By Jeremy Sollars
Independent research conducted in November last year indicated around 65% of Southern Downs Regional Council voters interviewed had made up their mind at that point not to vote for former mayor Tracy Dobie at the March 2020 election.
But the research also suggested that at the same time 49% felt none of the councillors who served from 2016 to 2020 would “make a good mayor” to replace Ms Dobie, with 20% “undecided”.
Election polling research undertaken in mid-November 2019 by ReachTEL and obtained by the Free Times also suggested 40% of voters were then “very dissatisfied” with the then-council and 25% were “somewhat dissatisfied”.
Of the remainder surveyed 20% said they were “somewhat satisfied” and just over 10% were “very satisfied”, with the small remainder undecided.
The ReachTEL data was broken down by those identifying as residing in “Warwick/Warwick surrounds” and “Stanthorpe/Stanthorpe surrounds” and also by total “north” and “south”.
The research was conducted prior to new mayor Vic Pennisi having announced his intention to stand for the mayoralty.
When asked by ReachTEL last November if they would vote for Tracy Dobie if she ran for mayor in 2020, 27% of those in the “north” said yes and 56% said no, with 17% undecided.
In the “south” the responses were 14% yes and 76% no, and 10% undecided.
When collated the overall result was 21% ‘yes’ for Dobie, 65% ‘no’ and 14% undecided.
Perhaps indicative of the level of interest in the 2020 election – even well before Christmas last year – 74% of respondents said they were aware the election was coming up in March of this year, while 26% said they weren’t.
But also perhaps telling was that 67% of all those surveyed – from both “north” and “south” – said they would only vote for three or fewer of the 2016-2020 term councillors.
When asked if they thought any of the 2016-2020 term councillors would “make a good mayor” overall 31% said yes, 49% said no and 20% were undecided.
The 31% who said “yes” to that question were then asked who of those councillors they thought would make the best mayor, with 49% overall nominating Vic Pennisi. Overall Rod Kelly came in at 14% and Jo McNally at 13%.
In answer to a question, “Which (2016-2020) Councillor would you definitely vote for?” the following percentages were recorded –
• Cameron Gow 12%
• Rod Kelly 16%
• Jo McNally 7%
• Marika McNichol 6%
• Neil Meiklejohn 9%
• Vic Pennisi 40%
• Yve Stocks 4%
• Sheryl Windle 6%
(Note – at the time the research was conducted Neil Meiklejohn had not announced his intention to retire from the council, nor had Vic Pennisi announced he intended to run for mayor).
THE FINAL WASH-UP…
At the close of counting of the mayoral results from the 2020 election Vic Pennisi finished with 44.22% of the first preference vote and Tracy Dobie 36.48%.
But what those voters surveyed by ReachTEL did not know last November was that they would have two other options for mayor – Warwick’s Peter Kemp and Allora’s Joe Doepel, who between them garnered just under 20% of the total first-preference mayoral vote.
Peter Kemp finished with 14.36% and Joe Doepel with 4.94%.
After Kemp’s and Doepel’s preferences were distributed Pennisi finished with 55.85% of the final mayoral vote and Dobie 44.15%.
In 2016 Tracy Dobie won the mayoralty with 65.33% of the vote after preferences, as against nearest contender after preferences Ross Bartley, who finished in 2016 with 34.67%.
With the 2020 mayoral ballot ‘optional-preferential’, of the 3093 who voted ‘1’ for Peter Kemp only 1062 gave a preference vote – 758 for Vic Pennisi and 304 for Tracy Dobie.
Of the 1074 who voted ‘1’ for Joe Doepel 362 gave a preference – 139 each for Vic Pennisi and Peter Kemp, and 84 for Tracy Dobie.
Overall ‘informal’ votes cast were 2.37% for the mayoral ballot and 7.16% for the councillor ballot.
WHO DIDN’T VOTE…
Around 15% of those who were enrolled to vote in the Southern Downs Regional Council 2020 election did not cast a vote at all.
With 25,950 on the electoral roll that means around 3800 voters did not have a say – the number likely influenced by concerns over COVID-19, despite voters having the option of pre-arranging a postal or telephone vote.
The Electoral Commission of Queensland has not yet announced it will issue fines to those who did not cast a vote.
