).  

The most depleted Council through the term has been the troubled Dorset council which was suspended for much of the term.  Of its original nine councillors, six including the Mayor and Deputy resigned causing various by-elections and recounts.  One of the replacement councillors also resigned.  However, six of the nine councillors as at the end of the term are recontesting, including two original councillors. Another four councils have only three recontesting full-term incumbents, including King Island and Latrobe who each have five retirements at the election.  Launceston has only four recontesting full-term incumbents.  

I will be covering the Council election counts in coming weeks with a detailed article for Hobart and a separate less detailed article covering general results and several (perhaps even briefly all!) other councils.  

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.  

Hobart Council Voting Patterns 2022-6

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Advance Summary

1. Traditionally, on contested votes the Hobart City Council is loosely divided between "pro-business" councillors and councillors who stress environmental issues and/or the interests of impacted residents. 

2. This term of Council has been highly factional and these patterns have been stronger overall than in previous terms, especially since early 2024.

3. While councillors vote independently on particular motions, all councillors across this term bar one can be classified based on how they most often vote as members of either the dominant "green/left" cluster of councillors or the minority "blue/right" grouping.

4. The only councillor who does not belong to a cluster across the whole term, Louise Bloomfield, initially tended somewhat to vote with the "green/left" side but later in the term has voted far more with the "blue/right" side, and would be a clear member of the blue/right cluster if just the later 2.5 years of data were used.

6. A possible ordering of councillors from "greenest" to "bluest" for the whole term is: Kitsos, Reynolds, Burnet (not currently on council), Sherlock, Dutta, Lohberger, Posselt, Harvey, Bloomfield, Kelly, Behrakis (not currently on council but a candidate), Coats, Elliot, Zucco

7. Each of the "green" and "blue" clusters includes members who are more or less diehard but in this term there was no relationship between this and whether that councillor is a known member of a party or not.

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2022 Hobart Council Count

All figures on this page are unofficial - see TEC for official results when available.

MAYOR (Incumbent: Reynolds):  CALLED (Friday 10:30) Anna Reynolds defeats John Kelly with reduced margin compared to 2018 win.

DEPUTY (Incumbent: Burnet):  Burnet leads Behrakis and will win by very large margin (Called Saturday before final exclusion)

COUNCILLORS (11 recontesting incumbents, 12 vacancies): 

Called: Reynolds, John Kelly (off initial sampling), Zucco, Burnet (off 20% count), Elliot, Behrakis, Bloomfield, Dutta, Harvey (off 50% count)

In The Mix (for three seats): Posselt, Lohberger, Sherlock (these three leading substantially), Fox, Kate Kelly, Briscoe.

Coats, Thomas, Fox, Briscoe currently projected to lose seats.

UTAS MOVE ELECTOR POLL: CALLED No has won.

2022 Tasmanian Council Counts: General And Councils Other Than Hobart

Numbers noted here based in scrutuneering are unofficial. For official results see the TEC website.

Introduction

This is my general page for commentary on the 2022 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.  I will not necessarily cover all councils but expect to have brief comments at least on several.  

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 provisional 20% or 50% distributions for all councils at some stage on Wednesday.  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. 

Have Tasmanian Local Council Attrition Rates Increased?

While looking at a few of the larger Tasmanian councils in preparation for an interview I was surprised by how few incumbents were recontesting in some of the councils.  Launceston, with only seven out of 12 recontesting, and Glenorchy with only five out of ten, especially caught my eye.  Hobart with 11 out of 12 recontesting started to look unusual.  I couldn't help wondering if the proportion of councillors throwing in the towel in Tasmanian local government elections was rising, and as if I didn't have enough to do, I couldn't resist investigating it.

This is what I found.  The following numbers may have some slight errors (eg if I have been tripped up by a councillor's name changing without my knowledge) but any errors won't greatly affect the overall picture.

