2022-11-07: Start As You Intend To Go On

Here we are, then, after the election. All the votes have been counted¹ and we have a new set of twelve councillors. Some are familiar, some are new, one is returning from absence. All were gathered in the chambers on Bligh Street, as the CEO opened proceedings with the declarations of office. One thing is certain:

We’re going to need a third frame on the wall.

Declaration of Office²

I, [full name], having been elected as Councillor to the Clarence City Council, do solemnly declare that I will

(a) faithfully carry out the functions and exercise the powers vested in me by virtue of that office to the best of my ability and in accordance with the law;

(b) comply with the Council’s code of conduct;

(c) engage in ongoing professional development; and

(d) abide by the principles of good governance.

Declarations were made first by the mayor, Brendan Blomeley, and deputy mayor, Allison Ritchie, then by the remaining councillors in order of election. As the mayor left his opening remarks until the end of the procession, however, we here on the blog will start with:

[A disclaimer, actually. Some speeches have been edited for length.³ Seats were selected by councillors as they made their declarations and may not reflect final arrangements. All charts derived in part from TEC data.]

Councillor Allison Ritchie, Deputy Mayor (elected 4^th, 0.99 primary quotas)

It’s a strong first showing for the former Legislative Council representative for Pembroke, who only barely missed election as Councillor on primaries, and led the deputy mayoral election from the first count all the way to the end.

I look forward to working with you all on behalf of the community, and particularly at a time when we are all navigating many social and economic issues, from COVID-19, globalisation, growing mobility, the increasing interconnectedness of communities online, and so many other factors that have changed the way that people live, work and identify with their local area.

I’m looking forward to getting down to work utilising my skills as a former state MP and government minister to strike the best balance between manintaining a strong financial position and delivering the essential Council services and infrastructure that our community will require for future growth and prosperity.

I’d like to thank the members of the Better Clarence Team: Mayor Blomeley, Anthony James, Noelle Harb, and Kaye McPherson.

Speaking of that ticket, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag. While the campaign has successfully elected both its preferred mayor and deputy mayor, the remaining members (marked in red in the chart below) have flown almost completely under the radar, and received next to no support from either Blomeley or Ritchie.

It also remains to be seen how cohesive the new executive will be. Ritchie is a former Labor member, and Blomeley is about as big-L Liberal as you can get without ever having been elected or run as such.

Councillor Tony Mulder (elected 1^st, 1.50 primary quotas)

In the end, 533 votes separated Mulder from a seat at the executive table. Personally, I feel like the flow from Chong’s distribution should have been a little better, but such are the whims of democracy.

Our collective jobs as Councillors, in my view, is to deliver the best possible social and physical infrastructure for the people of the eastern shore. It is our paths, roads, reserves, local sporting facilities, play parks and tracks that enhance our lifestyle, and that contributes to our health and wellbeing.

But we must do this with a limited revenue base, namely the rates paid by the citizens of Clarence. We must resist state government attempts to cost shift their responsibility to us. Although we can assist and cooperate, public transport and social housing and, indeed, the health system are not our responsibility, and what’s more we lack a revenue base to do any of the heavy lifting.

We are not a government at all, in my view, we collectively occupy the treasury benches.

Which does seem largely accurate, though he does tend to harp on about it.

Mr Mayor, your job is to manage meetings and to ensure that all aspects of a debate are fairly heard and considered. The chair is not a position from which to steer the debate, but indeed to manage it, and you, Mr Mayor, have the quite often difficult job of representing the will of Council, and sometimes that will involve you presenting a case which you do not personally favour, but you, Mr Mayor, you do not rule us, you do not even lead us in that sense, but you must represent our collective view, and that sometimes can be a tough job.

Mr Mayor, I call upon you and your administration to honour your election promises, conduct yourself in a statesmanlike manner, indeed as we all should, tolerate diversity and treat all with respect.

