By Ethan Benedicto
Kim Ross has been elected as the councillor for Casuarina, with the votes having her as a clear favourite of the ward.
Ross obtained the most first-preference votes with 3494, starting off with a strong lead against Rex Flannery in second place with 2011 votes.
This lead does not falter on her end, being the first option on the second-preference count four times among the eight other candidates.
She finished with a total of 10,156 votes, 60.30 per cent of the entire voter turnout.
Ross was thankful for her win, granting her thanks to those who supported and voted for her.
”I’m more passionate now than I was at the start, and it felt pretty fantastic being out on the stage but I also realised that this is just the first part, the first stage.
“It’s such an important stage to get to, it was just lovely to be able to have the first official speech done with,” Ross said.
Trailing behind Ross, Rex Flannery, Morteza Ali and Jane Foreman held a very close race, with second preferences tipping the favour to either Ali or Foreman rather frequently.
Flannery held the second position until the seventh round when he was bounced from the race; here, Ali’s second votes were the lowest – at 669 – for him, as compared to Foreman with 1096 and Ross with 1429.
Foreman went the whole stretch with Ross, with the numbers turning in her favour during the fifth round after Suzanne Carmody’s second preferences saw her gain an additional 726 – Ross only gained 592.
However, the lead cut wasn’t significant with Ross, who at that stage, was still leading the race with a minimum of 2000 votes compared to the others.
Despite the loss, Foreman was “thrilled, really, really thrilled”.
“Kim deserved to win, she put a really good effort in and she’s been campaigning since June.
“Everyone puts in what they want to put in, but I was thrilled, I had over 25 volunteers do my letterbox drop, just people who believed in and again, I was thrilled,” she said.
Foreman said she was looking to “hand some things over to Kim”, from her initiative in Webb Street and other campaign goals which she hopes to see upheld in council.
For third place as a former councillor and some experience in his record book, Flannery had “no problems whatsoever” after coming close in the Casuarina race.
“Congratulations to the winner, and I’ve got no animosity, I’m not upset; the people have a choice, they have a democracy and they choose the vote.
“They picked who they wanted and hopefully [Ross] does the right thing by the community,” he said.
While he’s out of the race, Flannery said that his campaigning and push for his goals will continue, adding “I won’t be able to sit still”.
“If people can’t get their best interests within the council heard, I’ll stand up for them and push forward with what I know about council.”
Ali’s campaign was his first, and with no prior experience in this field, he said he felt “good” about how things turned out.
“I didn’t have any experience at all, and to be honest, I didn’t have much time to do my campaign,” he said.
“I started very late, which cost me, and it was very confusing [for me] considering it was my first time, but nevertheless I think I did well.”
In his first run, Ali went neck and neck with both Flannery and Foreman, candidates who have had their fill of campaigns and political endeavours in the past.
Ali started at fourth place with 1844 first-preference votes, maintaining that position until the fourth round where Bassir Qadiri’s second votes saw him take on an extra 498, the largest in that round with Suzanne Carmody receiving the second-most at 343.
He was bumped to third place at 2598 votes at the beginning of the fifth round; at this stage, Flannery had 2843 and Foreman had 2368 – Samuel Lyndon was sitting at fourth with 2420.
The work for Ali doesn’t end there, however, having his taste in putting himself out there for the people, he plans to keep going.
“I’m a professional sportsman and I’m a businessman as well, I want to improve these opportunities,” he said.
“I know many young people that don’t have a proper opportunity to play cricket, soccer, especially minority groups as well.
“That was my aim before and it still is, as well as improving business opportunities, I can see young people that don’t have opportunities.”
Like many, Ross had been “madly googling” who the candidates were going to be prior to the announcement on 8 November, and for her, she is “starting fresh” with the other councillors, “trusting that everyone has stood up for the right reasons”.
“Trusting that we will find common ground with each other to work for the citizens of Casey.
“We will have our differences and disagreements, but if we can all hold each other accountable to why we’re here and respect each other’s opinions, it should be a fairly positive thing for democracy in Casey,” she said.