The 2014-8 term was the first four-year term for councils that was formed by all-in-all-out elections.  The 2018-22 term has also featured all-in-all-out elections but a noticeable difference is that in the 2022 election, voting is compulsory.  One council (Glenorchy) had its 2014-8 term shortened by several months and its 2018-22 term lengthened after an election was called early to fix a council that had become dysfunctional.  

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.)

Hobart City Council Elections Candidate Guide And Preview 2022

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

Introductory Waffle

As perhaps the biggest (in terms of advance action) campaign ever ramps up, here is my resource page for the 2022 Hobart City Council elections.  This guide (like my 2014 guide and 2018 guide) includes a list of candidates who are running for the Council for the 2022-26 term.    The guide includes brief bio details and links, descriptions of candidates' past electoral form (where any) and some vague speculation about prospects.  It also covers the campaign generally, polling and the related elector poll.  All sections will be updated regularly as time permits and more information comes to hand.

During the campaign period voters will get official statements by the candidates, with photos supplied by them.  The online version will include web links.  This piece is published first for the interest of those who don't want to wait for the candidate statements, but will stay up to present a less filtered view of candidate backgrounds. 

Donations to cover my time in writing this guide are very welcome - but not from HCC candidates or their direct connections during the campaign period.  There's a PayPal button on the sidebar or you can email me for bank account details. Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to.  

Hobart City Council Voting Patterns 2018-22

Advance Summary

1. Traditionally, on contested votes the Hobart City Council is loosely divided between "pro-development" councillors and councillors who stress environmental issues and/or the interests of impacted residents. 

2. This term of Council initially continued the pattern of the previous term in which councillors voted fairly distinctively and voting patterns were hard to firmly classify.

3. From around early 2020, however, the Council's voting on contested motions became far more factionalised, at the same time as such motions becoming less common.

4. As a result, while all councillors vote independently on particular motions, all councillors in this term can be classified as at least overall leaning towards the "pro-development" ("blue") mindset or its opponent ("green").  

5. Indeed, this term has seen some of the most polarised patterns in voting on contested motions in the last several terms of Council.

6. A possible ordering of councillors from "greenest" to "bluest" in this term is: Burnet, Harvey, Dutta, Reynolds, Fox, Sherlock, Sexton, Briscoe, Thomas, Denison (no longer on council), Coats, Behrakis, Zucco. 

7. Each of the "green" and "blue" clusters includes both more diehard members who are usually party-associated and also a more moderate sub-group.  

Tasmanian Local Government (Elections) Amendment Bill 2022

Some quick comments, which will be updated with comments on the debate (if any) surrounding the Local Government (Elections) Amendment Bill 2022, which is on the notice paper for introduction into the House of Assembly very soon.

Council elections are due to be held in October this year.  This Bill would make the following changes:

(i) making voting compulsory

(ii) reducing the number of boxes a voter must number correctly for a valid vote from up to 12 (varying by council) to 5 (votes with errors in numbers beyond 5 will be formal under savings provisions.)

Of these, (ii) is a critical and necessary change to the voting system, whether or not (i) is passed.  If (i) were to be passed in the absence of (ii), it is likely (ii) would become even worse.  I've always been ambivalent at best about compulsory voting in council elections but I would greatly prefer to see this Bill as it is passed than to not see (ii) passed; I also think the case for compulsory voting is better now than it has been in the past.  

Down The Rabbit Hole: The Glamorgan-Spring Bay By-Election

An odd Tasmanian council by-election is currently going on that has caused the Tasmanian Electoral Commission to issue not just one but two explanations of the counting process and the consequences of the election.  This seems weird enough for a suitably niche look at what this fuss is about, which I will update with the results when they are known.

