All over - red rover...

Me with Justin Hardman and Dee Carvill of Dublin, soon to be my daughter-in-law.



Greetings all.

It is all over. Ms Waller has been elected with 36% of the votes cast - or 39% of the formal votes.

Today's counting saw me draw 2645 of Sim's 11432 votes even though he did not publish preferences. But the killer to the Independents' campaign was the 7799 votes exhausted vote due to no preferences flowing after Sim's No 1.

So I offer my best wishes to Wendy. I hope she breaks from the machine mode of politics and connects to her community beyond her welfare industry subset. She needs to make her own stamp of it and break out of the Paul Lynch school of machine politics that is self serving whilst Liverpool is run into the ground through lack of civic leadership.


Thanks to all of my workers on polling day - you did a great job.

And thanks to my merry band of leaflet droppers (the great semi-retired : greyed haired blokes) - ya done good. Wherever we dropped our brochure we saw a higher vote.

Click for Final Counts. Click Mayoral Results / Preferential Counts tab / then Final Count Report.

I am taking time out now.

I will start this blog up again later in the year.

It is now time to reflect on matters. What has been confirmed to me is what we have is not good enough. Our Local and State governments are suffering seriously from a great lack of intellectual nourishment and moral force. Such happens when capable people consider it beneath their station to engage or just too hard to engage. The paradox is that this leaves a void that is filled by the narks, nongs and careerist opportunists who make it even more unpleasant to engage. I will give thought to providing a solution to the "too hard to engage" aspect of the disengagement of clever people of good will.


I am looking forward to the surf lifesaving season due to open in 2 weeks. Some quiet time at Garie Beach will refill the energy tanks. Have a look.



Cheers and over and out - for the time being.

Michael

TIP:
Click on the Older Posts link at the bottom of the displayed posts to access the full list of post associated with this campaign.

Update - Wednesday after the election - 17/9/08

Gday all

I am still alive and running in the count. Last man standing of the Independents.

At close of counting Sim has 14.37% of the votes.

I have 15.72% which sees Sim excluded.

The Liberals have 21.71% and Labor have 36.67%.

So we have a Non Labor vote of 51.8% and an exhausted votes ( no preferences to count) of around 12%.


As known, Sim withdrew from a firm agreement based on a unified goal of allowing the people of Liverpool to give Labor an electoral belting. The agreement was that Byrne, Sim and Lucas, all Independents based in East Liverpool, to exchange preferences for one of us to stay in the race. We all agreed it was our individual tasks to win No 1 preferences to beat the others, but then to let our preferences work to attain the goal that one of us take the Mayoralty.

It was smart political planning.

Sim's breaking of the agreement - he did not preference at all- is likely to see Wendy Waller elected as Mayor with a miserable 36-38% of the final vote due to vote exhaustion. (If people Vote 1 only, when their selected Candidate loses then their vote exhausts with no preferences)

Sim's 11432 votes are to be preferenced tomorrow. My only hope is that his electors are smarter than he and ignore his HowToVote to support me as another Independent or vote Liberal which is his natural grouping. ( apparently he is an ex Lib). I feel sorry for Sim's workers who toiled all day at the booths to likely have an unworthy Labor Mayor elected as a result of their efforts.

I am off to the Moorebank Pub tonight to play Trivia. It was here last Wednesday before I arrived that one of our trivia team ( a lady far removed from the hustle and bustle of politics) took my little A6 sized brochure around to people in the pub. Sim regards this as his "Head Quarters" and that my friend intruded into his domain with some 60 people present.

Now stop laughing!!!!

And this was the excuse for his breaking of the agreement to see the peoples' will expressed with real political effect - Labor losing their mayoralty in their heartland.

Sim's wilful, petulant act is now likely to have caused the peoples' will to be again broken - a sad day for democracy.

However, who knows? Those little rivulets of the peoples' will still run. ( see previous post)

Counting begins at 8am tomorrow - Thursday 18th September.



Cheers

Update - Tuesday after election ( 16/9)

The Preference count due to be done today has been postponed until tomorrow, Wednesday 17th September from 9am

Is there a chance? Whilst the Telegraph ran a story of Wendy Waller (Labor) claiming victory I understand they have withdrawn from that until the preference count is completed.

And so they should.

Labor's confidence is based on either experienced evaluation of a well scrutineered primary result where preference trends were observed, or, an assumption of preferences leaking based on past experience, especially with the Sim miserable failure to hold to the preference agreement amongst the Independent candidates. However the high Independent count could see a change in behaviour.

There are 48000 of 74000 votes which preferences are yet to be countered.

42% of the votes went to the Independents, and the high danger is that people did not extend their preferences and thereby causing votes to be exhausted. Of course Sim's actions keeps over 10% out of the Independent count.

I am relying upon gaining enough leakage of Nunez and Jacotine preferences directly to me to beat Lucas and Sim. As well, for a minimal amount of leakage to Waller. I have been told that her scrutineers observed a fair amount of Jacotine voters' Number 2 going to Waller. If so it is all over.

The peoples' will runs in small rivulets to form the great river of democratic government. My campaign may still be floating in those hidden rivulets locked up in the Liverpool Returning Office.

Cheers

Michael

Results as at close of counting - Saturday 13th

Hello all

Following is my analysis of things as they stand at close of counting on Saturday night.

Election Day - what a journey

It's pre-dawn and I am ready to hit the early road with last minute deliveries to my poll workers. They come from family, friends and new found supporters of my campaign.

