2024 Melbourne City Council election

On 28 March 2024, then-Lord Mayor Sally Capp announced that she would resign before the election.^[2] She resigned as Lord Mayor on 1 July 2024. At a special meeting the next day council resolved not to hold an election to fill the Lord Mayor vacancy but to appoint Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece to the position rather than hold a byelection at a cost of up to $1.3 million.^[3][4] Further, council resolved not to appoint a councillor to the position of Deputy Lord Mayor, which may have triggered a countback to appoint a new councillor. The council saw out the remainder of the term with 10 councillors.

The leadership team is elected using instant runoff voting.

Like in state and federal elections, the leadership team election uses full preferential voting, meaning voters must number every team that is running.^[5]

The councillors are elected using single transferable voting, using the city as a single at-large district.^[6]

For the councillor election, group voting tickets (GVT) are used − a group registers a GVT before an election, and when a voter selects a group above-the-line on the ballot paper, their vote is distributed according to the registered GVT for that group.^[7] Alternatively, a voter can number all boxes for individual candidates below-the-line.^[5]

Individual candidates are not able to contest both the leadership team election and the councillor election.^[8] The leadership team election is separate from the election of councillors. This means that even if a group's leadership team candidates are unsuccessful, members of their councillor ticket can still be elected.^[8]

Corporations, owners and occupiers of rateable properties are entitled to vote in Melbourne City Council elections, with two voters who are not residents of the City of Melbourne automatically enrolled in relation to the majority of these such entitlements: the only LGA in Victoria where this is the case.^[8] Non-resident voters do not have to be Australian citizens.^[8][9]

At the 2020 election, the Melbourne City Council electoral roll was composed of 55.1% non-resident corporate and rateable property-owning and -occupying voters, with local residents making up the remaining 44.9%.^[8]

A similar electoral system in New South Wales previously applied to Sydney City Council, where businesses were each entitled to two voters- though these non-resident voters formed a much smaller proportion of the overall electoral roll compared to Melbourne.^[10] This was introduced in 2014 but abolished in 2023 ahead of the 2024 election.^[11][12]

Summarize Timeline Top Qs Fact Check

Candidates for election organise themselves into tickets, either under a Team name or a registered political party. Some political parties permit their members to run in a team as unaffiliated candidates, and other parties will run an endorsed ticket only.

After being sworn in as Lord Mayor of Melbourne on 2 July 2024 following the resignation of Sally Capp, Reece confirmed he would seek re-election, although he would not be running as an endorsed Labor Party candidate.^[13] He announced incumbent councillor Roshena Campbell, a Liberal Party member, as his running mate on 28 July.^[14]

Arron Wood announced that he was standing as the Lord Mayor candidate for Team Wood on 31 Jul 2024,^[15] along with Erin Deering in the Deputy Lord Mayor position.^[16]

On 9 Oct 2024, Team Wood revealed the councillor group line up with sitting councillor Phil Le Liu^[17][18][19] at the top of the council ticket, former councillor Dr Cathy Oke in second position, followed by Nicolas Zervos, Hala Nur, Michael Caiafa, Hope Wei, and Labor Party member Steve Michelson.^[20]

First-term councillor Jamal Hakim announced his candidacy on 2 August, with Australian Republic Movement co-chair Esther Anatolitis as his running mate.

Perennial candidate Anthony van der Craats appeared on the leadership ballot under the group name ‘Rip Up The Bike Lanes’. It was revealed after the election that, although Mr van der Craats genuinely believed that separated bike lanes should be removed, he was “running to help Team Reece”.^[21]

The Labor Party officially launched their campaign on 28 August 2024, with Phil Reed as their lord mayoral candidate for the second election in a row and Virginia Wills as the deputy candidate.^[22]Incumbent councillor Davydd Griffiths was announced as lead councillor candidate.

Labor party members, including the incumbent Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece, also featured on other tickets in competition with the endorsed Labor ticket.

The Greens launched their campaign on 26 July 2024, with Roxane Ingleton as their lord mayoral candidate (Ingleton was the deputy lord mayoral candidate for the party in the two previous elections) and Marley McRae McLeod as the deputy.^[23] Incumbent councillor Dr Olivia Ball was announced as the lead councillor candidate.

The Victorian Liberal Party endorsed candidates for the first time in the party's history.^[24] The party announced Owen Guest as lead councillor candidate.^[25]

The Victorian Socialists ran two councillor candidates but, unlike in the previous election, did not run a Lord Mayor or Deputy Lord Mayor candidate. The party did not submit a group voting ticket for the councillor election before the deadline and as such did not have a box printed above the line on the ballot paper.^[26]

Sitting councillors Jason Chang, Rohan Leppert^[17] and Elizabeth O'Sullivan-Myles did not recontest the election.

In February 2024, former senator Derryn Hinch announced he would run for Lord Mayor of Melbourne. However, one month later he withdrew, citing the costs of running a campaign.^[27]

There were eleven leadership contenders for the election.