Glamorgan-Spring Bay municipality covers much of the east coast of Tasmania, from Bicheno in the north to Maria Island and a random looking line through the Weilangta forest in the south.  The council has a recent history of turbulence.  In 2014, high-profile former supermarket boss Michael Kent defeated flamboyant incumbent Bertrand Cadart for the top job.  Kent hence became the first and in 2014 only candidate to successfully take advantage of a rule change allowing candidates to run directly for mayor without prior council experience.  However, Kent's term as mayor saw frequent infighting and controversy and he finished last in the 2018 mayoral election.  Both Kent and Cadart have since passed away, in 2018 and 2020 respectively.

Debbie Wisby was elected the new Mayor in 2018 but has since faced allegations of bullying, harassment and misuse of funds (which she denies) and has been criticised over the renting out of a short-stay property to council staff.  The council was issued with a performance improvement direction in recent months, and now Wisby has resigned the mayoralty and from the council.

Wonk Central: The Hare-Clark Recount Bug and the Wangaratta Case

Welcome back to Wonk Central, this site's sporadic series of articles that have been deemed too mathsy, too quirky or too niche for remotely normal human consumption.  In this case, it's clearly all three.

In this episode we take a very close look at the Hare-Clark Recount Bug (which could also be called the Hare-Clark Countback Bug, but "recount" is the term confusingly used for countbacks in Tasmanian law). What is it, why don't we kill it, and is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?  The impetus for this article is a recent court case in Victoria, in which a candidate disadvantaged by the bug in a Wangaratta Council countback in 2017 took legal action but lost.  Among other tries, the plaintiff (a local doctor, former soldier and Australian Country Party candidate in last year's state election) claimed that the use of a countback method that disadvantaged him deprived him of the human right to take part in public life.  

For various reasons, the judgement didn't get into the weeds of whether the countback system in use was fair or whether there was any better alternative.  Therefore, let's go there here.

Hobart Building Heights Elector Poll

On Monday the Tasmanian Electoral Commission released the results of a voluntary postal elector poll about building heights in the Hobart City portion of Greater Hobart.  This non-binding elector poll has been something of an oddity with a lot of commentary making various claims about it so I thought I'd say a few things about it too.

The turnout

The elector poll attracted a response rate of 42.39%.  This compares to the response rate of 61.94% at the 2018 Hobart City Council election, however that was a record high turnout for Hobart, which had never been above 55.5% before.

I have found data for fourteen previous elector polls going back to the mid-1990s, of which six were held concurrently with council elections and eight were held separately.  Of the eight held separately, I have comparable data for six, and of these turnouts ranged from 83% to 109% of the previous election's turnout for that council (in many cases I have had to use raw turnout figures as I cannot find enrolment data at the time of the poll).  So this elector poll at 68% of the municipality's previous turnout has the lowest comparative turnout rate - and this would be so even without Hobart's 2018 turnout spike.  Issues in comparable elector polls included amalgamation, a proposed major pulp mill, whether to move a council's administration, whether to change a council's name, the location of a waste disposal site and options for a lawn cemetery.  To complete the set, other issues that have been canvassed in elector polls have included water supply and pricing options (including whether fluoride should be added), and the boundaries of a municipality.  It's notable that one of the three pulp mill polls occurred in Hobart, about 200 km away from the pulp mill site.

Tasmanian Local Government Reform Proposals (2019)

The Tasmanian Government has been conducting a detailed review of local government legislation in the state, including electoral rules.  This week this took a major step forward with the release of the Reform Directions Paper.  This outlines a series of possible changes that, based on further feedback, may then appear in the government's draft legislation.  Many of the suggested changes are excellent, in particular reducing the number of boxes a voter must number on the councillor ballot for a valid vote.

My main reason for writing this article is to raise major concerns about some of the proposed options for electing mayors.  The paper gives four possible options for mayors, one of these being the status quo (the mayor is elected directly, anyone enrolled in the council area can run for mayor, the mayor must be elected as a councillor to serve as mayor).  While the status quo has some issues, I don't like any of the three alternatives much, and two of them are especially unsound.  I am writing this article mainly to provide detailed reasons as to why these options are bad, and I encourage anyone who wants to to use these arguments in their submissions, or add others.  While I'm doing this I may as well comment quickly on other aspects of the paper.

