Australian local elections
The 2024 Queensland local elections were held on 16 March 2024 to elect the mayors and councils of the 77 local government areas in Queensland, Australia.
The original scheduled elections date of 30 March 2024 was moved ahead to 16 March to avoid clashing with Easter holidays.
The elections were held on the same day as the state by-elections in Inala and Ipswich West.
There was a surprisingly large number of candidates elected unopposed in many council elections across Queensland, including some mayoral races. The lack of opposition to these candidates was criticised by experts as being bad for democracy.
Electoral systems.
Like at state and federal elections, voting at Queensland local elections is compulsory. The elections are conducted by the Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ).
Mayors and single-member wards.
All 77 councils use optional preferential voting (OPV) for mayoral elections. Under this system, voters are only required to vote for one candidates, although they can choose to preference other candidates.
In the 22 councils that use single-member wards (including Brisbane, Gold Coast and Townsville) OPV is also used.
Multi-member wards.
Only Ipswich uses multi-member wards, with four two-member wards (resulting in eight total councillors).
No form of preferential voting is in place, with plurality block voting − also referred to as first-past-the-post by the ECQ − instead used. Voters are only required to mark the same amount of candidates as there are positions to be elected (in the case of Ipswich, two candidates).
Undivided councils.
54 councils are undivided, meaning they do not use any forms of wards and all councillors are elected to a single area representing the entire council.
Plurality block voting is used for these councils.
Candidates.
1,422 candidates were nominated for the elections at the close of nominations on 14 February 2024.
Steve "Jacko" Jackson, a former rugby league footballer, ran for mayor of Mackay. Former MP George Christensen contested Mackay Regional Council as a candidate for Jackson's Mackay First ticket.
Another former federal MP, Andrew Laming, ran for mayor of Redland. On 25 January 2024, he confirmed he had dropped his Liberal National Party (LNP) membership, saying it had "no place" at a local level". 15 mayoral positions and 46 councillor positions were uncontested, the highest number since 2012.
On 21 February, the LNP disendorsed Brisbane City Council candidate Brock Alexander after comments he allegedly made about the parents of Daniel Morecombe came to light. Alexander was a candidate for Deagon Ward, and his name still appeared on the ballot as he was disendorsed after the close of nominations.
An analysis from the ABC found that over 10% of independents in the elections were members of a political party.
Party changes before elections.
A number of councillors joined, left or formed parties before the 2024 elections.
Results.
All changes compared with the 2020 elections.
References.
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