State Labor implosion leaks into City of Sydney

BY EMMA KEMP

Labor were the big losers in Saturday’s council election as swings against them of 9.4 per cent provided strong evidence much of their support base has deserted them.

In Kings Cross and Pyrmont the Party managed to hold onto only nine per cent and 11 per cent of votes respectively

Mayoral candidate Meredith Burgmann conceded she had anticipated a poor performance for Labor following State Government turmoil and campaign funding scandals.

‘It’s what we expected. It was probably the worst possible atmosphere we could have been campaigning in,’ Dr Burgmann said. ‘I think the Labor voters came out to whack us and they did.’

The majority of voters denouncing their trust in Labor were expected to turn to the Greens, but it was Lord Mayor Clover Moore who capitalized the most off Labor’s losses with a whopping 14.7 per cent swing in her favour, outpolling the Greens who who were left behind on a swing of 4.9 per cent.

In fact, the election became nothing more than a whitewash in favour of Ms Moore, as she amassed an astronomical 50 per cent of the votes in the Mayoral election and her Independent Party polled at 49.7 per cent.

The Greens trailed next in her wake, claiming 13.7 per cent of votes across the City of Sydney electorate and doing well in many of the key battlegrounds including the Sydney councils of Ashfield, Leichhardt, Randwick and Waverley.

Greens leader Lee Rhiannon said she wasn’t surprised that Lord Mayor Moore secured what could have been extra Greens votes.

‘When you consider that Clover is both the local member and the Lord Mayor, she is able to gain a lot more coverage for her work,’ Ms Rhiannon said ‘So that incumbency factor is a real advantage.’

While Ms Rhiannon said she was satisfied with the Greens’ result in the City of Sydney electorate, she saw the 10 per cent swing in their favour in the areas of Marrickville and Leichhardt as their best outcome, where they also fared strikingly better than Labor.

‘An interesting development is that in Balmain ‘ the birthplace of Labor and where the Labor Party was actually formed as a national party. They (Labor) no longer have seats on Leichhardt council, which is the first time that has ever happened,’ she said.

Although the figures for Labor were stone cold, Dr Burgmann managed to retain some votes in the mayoral election with a slightly less harsh swing against her of 7.9 per cent.

And she looked on the bright side of things.

‘We kept a swing in the City of Sydney to less than what was happening in the other areas which was good,’ she said.

The traditional Labor heartland of South Sydney was where the Party found the most support. Having now been under Ms Moore’s leadership for a full term after the amalgamation of South Sydney Council with the City of Sydney in 2004, voters in these booths did not give the newly elected Lord Mayor quite the same vote of confidence other areas did, with Labor taking 26 per cent and 27 per cent of votes in the booths of Waterloo and Gardeners Road respectively.