Mayor defiant on challengers to top job

AS machinations around Monday’s upcoming vote for the role of Mayor of the City of Ballarat heat up, incumbent Cr Samantha McIntosh has doubled down on her commitment to the job.

“I have no intention of stepping down from the role,” she said. “With such significant success, that we haven’t seen for years on council, I feel very confident in this space and feel that we need to keep that same momentum going.”

In a social media post last Monday night, Cr Amy Johnson said that seven of the nine councillors have nominated for Mayor. That was later confirmed by Cr McIntosh.

“There’s seven people in the race,” she said.

It’s understood that Cr Johnson and Cr Belinda Coates were the only two councillors not to nominate for the top job.

In the same post Cr Johnson also said that she’ll be supporting Cr Ben Taylor as Mayor.

At the 2018 mayoral vote, Cr McIntosh was returned to the big chair for a third term with the support of councillors Johnson and Taylor, along with Cr Grant Tillett and Cr Jim Rinaldi.

Cr McIntosh rejected the idea that she was re-elected as Mayor due to a voting bloc.

“There was no bloc,” she said. “It was the way the council of the day voted. If you watch in council chamber there’s no consistency or pattern. Anyone would be an absolute hero if they could say they went into our council chamber and saw people voting in blocs. It doesn’t happen.”

Cr McIntosh also knocked back suggestions of subsequent factionalism within council.

“What we’ve had is a great deal of support and cohesive decision making,” she said. “To be able to get some of these really controversial projects over the line… is significant and had not been possible before.

“When it gets to mayoral election you see all sorts of division. That’s because it’s a role that’s honourable and people strive for it.”

On why so many councillors had nominated for the job leading council, Cr McIntosh was diplomatic.

“Ballarat has been very successful over the last three years and it’s a very special role to be able to fill,” she said.

“The CBD, Civic Hall, the saleyards, the showgrounds, the link road, Ballarat West Employment Zone, White Night, Heritiage Weekend, national cycling championships, Split Milk coming up. It’s vibrancy and activity on the street. It’s the creativity. It’s intercultural cities approach. It’s the compassionate city approach. It’s not looking at just concrete and asphalt.

“The fact that we’ve been very successful and able to deliver those policies, plans and strategies has given a bit of a sparkle what would have otherwise been seen as just typical growth front.

“So who wouldn’t want to be Mayor? Of course they are going to put their hand up.

“I bet you if we weren’t doing a very good job at the moment you would not see the same degree of hands going up.”

In something of a pitch to other councillors, Cr McIntosh said that stability of leadership had been a big part of things achieved by council over the life of the current term.

“The only reason that we’ve been as successful as we have been is we’ve had three years of consistency,” she said. “That’s different to what we normally see.

“If you look back into the past, whenever there has been some degree of consistency, there has been an ability to deliver on some pretty significant projects across the city.

“If you ran any business that sits around a $200 million budget, with $2 billion worth of infrastructure,.. you don’t change the leader every year. It’s not the way you achieve great success.”

With municipal elections due in just over 12 months, Cr McIntosh sent a message about consistency.

“If there a new mayor next year, there will also be a new major the following year,” she said. “That creates a whole heap of disruption.”