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First-time councillors likely to be kingmakers at Tuesday night's vote for deputy mayor
August 30, 2023
By Peter Holmes
The next deputy mayor of Orange will be elected on Tuesday night as part of council proceedings, and at least three councillors are expected to throw their hat in the ring - current deputy mayor Gerald Power, Tony Mileto and Jeff Whitton.
Whitton and Power told The Orange News Examiner on Wednesday they will run. Comment has been sought from Mileto, however other councillors say he has told them he will run.
We have crunched the numbers and concluded that the secret ballot votes of three first-term councillors - Jack Evans, Glenn Floyd and Tammy Greenhalgh - will likely prove crucial in the first voting round for who becomes deputy mayor.
While the mayor of Orange is popularly elected, the deputy mayor is elected by fellow councillors. This is typically done annually, however due to the shorter term served by this council it was decided that Power would serve until next week.
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In the first round of voting (if there are more than two candidates) Gerald Power would likely have three solid votes - himself, David Mallard and Melanie McDonell. He is also hopeful of mayor Jason Hamling’s support.
Tony Mileto could expect the support of councillors Steve Peterson and Frances Kinghorne, giving him three solid votes.
Jeff Whitton has the solid support of Kevin Duffy, and is hopeful of securing at least two out of Hamling, Greenhalgh and Floyd, if not all three.
In this scenario, if Power secured Hamling’s vote he would have four. If Whitton secured Floyd and Greenhalgh, he too would have four. Leaving Tony Mileto with three, and needing Jack Evans’ vote to bring him to four.
Floyd said on Wednesday night he was "looking forward to these guys having an opportunity to talk before the meeting. I'll leave my call until then". He said Power had "done a good job" as deputy mayor - a comment echoed by Whitton - but that "there is a lot of experience in Tony and Jeff, they could both do the job quite well also".
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Evans told The Orange News Examiner on Wednesday he was still weighing up the vote, as he found all three candidates impressive.
In the scenario above, if Evans and Hamling went with Power, the current deputy would have five votes, Whitton four and Mileto three. Mileto would be knocked out in the first round, leaving a second vote between Power and Whitton.
If Evans went with Whitton, Whitton would have five, Power four and Mileto three.
But if Evans went with Mileto, which is not guaranteed but entirely possible, each candidate would have four votes.
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According to the Office of Local Government (OLG), if this occurred, “the returning officer advises the meeting of the following process … I will now write the names of the candidates on similar slips of paper, fold them and place them in the barrel. Please note that the candidate whose name is drawn out will be excluded”.
“It is appropriate to show the meeting the names and the barrel. Councillors may inspect but not touch the items.
"The returning officer places the names of the candidates into the barrel and requests a staff member to shake the barrel. The returning officer then draws a name out of the barrel and shows it to the meeting. I declare that [name of candidate] is excluded.”
If this happened, it's difficult to know where the final vote for deputy mayor would land, as it would depend on who's excluded in the first round.
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Of course, this is all speculation. Some councillors are locked in, but others won't make a call until Tuesday. Floyd said "it will be an interesting night".
The next council elections in NSW are a year away.
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