There's plenty of time to send a submission with submissions not due until 30 September.  For some reason the official closing time for submissions is 5 pm.  

2018 Hobart City Council Count (With Some Coverage Of Other Councils)

The number above appears at the top of my coverage to highlight the final informal vote rate for the Hobart City Council councillor count, as a result of absurdly strict formality requirements. Launceston (7.94%) and Clarence (7.24%) are not far behind.  

This level of informal vote as a result of absurd legislation is a farce, an insult to democracy, and a threat to the legitimacy of seats being decided by a handful of votes.  The informal rate was 100 times the final seat margin in Hobart.

I call on the state government and other parties in the Lower House to immediately and publicly commit to fixing this problem.  The current government did not create this problem, but the problem should have been fixed after the last election four years ago.

Coverage follows below.

Note added Saturday night: I will be mostly offline for the coming week (Nov 4-10) so comment clearance will be slow.

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Introduction (from Tuesday)

Welcome to my live coverage thread for the Hobart City Council count, which will also have some comments on other councils when I find time to look at them.  My Hobart candidate guide and preview was here and has probably been viewed by about 20% of Hobart voters.  Updates will be added below the dotted lines; check back regularly through the week for comments.  These introductory comments will stay at the top, there are also some more detailed introductory comments at the bottom.

Ways To Improve Tasmanian Council Elections

On Tuesday I voted in the Hobart City Council elections.  (By the way, if you haven't voted yet, you might want to take your vote direct to your local council centre.) After following this election for months, including researching the candidates and writing a guide to the election it still took me 70 minutes to fill out my ballot papers, albeit with a little live tweeting of my thought processes on the way.  I'm not even convinced I did all that good a job of it, and suspect it would have taken me 3-4 hours to come up with a vote that was the best I could possibly do.  If it wasn't for the fact that there are always people who need putting near the bottom, I would have been wondering why I even bothered.

Council Voting - Please Be Careful!

I've already made this point in my Hobart guide but I thought I should make it prominently in a separate post to cover all councils.  Please feel very free to share and spread widely.

A scourge of Tasmanian council elections is the high rate of informal voting.  Informal votes are votes that are returned but cannot be counted as they are not valid votes.  The main reason the informal voting rate is high is that voters make mistakes and the rules concerning this are stupid.  The reason the rules are stupid is that governments have failed to fix them.  The previous Labor/Greens government ignored warnings that bringing in all-in all-out elections would cause a high informal voting rate under the current system. The current Liberal government has so far done nothing to fix it.  The Local Government Act needs to be reformed to provide savings provisions for voters who make honest mistakes.

Hobart City Council Elections Candidate Guide And Preview 2018

Note added 30/11/22: this page was unpublished by Blogger on 28/11/22 after, as best I can determine, an unknown link was found to go to a site that now contained malware.  I have resubmitted the page with all external links removed for posterity.  A version with links is available on the Wayback Machine (access at own risk) or can be supplied by email (ditto).

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


Introductory Waffle

With some rather expensive looking corflutes already cropping up in parts of the city, it's time to start my resource page for the 2018 Hobart City Council elections.  This guide (like my 2014 guide) includes a list of candidates who are running for the Council for the 2018-22 term.    The guide includes brief bio details and links, descriptions of candidates' past electoral form (where any) and an attempted assessment of prospects.  All sections will be updated regularly, but there will be lags of a few days at times between Sep 25 and Oct 7.

During the campaign period voters will get official statements by the candidates, with photos supplied by them.  The online version will include web links.  This piece was first published for the interest of those who don't want to wait for the candidate statements, but will stay up to present a less filtered view of candidate backgrounds.

Donations to cover even some of my time in writing this guide are very welcome - but not from candidates or their direct connections.  There's a PayPal button on the sidebar or you can email me for bank account details. Please only donate if you are sure you can afford to.