Rosanna Natoli leads Ashley Robinson in close mayoral race

Rosanna & Joe Natoli may both be serving on the new Council. 

by Janine Hill

TELEVISION personality Rosanna Natoli held a narrow lead in the race to become the Sunshine Coast’s next mayor as of Tuesday afternoon but was not yet claiming victory.

Ms Natoli, with 27.29% of the primary vote in preliminary counting, was just ahead of surf lifesaving and rugby league identity Ashley Robinson on 24.96%.

Jason O’Pray, the only councillor to nominate for the role vacated by Mark Jamieson after three terms, was in third place with 21.45% and looked like he would be out of council after 12 years.

Businesswoman Min Swan was running fourth on 16.44%, followed by hinterland campaigner Wayne Parcell on 6.41% and council critic Michael Burgess on 3.45%.

Preferences might not be finalised for days but how much they could influence the result was difficult to tell.

The election was run under an optional preferential voting system and not all voters would have exercised the option to nominate preferences.

Ms Natoli was happy to be in front but was careful not to claim a win while Mr Robinson was still within striking distance and there was still counting to be done.

“I’m ahead at this point and obviously, we don’t know what happens with preferences,” she said.

“It’s certainly nice to be in this position because they have to claw back all of those votes but at the same time, in all honesty, until people’s preferences have been allocated, it’s a bit difficult to tell.”

She was well aware that she did not have 50% of the vote and said, if successful, she would be working to convince all voters she was worthy of their vote. “There are a lot of people who didn’t vote for me and I need to earn their trust if I’m mayor,” she said.

Mr Robinson thought his chances of overcoming Ms Natoli were slim but he had not given up. “I’ll wait until the official winner is declared but it looks like Rosanna is the winner and what it looks like is that there’s definitely been a message sent to the council about change,” he said. “I don’t agree with some of Rosanna’s rhetoric but I have to compliment her on the way she’s run her campaign. She was relentless, she worked hard, her team at the polling booths was relentless as well, and it’s worked well for her,” he said. “I’d also like to congratulate Min Swan and Wayne Parcell on the way they ran their campaigns.”

Mr Robinson said he had not realised until late in his eight-week campaign that the election would end up a tussle between him and Ms Natoli. “I always thought it was going to be Jason and Rosanna and me but the second week of pre-polling, all of a sudden, it was me and Rosanna,” he said.

The Gazette attempted to contact Mr O’Pray but he had not responded at the time of publication.

Ashley Robinson is hoping for a come-from-behind win. 

Frustrated voters report ballot shortages, long queues

by Janine Hill

SUNSHINE Coast voters trying to do their civic duty were confronted by long queues and a shortage of ballot papers at some polling booths on election day.

The Electoral Commission of Queensland has defended its running of the local government election on Saturday 16 March although it has been described as a joke and farcical by frustrated voters.

The Gazette was told that mayoral ballot papers ran out at times at booths in Palmwoods, Woombye, Sippy Downs and Landsborough. Voters, including elderly people and parents with babies and children, waited in line in the sun for up to an hour at some booths, only to find there were no ballot papers left.

A woman who queued for 30-40 minutes at Siena Catholic College overheard an electoral officer ask volunteers handing out how-to-vote cards to divert people to other polling booths as papers ran short.

“By the time we got inside, my mum was one of the last to get one in her line. In the line I was in, he had 22 left in his book and the line beside me already ran out,” she said. 

“People were standing around wondering, ‘What’s going on?’. I then heard them say they would take people’s names down on a piece of paper to say that they came to vote to avoid the fine. The Gazette understands that electoral officers joined the end of lines at 6pm on Saturday as markers and that those ahead of them were allowed to cast their vote after the poll had closed.

Call for digital voting

David Szabo, who voted at Siena,  estimated the queue at the only active polling station in division six stretched for nearly a kilometre when he tried to vote on Saturday afternoon.

A cyber security expert, he called for the introduction of digital voting.  “It’s absurd that in 2024, we’re still subjected to such archaic and inconvenient methods of voting, especially when there are far more efficient and accessible alternatives available. “Digital (online) voting has been successfully implemented in numerous countries like Switzerland, Norway, Canada, and the US. 

“Investing in modernising our voting system would not only save time but also increase voter turnout and accommodate those who can’t participate in early voting. 

“It’s time we allocate resources to something as fundamental as our democratic process.”

Bill Hoffman, campaign manager for mayoral candidate Ashley Robinson, said the Electoral Commission had failed to provide the necessary infrastructure to cover the voting population.

Mayoral candidate Rosanna Natoli, who spent Election Day at the Baringa polling booth, witnessed people queuing in the sun for an hour and said, “people were quite frustrated at times”.

Councillor Winston Johnston theorised that the voter turn-out on the day at polling booths such as Woombye and Palmwoods, in his divison, had been greater than expected because parking was easier than in Nambour, where pre-polling had been available.

Cr Johnston said that divisional ballot papers could be printed at the booths but the mayoral ballot forms could not, and therefore ran short when more voters than expected turned up.

“I think that’s what happened. Very few people have left Woombye and Palmwoods to go and pre-poll because of the parking battle.

“Woombye and Palmwoods, almost all day up until 3.30-4pm, they were lined up down the road,” he said. 

An ECQ spokesman said queues, voting after 6pm and shortages of ballot papers sometimes occurred.

“Queues on election day are not uncommon and while there were long queues in some places, in many others the wait time for electors was very short…” the spokesperson said.

“Every Queensland elector who presented at a polling place before 6pm and wanted to cast a vote was able to cast their vote. 

“We have received no reports of electors being turned away from a polling booth if they arrived before 6pm.”