The City of Melbourne’s newly elected council has less women on it and is leaning to the right.
While Nick Reece and Roshena Campbell made plenty of promises in their bid to be elected as mayor and deputy mayor, whether they can get these through is dependent on the council.
Councillor Olivia Ball, who is the only Green remaining on the City of Melbourne council said it was sad to see less women on the council. Credit: Wayne Taylor
Four incumbents were elected to council to serve alongside them Kevin Louey, Olivia Ball, Davydd Griffiths and Philip Le Liu.
The five new councillors elected were option trader and risk consultant Owen Guest, MP turned personal trainer, Gladys Liu, Queen Vic market trader and co-owner of Ripe Cheese, Mark Scott, Residents 3000 president Rafael Camillo and University of Melbourne employee Andrew Rowse.
Previously the council included two Greens, Ball and Rohan Leppert, and four women.
Now Ball is the only Green remaining on council and one of only three women alongside Campbell and Liu.
“Isn’t that sad,” Ball said. “It is disappointing that we have even worse representation of women on council than before.”
Liu, who is a former Liberal MP who ran on Anthony Koutoufide’s ticket as an independent, was less concerned.
“It is what it is,” she said. “I always place more emphasis on merit. Whoever does the work should be elected, but obviously it would have been good to have more women.”
The newly elected council also leans more heavily to the right than the previous council under lord mayor Sally Capp‘s leadership.
Liberal party members include Campbell, Liu and Guest who ran as an endorsed candidate for the party.
Le Liu is a former Liberal and Camillo ran on Gary Morgan’s ticket which was also Liberal leaning.
When asked whether the council now leaned more to the right Guest said he was best described as “a fiscal conservative”. “I certainly hope the council is now made up of people who are fiscally responsible such as myself, that is what I want to see,” he said.
Returning councillor Griffiths said while it was good there was “some new blood” the council was of a different makeup politically than the previous one.
“Pretty clearly the system delivered a more liberal party orientated council this time around and that is what it was designed to do,” he said.
In the City of Melbourne businesses receive two votes, in comparison to residents who receive one.
City of Melbourne councillors
- Mayor: Nick Reece, Labor but ran as an independent
- Deputy Mayor: Roshena Campbell, Liberal, but ran as an independent on Reece’s ticket.
- Kevin Louey, ran on Reece’s ticket.
- Olivia Ball, Greens
- Davydd Griffiths, Labor
- Philip Le Liu, former Liberal, ran on Arron Wood’s ticket.
- Owen Guest, Liberal
- Gladys Liu, Liberal but ran as an independent on Anthony Koutoufides’ ticket.
- Mark Scott, independent, ran on Reece’s ticket
- Rafael Camillo, independent, ran on Gary Morgan’s ticket
- Andrew Rowse, independent, ran on Innovate Melbourne ticket.
Before the election, The Age conducted a survey of council election candidates across Greater Melbourne. All but one of the now elected City of Melbourne councillors responded.
Use the interactive below to see what they said.