Mulder and Blomeley have what could generously be described as a history of animosity towards each other. This particular speech⁴ seems rather tame, but past performance is no guarantee of future results. It could be a very long four years.

Councillor Heather Chong (elected 3^rd, 1.10 primary quotas)

In the mayoral race, Chong received strong preference flow from Beth Warren, but both had started from a couple of thousand behind Blomeley and Mulder, and ultimately it wasn’t to be. Her remarks are brief:

Could I just start by congratulating everyone who’s been elected to Council? I know how difficult it is to get on to Council and for those that have been here before it is not an easy job to do, so congratulations.

I want to thank the community and family that have supported me in all the work that I do here, and I look forward to working with all of you in an ongoing and collaborative way to do the best for all our community over the next four years.

Councillor Wendy Kennedy (elected 5^th, 0.82 primary quotas)

Kennedy came second in the deputy mayoral race. The margin was considerably bigger than in the mayoral. While that race could’ve gone either way, this had that unmistakable sense of inevitability from about the middle of the process. Regardless, it’s a good result for Kennedy in the councillor ballot, maintaining her 5^th place from last term, and slightly bolstering an already excellent primary count.

Very briefly, I’d just like to congratulate all those people that have elected to Council and those people that have been re-elected. Not easy running a campaign, and I admire all of you for putting your hands up in the first place.

I know exactly how our new colleagues felt four years ago and it can be a little daunting, but we’re all here to help and what I really look forward to is working with a respectful cohesive group of people.

Councillor Beth Warren (elected 6^th, 0.85 primary quotas)

Well it has certainly been a good year for Greens candidates in local government, a few losing out to the whims of democracy, but more coming in to fill ranks. This is especially true in Clarence City, Hobart City and Huon Valley, where two each were elected.

The first returns from her first run on last term’s Council, with mild dips in both order of election and primary count, but this feels like noise to me more than anything else. This seat seems relatively safe for Warren, and the mayoral loss hopefully isn’t too disappointing.

When I first stood in this chamber four years ago I really had no idea what I’d signed up for, but the people of Clarence elected me on a platform of transparent and accountable government, listening to the people and protecting their views, and protecting our special places.

Some of the things I want to concentrate on this term are making sure: That [all] ratepayers feel that their rates are being spent in a way that benefits them; That Clarence is accessible and welcoming to everybody; That we build resilience for both our community and our infrastructure for dealing with those more severe storms, flooding and bushfires that we’re facing as a result of climate change.

Councillor Bree Hunter (elected 7^th, 0.66 primary quotas)

Looking at the Clarence benches as a whole, it’s been a very good year for both women⁵ and the left side of the aisle. I’d give this Council a 7-3-2 split⁶ for the time being, but I’ll be looking at that very carefully over the next four years.⁷

Hunter comes to Clarence after nine years working for Hobart in various capacities. Running for deputy⁸ on one’s first attempt is an ambitious play, and while it hasn’t worked here, third is nothing to sniff at, especially in such a large field. Primaries on the councillor ballot are not especially worrying, but really, anything can happen once you hit the bottom half of the winners.

The last time I sat in this room in a formal sense was three and a half years ago when I became a citizen of Australia.⁹ I was so proud at that moment to be a part of this country, and it made me realise that I wanted to be a part of the community and to represent them to the best of my ability.

Fortunately, at that citizenship ceremony I spoke to Heather Chong, Julie Collins and David O’Byrne, and they inspired me to serve, which, here I am now with this amazing opportunity and I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here.

Councillor Jade Darko (elected 8^th, 0.64 primary quotas)

A win for diversity and Clarence’s second Greens councillor come with the election of one Jade Darko, who, if she isn’t the first person elected to any political office in Australia while openly out as a transgender women, as she believes¹⁰, it must surely be a very short list. She swiftly sets out her stance:

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered here today on the stolen land of the Mumirimina people, and that this theft of land occurred through an act of genocide at the end of a musket. I commit myself to upholding the process of healing and reparation to the Palawa and Pakana, the rightful custodians of this land.

