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THE seismic shift of political power in Newcastle has been completed with Labor regaining control of Newcastle council in a crushing win at the weekend’s lord mayoral byelection.
Labor’s Nuatali Nelmes romped home in Saturday’s poll and with support from the Greens, will control the council until the next election in 2016.
The win means Newcastle has regained its mantle as ‘‘Labor heartland’’ and has control of local, state and federal offices for the first time since 1998 when Greg Heys was the city’s lord mayor.
How effective they are in dealing with Liberal state and federal governments now becomes the city’s biggest challenge.
Ms Nelmes, the daughter of former councillor Paul Scobie, becomes only the second woman to win the lord mayoral role, behind the popular Joy Cummings who served two stints in the 1970s.
Saturday’s byelection provided a decisive win for the 38-year-old Merewether resident, earning more than 42per cent of first preference votes.
Independent candidate Brad Luke provided the only real competition but fell more than 15,000 votes short of a win.
Greens candidate Therese Doyle earned almost 14per cent of the primary vote with independent Aaron Buman further behind with slightly more than 11per cent.
Spending Sunday with her husband and children, Ms Nelmes said she was keen to get on with the job. At the top of her agenda was making the council ‘‘more open and transparent’’, she said.
Among her other priorities was restoring funding to war memorial services, pumping $90,000 into the Renew Newcastle scheme, restoring environmental programs and pushing for state and federal funding for the expansion of Newcastle Art Gallery.
‘‘We need to continue the revitalisation of our city and, to be honest, a lot of people I have spoken to are not happy about the rail line being cut,’’ she said.
‘‘They feel like they’ve been cheated. They want improved public transport, not less. We need to be sending that message to the state government.’’
The cost of those promises and restoring the services slashed by the council in recent years as it turned its finances away from insolvency will be Ms Nelmes’ biggest challenge, but she said the money would be found.
Mr Luke said he hoped the council would continue to focus on the city’s urban renewal and not get sucked into another spending spree, which would undo its hard-won financial recovery.
‘‘At the end of the day, you’ve got to put your hand up and run, especially when you have no confidence in the other candidates who are running,’’ Mr Luke said.
Mr Buman, he said, had taken a lot of his votes away, ‘‘which was unfortunate’’.
‘‘The people have voted, they’ve made their choice and we all have to get on with things,’’ he said.
Mr Buman was disappointed with his result, saying he’d be unlikely to seek election again. While he paid tribute to Ms Nelmes’ win, he said he feared for the council’s future.
‘‘I take my hat off to Nuatali,’’ he said. ‘‘But I can’t say I have high hopes for Newcastle council. I think it’s about to implode. Therese Doyle will probably be elected the deputy – we’re in trouble.’’
Ms Doyle and the Greens polled better than Mr Buman, saying the substantial swing to Labor was ‘‘a rejection of the crony politics that has been the hallmark of council business for the past two years’’.
‘‘Now we need to act on our promises to the people of the city and make sure they have a real voice in all future decisions about the city’s direction,’’ she said.
The election of Ms Nelmes means that yet another byelection will need to be held in the city to fill the councillor seat she is about to vacate. That byelection will likely be held in February and will require the residents of Ward 3 to vote again. Ward 3 includes the suburbs essentially bordered by Kotara, New Lambton, Jesmond and Waratah.
