One hundred and eighty-seven people live in the far north-west NSW town of Toomelah, and 43 of them went to the local primary school on a Saturday in September to vote in their local council elections.
But only three votes were counted: ninety-three per cent of ballots from the town’s only polling booth were deemed informal by the NSW Electoral Commission, mostly because voters only placed a “1” next to their preferred candidate.
If you think there’s nothing wrong with that, your vote might not have been counted either. The commission’s rules require voters to preference at least half as many candidates as there are available positions. With nine councillors, Moree Plains Shire voters needed to number at least five candidates.
An aerial view of Toomelah.Credit: People Oriented Design/Kramer Ausenco
Toomelah’s voters were faced with one group candidate and a list of independents, resulting in a bizarre vertical ballot layout not resembling an “above or below the line” ballot.
The issue was first reported by local outlet the New England Times, whose founder Raphaella Kathryn Crosby said the people of Toomelah had been “disenfranchised trying to vote for Indigenous candidates”.
The ballot for the Moree Plains Shire Council election.Credit: NSW Electoral Commission
Once billed by this newspaper as “the town that hope abandoned”, Toomelah was established as an Aboriginal reserve in 1937. Ninety-four per cent of its residents are Indigenous, according to the latest census data.
A landmark 1987 Human Rights Commission report found Moree Plains Shire Council had refused to supply water or sewerage services to Toomelah by terming it a “private settlement”, a phrase with no legal basis.
But the council has come a long way, including through the election of Gomeroi woman 28-year-old Mekayla Cochrane. In September, Frederick McGrady, 71, hoped to become the first councillor born in Toomelah.
