2017 Greater Geelong City Council election

2017 Greater Geelong City Council election

All 11 seats on the City Council 6 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party   Party Independents Liberal Seats before 4 5 Seats won 5 4 Seat change 1 1   Third party Fourth party   Party Labor Greens Seats before 2 1 Seats won 1 1 Seat change 1

The 2017 Greater Geelong local election was held on 27 October 2017 to elect 11 councillors to the City of Greater Geelong in Victoria.

More than 50 candidates contested across the four wards, including 19 in Brownbill.

The election was conducted by post by the Victorian Electoral Commission.

Background

The previous Greater Geelong City Council was elected in 2012, while Mayor Darryn Lyons was elected at a 2013 by-election.

The council was sacked by the Andrews Government in May 2016 after allegations of bullying, with administrators installed to manage city and council affairs as well as to remove cultural problems that led to the sacking.

While all other local government areas in Victoria went to the polls in November 2016 as per usual, Geelong did not. Instead, a Citizen's Jury was established to help determine a way forward, including deciding on the structure a future council should take.

Eventually, legislation was introduced and passed the Victorian Parliament to bring forward elections to October 2017 instead of 2020, as was originally planned.

Electoral system

For the first time in Geelong, councillors were elected to four multi-member wards:

• Bellarine (3 councillors)
• Brownbill (3 councillors)
• Kardinia (3 councillors)
• Windermere (2 councillors)

Before this, the council comprised 12 wards that each had a single councillor, as well as a directly-elected mayor. They were as follows:

• Austin
• Beangala
• Brownbill
• Buckley
• Cheetham
• Corio
• Coryule
• Cowie
• Deakin
• Kardinia
• Kildare
• Windermere

Proportional representation was introduced at the 2017 election, with instant-runoff voting used previously.

Results

Party			Votes	%	Seats	Change
	Independent				5	1
	Independent Liberal				4	1
	Independent Labor				1	1
	Greens				1
	Animal Justice				0
	Socialist Alliance				0
	Independent Nationals				0
Formal votes

Bellarine (3 councillors)

2017 Greater Geelong local election: Bellarine Ward

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Independent Liberal	Stephanie Asher	10,984	27.38
	Independent Liberal	Trent Sullivan	3,437	8.57
	Animal Justice	Naomi Adams	3,129	7.80
	Independent	Tom Roe	2,501	6.23
	Independent	Petra Goerschel	954	2.38
Turnout

9 candidate declared
Party		Candidate	Background
	Animal Justice Party	Naomi Adams
	Independent	Stephanie Asher	Consultant
	Independent	Anne Brackley
	Labor	Jim Mason
	Greens	Stephen McGain
	Independent	Art Sims
	Liberal	Trent Sullivan	President of the Geelong Young Liberals, real estate agent
	Liberal	John Van Beveren	Lawyer and small business owner
	Independent	Stewart Webb

Brownbill (3 councillors)

19 candidates declared, in alphabetical order
Party		Candidate	Background
	Independent	Mik Aidt	Journalist and community radio host
	Independent	George Ballas	Community advocate, former Chairman of Pako Festa
	Independent	Nicole Brown
	Socialist Alliance	Sue Bull	Activist and unionist
	Labor	Melissa Cadwell	Manager at Melbourne Health
	Labor	Ellen Csar	Advocate and teaching aid
	Independent	Freya Fidge	HR Professional, family history of Councilors and Mayors
	Animal Justice Party	Jennifer Gamble	Nurse
	Independent	Terry Gillard	Community Involvement
	Socialist Alliance	Sarah Hathway	Student and activist
	Animal Justice Party	Jacqui Jacka	Nurse
	Liberal	Michael King	Businessman
	Liberal	Eddy Kontelj	Former Councillor
	Greens	Sarah Mansfield	General Practitioner
	Independent	Peter Mitchell	Business Solutions
	Independent	Peter Murrihy	Former Councillor
	Nationals	Charles Neal	Tourism boat operator
	Independent	Alec Sandner	Former City of Greater Bendigo mayor
	Independent	Stephen Simmonds

Kardinia (3 councillors)

9 candidates declared, in alphabetical order.
Party		Candidate	Background
	Independent	Bruce Harwood	Former Councillor
	Labor	Brent Lyons-Lee
	Independent	Darren Hauenstein	IT professional
	Independent	Doug Mann	Teacher
	Independent	Pat Murnane
	Liberal	Ron Nelson	Former Councillor, former archivist.
	Greens	Lois Newman	Student, president of the Deakin Greens on Campus in Geelong.
	Animal Justice Party	Elliot Taylor
	Independent	Mary Walker	Theatre director, former teacher

Windermere (2 councillors)

10 candidates declared, in alphabetical order.
Party		Candidate	Background
	Independent	Anthony Aitken
	Independent	Tony Ansett	Former Councillor
	Labor	Robert Blaszczyk
	Independent	Ken Dickens	Owner of Corio Waste Management.
	Independent	Jordan Grossman	Engineer at Ford Motor Company
	Independent	Kylie Grzybek	Chief of Staff to transport Accident Commission CEO
	Labor	Moshtagh Heidari
	Independent	Marina Kozul	Architect.
	Greens	Greg Lacey
	Labor	David Withington	Public relations consultant

Election timeline

26 September 2017: Candidate nominations close

3 October: Windermere candidates forum at 94.7 The Pulse

10 October: Brownbill candidates forum at 94.7 The Pulse

10–12 October: Ballot packs are mailed out in the days around 10–12 October 2017.

27 October: Postal voting closes

28 October: Election Day