15 August 2024
by Grahame Lynch
The Real Independents and the Sustainable Australia Party are the big winners from today’s ballot draw for the September 14 local government elections in the North Sydney LGA.
The Real Independents drew the coveted Group A position in the northern St Leonards Ward, while the Sustainable Australia Party scored the same in the southern Cammeraygal Ward.
The Group A position is coveted by candidates because it enables them to become beneficiaries of so-called donkey voters: those who just vote 1 in the first box because they are not interested in the outcome and want to avoid a fine.
Local electoral folklore has it that the Group A position can add as much as 5% to a ticket’s vote.
With the Liberals butchering their nomination for St Leonards, just four groups are contesting the five positions in that ward. The Real Independents already topped the 2021 vote with 1.54 quotas, and their no 2 candidate missed out on the 5th spot to the Sustainable Australia Party by a mere 0.26% of a quota. With less tickets than spots, the Real Independents will fancy their chances of getting their no 2 candidate this time, Chris Holding, elected to the 5th spot.
The big unknown is where disenfranchised St Leonards votes from the Liberals and Team Jilly – who are not running there this time – go. Two Liberal aligned groups and the Team Jilly group collectively garnered around 1.6 quotas last time and the question is where those votes may go this time when three of four choices – Labor, the SAP and Real Independents – are associated with the centre-left and were largely aligned for over 90% of votes in the current term.
In the southern Cammerygal ward, Sustainable Australia Party candidate Sarah Kok gained the A position. The SAP’s Georgia Lamb scraped into 5th position in 2021 with 0.63 of a quota, beating out the no 2 candidate for Team Jilly, Hugo Bauer, by a narrow 0.06 of a quota. Unlike 2021, the Greens are running a ticket in Cammeraygal this time, as are the Liberals with an official endorsed ticket headed by Jessica Keen, a former councillor. Jilly Gibson has stepped down from her ticket, which will be headed by Pallavi Sinha, which sitting councillor Ian Mutton has ceded pole position on his ticket to local retired lawyer Peter Noble.
The ballot papers will be ordered as below:
ST LEONARDS
Group A: Real Independents
Group B: James Spenceley group
Group C: Sustainable Australia Party
Group D: Labor
CAMMERAYGAL:
Group A: Sustainable Australia Party
Group B: Real Independents
Group C: The Greens
Group D: Labor
Group E: Peter Noble group
Group F: Liberals
Group H: Team Jilly/Pallavi Sinha