Historically, Clarence has had, let’s go with trouble¹¹ reckoning with the violent and destructive history of the land where it sits. I think this new council will be a little better about it, but there are no guarantees in local politics.

I would just like to say I’m deeply, deeply humbled by having been trusted by so many of the voters of Clarence to stand here and represent them. It’s truly an honour, and I commit myself to uphold the values on which I was elected, the Greens’ values of social justice, of standing up for the most marginalised in our community, of looking into what we can do with the state government to address the housing and health crises, of upholding the values of democracy, and of what we can do in Council to address the environmental issues that are facing us all, including the urgent, urgent action we need to be taking on climate.¹²

Darko is the only councillor this term to have been elected without also running for either mayor or deputy. Like Hunter, her primaries are probably high enough to win again next term.

Councillor Daniel Hulme (elected 9^th, 0.50 primary quotas)

Now, though, we’re really digging deep. Hulme returns to Council after losing his seat in 2018 on 0.27 quotas. It’s a solid comeback, but at that same election, Peers and von Bertouch had 0.52 and 0.53, and they’re both gone now.¹³ The moral of the story? Preference flow is everything.

It’s great to be back, I’ve been plotting my comeback for about four years. I was on Council previously, for those of you who don’t know, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to use some of the experience that I’ve gained through serving as your representative in the pursuit of the things that I want to achieve.

I believe that Clarence is an amazing place. We have some fantastic natural assets in terms of our coastline, access to the airport, we’ve got a lot of advantages that I believe we can leverage to achieve some amazing things. I would like to use my time as councillor to look at how we can address a number of challenges, but three in particular that I campaigned on and would like to focus on during my term are economic development, housing affordability and traffic congestion.

Councillor Richard James (elected 10^th, 0.46 primary quotas)

A bit of a knock for James here, coming down from 4^th and 0.76 quotas at the last election. How’s he come down this far? If I were to speculate, I’d probably suggest that he’s been squeezed by more moderate candidates,¹⁴ but it’s really impossible to tell without a deeper dive than I have time for right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m back. It’s been a long long time since I first came into this place in 1984, and would you believe that the seat that I’m in now was where I was basically appointed next to Councillor Bernie Denham. I think what has happened over the years is that it just seems to be natural for me to help people, regardless of their status, regardless of their opportunities in life and so on.

I have always put the people first, and that hasn’t always been what I believe is appropriate, but that’s the nature of the beast, and that’s the way I have always continued, and I would continue to do so.

I think the night in 2017 was a really important time for this Council, and I just want to make a quick comment about that, because 2017, in my view, was the turning point in relation to what the community thinks and how the community responds to the Sale and Development Agreement with Chambroad. I’m not going to go into any detail about that because the matter is still before this Council, Mr Mayor, only to say that at that time I believe that it was necessary for me to oppose that on the basis that I felt it was too big, and therefore it was out of keeping with the area.

Even though, sort of, over the years we’ve had a very concentrated number of people that have really got behind elected representatives, I think this compulsory voting has really made a change to what I thought and what others have had as far as expectations, so it’s something new and it’s something that I think we need to be able to be wary of if we are seeking re-election.

Councillor James Walker (elected 11^th, 0.36 primary quotas)

Walker also takes a dip from 10^th and 0.47, and his primary count is the lowest of those elected, but steady preference flow kept him in the mix right through to his election by default along with James and Goyne. Still though, the numbers have been slipping since his election by recount in 2011. Definitely something to watch four years from now.

Clarence is my home. It’s where I was brought over as a five-day-old on a ferry, where I was raised, where I work, where I’m raising a family… Now it’s home, and it is a privilege, as everyone around this table has acknowledged, to be able to represent this wonderful community. This hasn’t been a straightforward one but I’m just delighted to be back.

