Countback to decide on Mansfield’s replacement on council

THE Victorian Electoral Commission will partly re-run the 2020 council election in Greater Geelong but with one less candidate to find the replacement for new state MP Sarah Mansfield.

Standing for the Greens, Ms Mansfield was elected to the Western Victorian Region at last month’s Victorian election and will thus vacate her council seat in Brownbill Ward, and the VEC will hold a countback on January 23, 2023 at noon.

According to the VEC’s website, all candidates not elected at the original election in 2020, and who are still eligible to be a councillor, are automatically participants in the countback.

With Eddy Kontelj and Peter Murrihy elected, this leaves Sandi Dwyer, Bernie Frank, Alex Csar, Stretch Kontelj, Gabriel Wenyika, Dean Frederick Hope, Louis Hehir, Jose Rodriguez and Melissa Caldwell.

To be successful at a countback, a participating candidate needs to achieve a quota. The quota for election in the countback is the same that applied to the count of votes in the original election – in this case, 11,258 votes.

Stretch Kontelj would seem most likely to take the third seat in Brownbill Ward as he placed fourth in the original election in 2020, with Melissa Caldwell the next candidate in line, but preference flows may be very different now Ms Mansfield is not in the contest.

In a post on her campaign Facebook page, Ms Mansfield said she was humbled to be elected.

“Our work doesn’t stop here. The challenges we faced going into the election persist, and there is a need for urgent action on housing affordability, inequality, access to basic services, environmental protection, and the climate crisis. I do not underestimate the magnitude of the tasks ahead, but by working together with the community, we can achieve progressive outcomes for people and the environment in the next term of Parliament,” she wrote.