What a journey. And in a way it has been a 21 year journey, a journey without maps. In 1986 I led the campaign for the citizens of Liverpool to elect their own Mayor. Since 1980 the East Ward Progress Association ( remember the name "East" ward for a little tale at the end of this post) Councillor Don Syme several times had the balance of power vote on Council to elect the Mayor from amongst the Councillors. Our observation over the years was that for months leading up to the annual Mayoral election deals were being struck causing all sorts of aberrations when it came to voting on normal Council policy and resource allocation. After the election there was retribution effecting policy where deals were betrayed.

In December 1985 the late Kath Syme moved at the December EWPA meeting for us to utilise the provision ( Section 25A) under the Local Government Act to prompt a petition from the citizens of Liverpool requesting that we elect our Mayor directly. I was made Campaign Manager. We proceeded to target the 8000 signatures required and through it we forced Council into action in the face of the coming 1987 election. There was a lot of counter-play by the Councillors. The Labor Party under Craig Knowles worked against the proposition, as did the Liberals and old school Councillors. A young Mark Latham stirred up the dust by coming out in full support of it and he turned around the Labor policy position.

In the end Council was forced through public pressure to resolve to hold a Constitutional Referendum at the 1987 election on the matter. Over 70% of electors voted in favour of the proposition and from 1991 it became a reality.

Mark Latham was Liverpool's first Mayor elected by the people. Upon Mark's election to Federal Parliament he later stood down and the egregious George Paciullo was elected in 1995 and 1999 to see him lead Liverpool City Council into the $30 million Oasis blackhole.

So now I find myself standing for election as Mayor in 2008. I happily stood back from civic affairs when Mark Latham was Mayor but was gradually drawn back in as the Oasis debacle began its journey to oblivion.

An interesting point from all this. There are only 31 of NSW's 152 Councils that have a popularly elected Mayor. In 1993 the Local Government Act was completely revamped. The provision we used in 1985/6 ( Section 25A) was removed from the Act. The only way I understand for a Council to change its method of Mayoral election is for the existing Councillors to resolve to hold a Constitutional Poll on the matter. And of course they will not do it as they prefer their annual circus of king making. The NSW Parliament is full of local government hacks who act firstly in the interest of their chums coming through the Local Government system.

If elected I will be an advocate for Local Government reform and will target the goal of having all NSW Mayors elected by the people in 2012.

Well, the sun is now up and I am on the road.

What will the will of the people deliver today?

Final Note:

The East Ward of Liverpool was wiped off the electoral in a vindictive act led by Hon Paul Lynch MP when he was a Liverpool Councillor in 1995. An opportunity arose through an abnormality associated with the new 1993 Local Government Act and popularly elected Mayors. Lynch saw the opportunity and led his Caucus to break up the newly established policy of 4 wards across Liverpool into 2 Wards ( North and South) which purposely divided in two the long standing place of political agitation, Liverpool's East Ward.

Mr Lynch's sacking this week from the Local Government Ministry position has something to do with this. We had already begun, since November 2007, a campaign to re-establish our more representative Wards (North, South, East and West). Mr Lynch's past behaviour would be still an embarrassment to the much troubled NSW Labor Government.

How to Vote - Lets Do It Liverpool

This document above took over 15 hours of telephone and face to face time to come to fruition.

It informs electors how to vote to show how sorry we are with the Labor Party losing our 30 million "Oasis" dollars and their arrogance in placing before us one of the main people involved in the Oasis decisions - their nominee for Mayor Wendy Waller.
(Ms Waller at a public forum on August 20th emphatically said " I will not apologise to the people of Liverpool")

For the Liverpool "sorry vote" to be effective we had to ensure all Independents ( Byrne, Sim, Lucas, Jacotine and Nunez) exchanged preferences amongst themselves. This was achieved hours before the closing time for How to Vote Registrations with the delay due to some inexperience of people involved.

Preference flow stops at the Liberals to ensure Labor do not scrape in through exhausted votes.

The key thing for all electors is to continue their preferences as shown. If your vote exhausts by not going down to the 5th preferences as shown, it helps Labor. They have a large tribal vote
(Labor right or wrong) and could sit there with enough No 1's to beat off contenders who do not advance due to exhausted votes.

Vote 1 - Michael Byrne then down to at least 5 as shown.

Thanks to all.

Two days to go

Thursday 11th September.

It really has been a settled campaign. Everything is set in place with the Independents agreeing to exchange preferences before the major Parties. There has been no nastiness. I think the Labor party are too embarrassed to get up to any no good. Besides, their comrades in Macquarie Street are making up for it.

I have had great support from my team of people ( Mike Frew, Leonie Goodwin, Bernie Loughlin, Ann Quigley, Dominic Wright and Allison, Albert Barnat, Gary Bain, Terry Hammond, Greg Haskew, Paul Napier, Brian McConachie, Peter & Pat Wiles, Joe & Cynthia Wiles, Owen & Grace Jeffress, Chris McCroary and my old mate from the Valley, Casey Conway) dropping leaflets across the whole of East Liverpool, Casula East, Prestons, and up in the Valley.

Now for polling day. I am short on polling booth workers across the 40 sites but we are confident our word is out there and my position on the top of the Mayoral Ballot paper sits well for those many people keen to send a message to the Labor Party.

One more day tomorrow for some late leaflet drops with my team of helpers.