I’d like to acknowledge former Mayor Chipman, who was the only mayor I knew for over a decade. He was very impartial around the chair when he was at the table, he was a good mentor for advice, and in my professional opinion, you do have big shoes to fill. I’d also like to pay tribute to the colleagues that aren’t around the table from Councils past that recontested.

I also thank the other unsuccessful candidates for giving the voters some choice. Unlike my colleagues to my right, I guess I’m more freedom orientated and I’m one of the minority of Australians that think voting shouldn’t be compulsory, that we should be treating people like grown-ups, like most platinum western democracies.

There’s a lot to sort of think over for what we hope to achieve in this term. It’s going to be a challenging term. Inflation is going to make the job so much harder, especially in the space of infrastructure and maintaining services. Some people like to talk about keeping rates low. I think the focus that we should have is delivering value for rates, and through value for rates ensuring that we defend the quality of life of our residents and ideally enhance it.

Local government and state government should be acting as laboratories of democracy. We shouldn’t be trying to go out there and say all councils have to deliver the same service and use the same rating systems. When we do things well we should bolster it, when we don’t we should learn from others and take that on board.

Councillor Emma Goyne (elected 12^th, 0.44 primary quotas)

I think I’ve gone on enough about the whims of democracy, but this was a disappointment. Goyne was One Nation’s candidate for Lyons¹⁵ in the 2022 Federal Election. She got 5.35% of the first preferences there, which wasn’t nearly enough, and 0.44 quotas here represents 3.38% of Clarence voters, but preference flows gonna flow, especially in these high seat count ballots.

How much Goyne subscribes to the political philosophy of that most inflammatory of parties is unclear to me, both ON and UAP were basically running whoever’d sign up, chasing every House seat in the country and winning exactly none. The win here tells me the association didn’t really get through to voters. Still, 12^th is a difficult seat to try and build momentum from…¹⁶

Much like everybody else has already said, I’d just like to congratulate yourself, Mr Mayor and Deputy Mayor on your appointments. I want to say that having been born, raised, educated and run family businesses on our shores my entire life, I am absolutely honoured to now have been elected to serve the community of Clarence, and I look forward to working with an absolutely fabulous group of people. I can’t imagine people that were better to work with for the community and for everything that we hope to achieve.

Well that’s as good a start as any towards changing my mind.

Councillor Brendan Blomeley, Mayor (elected 2^nd, 1.49 primary quotas)

…So. While Blomeley was my absolute last choice for Mayor, it’s hard for me to deny that this has been a wildly successful election for someone who just four years ago was 12^th elected, and by a slim margin too.¹⁷ The election of Blomeley¹⁸ as Mayor stands in stark contrast to the leftward shift of the rest of the Council. What does this mean for the term ahead? Gee, would I ever like to know. The first big challenge sits just a couple of meetings away.

Well colleagues, congratulations. To have been elected to serve the people of Clarence is a significant honour and privilege, and we all deserve to be justly proud of our electoral success. As I look around the chamber this evening, I am impressed by just how different a place this is to the chamber I was first elected to some 22 years ago.

The citizens of Clarence have spoken clearly, having elected a team of twelve strong, committed and talented individuals, who all bring extensive professional and life experiences to draw upon. We also celebrate the record-breaking election of seven women to this Council. I did some numbers earlier tonight, I think that’s equal best in the state which is absolutely fantastic.

I’m sure we would all agree that with privilege comes responsibility. I’m mindful that although we come to this chamber with our own perspectives and views on how to make this city a better place, my number one desire for the duration of this term of Council is that we always turn up as our best selves. As I said on Friday at our agenda briefing, my aim is that the next four years is a period of real achievement for our city, so that in October 2026 we can all proudly look back and point at tangible wins for our community.

