The initial count for Kiama Council has the Independent Group A well in front. Photo: Kiama Council.
Early voting in the Kiama Council referendum has indicated residents are not in favour of directly voting for a mayor in future elections.
As well as voting for nine councillors in Saturday’s local government elections, the area’s 18,000 enrolled voters were also asked if they wanted to vote for a mayor or to retain the status quo of elected councillors deciding on who holds the top job.
Of the 2163 votes counted by Monday, 926 (44.24 per cent) had voted yes and 1167 (55.76 per cent) had voted no. The informal vote was sitting at 3.24 per cent.
As of Monday (16 September), the NSW Electoral Commission had counted 13,953 first-preference votes. Of those, 2812 were informal votes, a high 20.15 per cent of the count.
Group A, a team of independent candidates led by solicitor Cameron McDonald, was comfortably in front, with 35.92 per cent of the vote.
Group D (Labor, led by former Deputy Mayor Imogen Draisma) was sitting at 16.08 per cent, followed closely by The Greens (Group E, led by Melinda Lawton) at 15.55 per cent.
Mr McDonald said his group was thrilled at its strong showing and said it was a tribute to a strong, local field of candidates who had good geographical representation of the area.
The Kiama Council election results, as at 16 September. Image: NSW Electoral Commission.
“We had a good coverage of the local government area, but also the message that we’re independent, trying to keep politics out of local government and want community issues resolved by people in the community was very strong,” he said.
Mr McDonald believes at least three of the five Group A candidates will claim a seat on the council.
“We’re thrilled that our message got the impact and cut through to the community that we were hoping for, and it’s been borne out by some good numbers at the moment,” he said.
The count cannot be concluded until all postal votes have been returned. The deadline for return of completed postal votes is 6 pm on Friday, 27 September.
When all the votes have been counted, the official announcement of the results will be declared in writing. Results will be declared between 1 and 3 October.
To check results, visit the NSW Electoral Commission website.
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