Party		Candidates	Background
	Labor	Phil Reed	2020 Labor lord mayoral candidate
Virginia Wills
	Liberal	Mariam Riza
Luke Martin
	Greens	Roxane Ingleton	2016 and 2020 Greens deputy lord mayoral candidate[23]
Marley McRae McLeod		2022 Greens Victorian state election candidate for Macedon district[28]
	Animal Justice	Eylem Kim	Researcher and PhD candidate
Bruce Poon		Animal Justice Party president and 2016 AJP Lord Mayoral candidate[29]
	Team Hakim	Jamal Hakim	Councillor since 2020
Esther Anatolitis		Co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement[30]
	Team Kouta	Anthony Koutoufides	Former Carlton AFL player
Intaj Khan		Property developer and former Wyndham City Councillor[31]
	Team Morgan	Gary Morgan	Pollster and perennial candidate[32]
Liz Ge
	Team Nick Reece	Nicholas Reece	Lord Mayor since 2024
Roshena Campbell		Councillor since 2020 and 2023 Liberal candidate for Aston by-election[33]
	Rip Up the Bike Lanes!	Anthony van der Craats	Perennial candidate
David Keith Cragg
	Voices for Melbourne	Greg Bisinella	East Melbourne Group President[34]
Megan Stevenson
	Team Wood	Arron Wood	2020 lord mayoral candidate
Erin Deering		Entrepreneur and fashion designer[35]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

The Age observed that the Melbourne City Council election results had produced a net increase in Liberal Party members and a net decrease in both Labor Party and Greens Party members. The Age also observed that the Council would now have a high proportion of male councillors (72.73%), the second highest proportion among the 31 councils in metropolitan Melbourne.^[44]

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

On 8 September 2024, Reece announced he wanted Melbourne City Council to sell its 51% share of the Regent Theatre if he was re-elected.^[45] An urgent motion at a council meeting was tabled by councillor Jamal Hakim noting that council has "no intention or policy basis to sell the Regent theatre" was passed several days later with six votes in favour.^[46]

The proposal to sell Regent Theatre was opposed by Team Wood, Team Hakim, Labor and the Greens.^[47][48][49]

It was later discovered that the owner of the Regent Theatre, Jason Marriner, had donated to the election campaigns of each of Team Reece, Team Wood and Team Hakim.^[50]

Group	Endorsement
Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry		Team Wood[51]
The Age		No endorsement[52]

While The Greens and Team Hakim disclosed election donations during the campaign, the Lord Mayor’s Team Reece declined to do so. When all candidates’ donations were disclosed after the election, it was revealed that Team Reece had received approximately $1 million in donations, ‘dwarfing’ the 2020 winner’s election warchest, and giving rise to speculation that the council would be "mired in conflicts of interest".^[50]

Arron Wood, who was seen as a frontrunner going into the election, conceded defeat on 29 October.^[53]

A number of community groups, residents associations and media organisations hosted Meet the Lord Mayor Candidates events. Not all candidates were invited to all events, nor do all invitees participate.

P	Participant
A	Absent
N	Non-invitee
U	Unknown if attended

Date	Host	Participants
		RIP	AJP	HAK	NICK	MOR	KOU	LIB	WOO	GRN	VFM	ALP
23 September 2024	Community3008[54]	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U
25 September 2024	Future Forte[55]	A	A	P	P	A	A	A	P	P	P	P
30 September 2024	YIMBY Melbourne/Housing All Australians/6 News[56][57][58]	A	A	P	P	A	P	P	P	P	P	P
3 October 2024	Residents 3000[59]	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
6 October 2024	Melbourne South Yarra Residents Group[60]	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
9 October 2024	Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry[61][62]	A	N	P	P	P	P	N	P	N	A	P
10 October 2024	ABC Radio Melbourne[63]	N	N	N	P	N	P	N	P	P	N	N
10 October 2024	Southbank Residents Association[64][65]	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
15 October 2024	Carlton Residents Association[66]	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U	U
16 October 2024	Chinatown Precinct Association[67]	A	A	P	P	A	P	P	P	A	P	P
22 October 2024	Nine News Melbourne[68][69][70]	N	N	N	P	N	P	N	P	P	N	N

Summarize Fact Check

For the leadership team election, candidates can provide how-to-vote cards with recommendations for voters on how to preference other parties. Unlike for the councillor election, which uses group voting tickets, the preference recommendations are non-binding.

Party	How-to-vote card (read column from top down)
	RIP	AJP	HAK	NICK	MOR	KOU	LIB	WOO	GRN	VFM	ALP
	Rip Up the Bike Lanes![71]	1	10	11	11	5	5	6	9	11	11	11
	Animal Justice	2	1	3	10	9	7	10	6	3	6	4
	Team Hakim[72]	3	2	1	7	10	8	7	4	2	2	3
	Team Nick Reece[73]	4	7	10	1	3	3	3	10	7	9	7
	Team Morgan	5	9	8	2	1	2	4	11	9	7	10
	Team Kouta[74]	6	8	9	3	2	1	2	8	10	10	9
	Liberal	7	11	7	5	4	4	1	5	8	8	8
	Team Wood[75]	8	4	6	9	6	10	8	1	6	5	5
	Greens[76]	9	3	4	6	11	11	11	7	1	3	6
	Voices for Melbourne	10	6	2	8	7	6	5	2	4	1	2
	Labor[77][78]	11	5	5	4	8	9	9	3	5	4	1