The 15 new Central Coast councillors have been officially named after the NSW Electoral Commission declared the numbers on Monday, September 30.
Four distinct groups have emerged after the count was declared with five Labor, five Liberal including one Independent Liberal, three Team Central Coast and two Independent conservation-focused councillors.
Three former mayors and one former federal Member of Parliament will grace the council chamber.
| Group/Ward | Gos’ West | Gos’ East | Wyong | The Ent’ | Budgi’ |
| Liberal | T. McWaide | J. Wright | J. McNamara | R. Stanton | D. Eaton |
| Team CC | L. McKinna | K. Daniels | J. Mouland | ||
| Labor | B. Neal | S. Walsh | K. MacGregor | M. Castles | H. Crowley |
| Indies | J. Smith | C. Lamont |
The race is now on to elect the all-important new mayor and deputy mayor at the first council meeting to be held on Tuesday, October 8.
In theory, any one of the councillors can be elected mayor and deputy mayor for two-year terms, though in practice the parties and/or groups with the most votes will get their candidate in.
The two most likely mayoral candidates are former pre-amalgamation mayors Lawrie McKinna, the former Gosford Council’s final mayor; and Doug Eaton, the final mayor of the former Wyong Council.
However, alternative candidates at the vote by councillors will likely be former MP Belinda Neal and former Central Coast Council mayor Jane Smith.
Other previous councillors include Kyle MacGregor, Labor councillor for the Wyong Ward, who was suspended along with Smith when the first Central Coast Council went into administration in October 2020, followed by the sacking of councillors in March 2022 as a result of the Public Inquiry into the council’s financial issues.
Labor’s Belinda Neal, a former senator, MP and Gosford councillor, and John McNamara, a former Wyong councillor, have both been elected: Neal in Gosford West ward and McNamara in the Wyong ward.
New councillors include two from McKinna’s Team Central Coast: CEO of Regional Development Australia Central Coast John Mouland in the Budgewoi ward, and Kyla Daniels in the Wyong ward.
Other first-time councillors included three Liberals – Trent McWaide in Gosford West ward; Jared Wright in Gosford East ward and Rachel Stanton in The Entrance ward; and three Labor councillors – Helen Crowley in Budgewoi ward, Sharon Walsh in the Gosford East ward and Margot Castles in The Entrance ward: as well as Independent, Save our Sands campaigner Corine Lamont.
Candidates have 24 hours from the NSW Electoral Commission’s declaration on Monday, September 30, to lodge a request for a recount.
- If no recounts are requested, the results stand.
Why is new Independent councillor Corinne Lamont not mentioned in the main story?
Thank you Janet. A little closer look will see she is named and refered to. Rest assured all the councillors will be profiled as we move forward.
Am I alone in feeling a little uncomfortable that the likely candidates for mayor were councillors or held the position of mayor in the previous line ups that got into us into such an appalling mess that the administrator was appointed?
I was of the understanding that previous Councillors, before Administration, could not stand?
Thanks Denise, many have wondered too. FYI: They were no adverse unlawful finding against them in the inquiry.
How could two people already suspended for incompetence get reflected.
Same old names return.
Seems the electorate have have learned nothing.
Back to the future!!@
same old same old . here we go again.
Can’t understand some comments suggesting it’s not a good idea to have some experienced heads on the new council, especially when it was the disastrous amalgamation policy of the previous State government and the behaviour of council bureaucrats, not councillors that gave the Liberals the opportunity to unfairly ger rid of independent and Labor voices on the council that they didn’t like.
Can someone in the council be able to tell me if the Warnavale town centre still going a head inthe future and when thank you
Such a shame old councillors are back. The Central Coast needs good economic and asset management and ears to hear the community. Leopards don’t change spots.
i really thought that the central coast electorate was smarter than this but apparently i was wrong ! Gee , looks like the next 4 years are going to be fun ….. not !
so people who have been suspended for creating the worst council Australia has ever seen are back in there to do it again . What a great system this country has . What a joke
Very happy to see Belinda Neale elected. As a former Senator, she will certainly run rings around the others.
Did the earlier comments get removed? Who pays for this newspaper, is it paid through Council with our rates? Why did this paper leave it until during the week of pre-polling to put up the bios of all the candidates? A few went up, but certainly not all of them. No time to read about who’s who. Very little or no information about meet-the-candidates sessions. This information should have been put out by Council for several weeks leading up to the 14th September and, yes, Council did have that information well in advance.
Michele, we’re glad you read our articles, as do about 150,000 other people, either online or in print or on our radio partners each week.
To answer your question, we are an independent local family owned news organisation. Council has no ownership or influence in any way.
To be clear we have published hundreds, yes hundreds of stories about counil over the adminsitration and election period.
Our trusted local journalists have asked the hard questions of all previous counillors and the administrators, without an agenda. We run a special council section as well : https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/council/
27,000 print newspaper copies are distibuted each week across the coast and all articles and more are published here on this website and several other news outlets across the region.
We agree with you the council under adminsitration did a poor job of informing locals of the election overall.
Rest assured as the only regional daily news organisation we take our mission very seriosly.
We all feel we have participated in 52 pickup, being sacked or disgraced or previous not a problem. The donkey polled 21%, should be a councillor!