Business vote bites

The City of Sydney elections have delivered Lord Mayor Clover Moore her best election results ever. Ms Moore received 58% of the first preference votes.

The Liberal Party came in second, receiving 18.95% of the votes. This was less than a three point increase on their 2012 results and far less than was anticipated given new business voting laws. So how did this new legislation affect the Liberal Party?

Of approximately 80,000 businesses currently operating within the City of Sydney, only 22,000 were registered for Saturday’s election.

Councillor Christine Forster, who has been re-elected says that the enrolment process for businesses was the biggest cause for concern. She believes the system for registering businesses has to be dealt with as a matter of priority.

According to Cr Forster “[the Lord Mayor’s Council staff[ actively created barriers to people trying to get enrolled. The process has always been unnecessarily difficult, as it was in this election. It’s burdensome, which is why 60,000 businesses didn’t make it on.”

Cr Forster said that the Lord Mayor’s campaign was “based around people being angry about what she believes was a gerrymander. The Lord Mayor has been operating her own gerrymander by making it so difficult for businesses to get enrolled. They’ve always had the right to vote, it’s just that they’re not required to be put on the roll by Council, and Council hasn’t done that, it would seem.”

Former City of Sydney Councillor Edward Mandla, who ran on the Sydney Mattes ticket, echoes Cr Forster’s sentiments, arguing there were “a lot of question marks over the whole business vote.” Mr Mandla said that the legislation “was meant to be an auto-enrolment system, much like Melbourne.”

“Many businesses that I’ve spoken to were sent away when they went to vote.” Mr Mandla believes that difficulty for businesses to vote was an “absolutely intentional” move by the City of Sydney and believes that “the current Baird government is too distracted and too weak to do anything about it” said Mr Mandla.

In the end Cr Forster believes that the effect on the election of the business vote is “impossible to tell at this stage. But it looks like that the Lord Mayor has taken votes massively off the Greens and Angela Vithoulkas, as well as other candidates.”

Cr Forster believes business vote was clearly undermined, stating there were plenty of people who “were enrolled, who turned up and had trouble casting a vote, or people who thought they were enrolled and found out upon arriving that they are not.”

Cr Forster believes the problem was with the process. “There has been a lot of confusion. It shows there has been a massive issue with the way Council has gone about putting businesses on the roll. It’s got to be addressed before the next election.”

According to Mr Mandla, Ms Moore’s record victory was a hollow win since the election was “the lowest voter turn-out on record.” Less than 60% of all eligible voters participated. Of the 141,369 residential and non-residential electors enrolled only 83,116 cast first preference votes.   These numbers are so low that Mr Mandla says we are “at the realm of non-compulsory voting. It was a stupid decision made by local government minister Paul Toole to stagger local council elections. There is no accountability for that poor decision making, and next year we have to go through the whole circus again when the rest vote.”

To stop the same problem happening in the next election, Mr Mandla said that Minister Paul Toole and Premier Mike Baird should investigate the seriousness of an incorrect electoral roll, as local government should be very important to the Premier.

Mr Mandla also said the government should look at “what penalties could be applied to the City of Sydney and who was responsible”.

At the eventual parliamentary enquiry into election matters, Mr Mandla said this failure of the City of Sydney to properly register all the businesses in the area “has to be a major feature, as hundreds if not thousands of people will be a heavy subject in that inquiry.”

In time between now and the next election, Cr Forster says she will be doing her best to make sure the “Lord Mayor is help accountable.”

Cr Forster said that the Liberal party didn’t have any plans to dispute the returns, however conceded that something needed to change before the next election, and that it was up to the Electoral Matters committee.