Despite their party memberships, they ran as an independent team that was not officially endorsed by any political party.
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Ingleton said the second placing of the Greens was historic and that it showed how strong the party’s vote was, despite the City of Melbourne electoral system giving two votes to businesses, and allowing non-residents landlords to vote.
Lord Mayor final primary vote count
- Nick Reece (Team Reece): 20,523
- Roxane Ingleton (Green): 12,445
- Mariam Riza (Liberal): 11,985
- Anthony Koutoufides (Team Kouta): 11,345
- Arron Wood (Team Wood): 8856
- Phil Reed (Labor): 5930
- Gary Morgan (Team Morgan): 4281
- Jamal Hakim (Team Hakim): 3766
- Anthony Van Der Craats (Rip Up The Bike Lanes!): 3706
- Greg Bisinella (Voices of Melbourne): 3079
- Eylem Kim (Animal Justice Party): 1936
The current electoral roll in the City of Melbourne is 31 per cent landlords and 16 per cent businesses.
“That dilutes the Greens vote a lot,” Ingleton said.
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“I think that speaks volumes for us to have such an outstanding result this time, just how big the Greens vote really is here in the city.”
Ingleton urged the new lord mayor and councillor group to lobby the state government for reforms to the City of Melbourne Act to remove double voting rights for businesses and require real-time donation disclosure.
Reece, who refused to declare his donations before the election, conceded the legislation “needs a refresh”.
The final computer count for the City of Melbourne elections was conducted by the Victorian Electoral Commission at Drill Hall near the Queen Victoria Market on Thursday. It also finalised the result for nine additional councillor positions.
The deadline for postal votes ended almost two weeks ago on October 25, with the subsequent counting process giving ex-Carlton footballer Anthony Koutoufides a chance to win before Reece pulled ahead.
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The final flow of preferences meant Reece was up against Ingleton as the final two candidates. Liberal candidate Mariam Riza finished third, with Koutoufides coming fourth. Arron Wood, considered Reece’s main rival for much of the campaign, ran fifth.
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Four incumbents were elected to serve as councillors alongside Reece and Campbell: Kevin Louey (Team Reece), Olivia Ball (Greens), Davydd Griffiths (Labor for Melbourne) and Philip Le Liu (Team Wood).
Joining them are five new councillors: Owen Guest (Liberals for Melbourne), Gladys Liu (Team Kouta), Mark Scott (Team Reece), Rafael Camillo (Team Morgan) and Andrew Rowse (Innovate Melbourne).
Reece thanked the people of Melbourne, Campbell, his campaign team, and his family. His wife, Felicity Pantelidis, was standing next to him at the press conference.
“I put myself forward because I love Melbourne. I believe in this city,” he said.
“I’m hungry for the job, and I’m hungry to work hard every single day to deliver for Melburnians.”
Reece said his priorities were to make Melbourne safer – pointing to his policies of new city safety officers and more CCTV cameras – and improve amenity, with an initiative of trying to force graffiti taggers to pay for clean-ups.
“No one has gone harder on cleanliness and safety than me [during the campaign]. As lord mayor, I’m going to make it a reality,” he said.
Reece and Campbell shared a hug as their names appeared on the screen as the successful winners and the room of about 50 observers clapped. The only other candidates to attend the final count were Phil Read and Gary Morgan.
Koutoufides, Riza, Ingleton, Wood and Jamal Hakim were not in the room to see the final result.
Before the election, The Age conducted a survey of council election candidates across Greater Melbourne. All but one of the now elected City of Melbourne councillors responded.
Use the interactive below to see what they said.