ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY
Hawkesbury City Council’s mayoral election on September 8 delivered new leadership, a late candidate withdrawal and a deputy mayoral result that raised questions about voting across political lines.
Cr Mary Lyons-Buckett was elected mayor, defeating outgoing mayor Cr Les Sheather by eight votes to four. Cr Nathan Zamprogno was subsequently elected deputy mayor with eight votes.
Because councillors conducted both elections by secret ballot, the voting choices of individual councillors are not part of the public record.
Secret ballot adopted
The meeting began with councillors determining how the elections would be conducted.
The decision to use a secret ballot was a departure from the open voting used for the October 2024 mayoral election, when individual councillors’ votes were recorded in the minutes.
The secret-ballot proposal was opposed by Liberal councillors Mike Creed, Paul Veigel and Jill Reardon, as well as Greens councillor Danielle Wheeler. The other eight councillors supported the secret-ballot process.
Secret ballots are permitted for mayoral and deputy mayoral elections, but they prevent residents from seeing how individual representatives voted on Council’s political leadership.
McMahon withdraws before vote
Three candidates were initially nominated for mayor, including former mayor and outgoing Deputy Mayor Liberal Councillor Sarah McMahon.
Cr McMahon withdrew her nomination just before voting began, leaving Cr Lyons-Buckett and Cr Sheather as the two candidates.
The withdrawal left Council’s four Liberal councillors without a Liberal candidate in the mayoral contest.
Cr Lyons-Buckett secured eight votes to Cr Sheather’s four, returning to the mayoralty after previously serving in the position from 2016 to 2018.
The ballot does not reveal which councillors supported either candidate.
Four-way deputy mayoral contest
Four councillors were nominated for deputy mayor: Cr Sheather, Cr Amanda Kotlash, Cr Creed and Cr Zamprogno.
On the first ballot, Cr Sheather and Cr Kotlash each received one vote and were tied at the bottom of the count. A draw was conducted under the election procedure, and Cr Sheather was excluded.
In the following round, Cr Kotlash received one vote, Cr Creed received three and Cr Zamprogno was elected with eight.
Because Cr Creed received three votes while four Liberal councillors were present, at least one Liberal councillor did not support him in the final ballot.
The result does not establish how many of his votes came from Liberal councillors or whether he received support from outside the Liberal group. However reportedly Cr Creed, Veigel and Reardon who did not support the secret ballot viewed each others votes before submitting them.
The secret ballot prevents any firm conclusion about individual voting choices or the extent to which established political alliances held.
New leadership faces unresolved issues
Cr Lyons-Buckett and Cr Zamprogno take office while Council faces several unresolved governance and workplace matters.
These include the continuing exclusion of Gazette representatives from Council premises for media purposes, a measure Council says was imposed for workplace-safety reasons and which the Gazette disputes; the confidential separation payment to former general manager Elizabeth Richardson, reported by the Gazette to be approximately $340,000; and a SafeWork NSW inquiry arising from allegations of councillor-on-councillor bullying. No findings have been made against any individual in relation to those allegations.
The election produced decisive winners but no public account of the individual votes behind those results.
Each councillor knows how they voted, but the complete voting pattern is not part of the public record.
Disclosure
Mayor Mary Lyons-Buckett is the sister-in-law of Hawkesbury Gazette publisher Kooryn Sheaves. The Gazette publishes this disclosure because that relationship is relevant to reporting concerning the Mayor and Council.