On a personal note, I would to thank all those who placed their trust in me and elected me Mayor of our wonderful city. The support from all corners of our city has been truly humbling, and the honour and responsibility is not lost on me. I am excited to be leading this new era of Council as we tackle some big challenges and big opportunities for our region in coming years. Please know that I will at all times strive to serve our city well and make decisions that I truly believe are in the best interests of our residents and ratepayers.

Well, we’ll just see about that, won’t we. The councillors declared and the speeches dispensed with, the new mayor calls a five minute recess to let the friends and family file out.

Ten minutes later, we’re back on. The meeting proper is thankfully brief. It opens, as usual, with the acknowledgement of country, the council prayer,¹⁹ and the recording disclaimer. The certificate of election and councillor’s declarations are acknowledged. Things are going relatively smoothly until Councillor Mulder raises a point of order before the Mayor can get into the swing of the Omnibus Items, which are usually voted on as a package deal.

Mulder’s issue pertains to the confirmation of minutes. Philosophically, I agree with his point that new members should not be voting on the minutes of meetings they did not attend, but as a result of various interactions of the mechanics of voting, I can’t agree with the raising of the point. To explain why, I’ll need to drag out another chart.

The Local Government Act and the Local Government (Meeting Procedures) Regulations combine to impose the following requirements on votes at meetings of the full Council:

1. In order to act on business, a quorum of members must be present. For a full Council meeting, quorum is an absolute majority of its members. An absolute majority is the smallest whole number that is more than half those being counted. (4 out of 8, for example, is not an absolute majority, but 5 out of 9 is.)

2. For a motion to be carried, a simple majority of members must vote for it. A simple majority is an absolute majority of those present.

3. If a member is present, but does not vote (abstains) their vote is considered to be a vote against.

The chart shows the 29 councils of Tasmania, and the proportion of their members who could feasibly have been present at the last meeting of their previous iteration. The top group, marked in red, could not have confirmed their minutes if they agreed with Mulder. If the new members all left the room, quorum would be lost, and if they all abstained, the motion would be lost as a tie or worse. You could have some leave and some abstain, but that’s rather a lot of faffing about for something that really, truly does not matter that much.²⁰

The middle group, marked in blue and including Clarence, have exactly an absolute majority of of re-elected incumbents and, had one of their number somehow missed the very first meeting would be in exactly the same strife.

The Mayor accepts this point of order, but it is immediately rendered moot, because nobody leaves and only Deputy Mayor Ritchie actually abstains. And that, hopefully, is the longest I ever have to spend describing voting on the confirmation of minutes.

Thoroughly thrown off balance, the Mayor calls a vote on the next part of the Omnibus, mayor’s communication, but the rest proceeds as normal. It’s not clear to me if it’s the interruption, or just first day jitters, but Blomeley looks nervous in a way I’ve not seen from him before, and this carries through until councillors’ question time.

The one planning item comes and goes without much note, only the usual sole dissent from Councillor James. Question time sees a question from James on lease negotiations around Rosny Hill and the Kangaroo Bay Boulevard (still negotiating) and from Kennedy on works around Pipeclay Esplanade (starting this week).

The only remaining thing of note is to comment that the term “alderman” seems to have been given the boot in Clarence at long last. Thanks to Councillor Darko for letting us know how that went down. The most surprising part for me is that it was by the Mayor’s initiative, I’d thought he was rather attached to the title, but no matter. Councillors for everyone! You get to be councillor, and you get to be councillor, you all get to be councillor!²¹

Come back in three weeks, and we can go over all the administrative work that becomes necessary when a new Council arrives. We got meeting dates for the next two years,²² newly reformed committees, all manner of gubbins to fill the night. See you then.

[Oh, uhh, by the way, if you’re reading this shortly after it comes out, internet charity telethon Desert Bus for Hope starts in a few hours, and will run for about a week. Come watch cool people do fun stuff to distract themselves from a boring video game, while raising money to supply toys, books and games to children in hospitals around the world!]

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