Councillor Peter Harle JP
Dear LCIT Members and Friends,
A very big thank you to all our supporters and LCIT members that manned the polling booths for the Liverpool Community Independents Team (LCIT) on Saturday 4th December. Words are never enough to thank everyone, without your dedication, hard work and faith in our team our results would not have been possible.
There are numerous people behind the scenes that offered their precious time and wonderful support that I can never ever thank enough. It is extremely humbling to think that you have faith in my efforts to improve our community.
Outstanding of you all are Janice my soul partner and staunchest supporter, who personally manned our prepolls every day and without a doubt lifted our numbers, Pauline Rowe our Party Agent and very good friend that organised the massive liaison with the Electoral Commission and their often-frustrating processes, I don’t know how Pauline managed to keep calm. Pauline has travelled from Orange several times over the past few months to co-ordinate the election process. Pauline has managed this process for the past four elections and most importantly without Pauline’s’ dedication and determination LCIT would not be a force to be reckoned with today.
Then there are our family members, daughters; Michelle, Louise, Alison and Kate, their spouses, Marc, Matt and Rayman and Grandchildren Miki and her Fiancé Todd, Mia, Paris, Paige, Jarrod, Georgie and Eve, they letterboxed more than 20,000 flyers and leaflets during the weeks prior to the election and without their help on election day we would not have been able to man all the polling booths we did.
Miki used her special talents to organise Facebook posts and manage both our websites, www.lcit.com.au and www.lcitnorthward.org continually updating information and pushing our LCIT team to the forefront.
In addition, there are outstanding Members who despite their senior years and many health problems helped hand out HTV flyers at polling booths, letterboxed flyers and put-up posters around our LGA. Those included Nadia and George Licastro, Tony Felgate, Mark, Joanne George and family, Ken & Ken Young Jr, Kevin and Criss Moore, Colin and Janice Harrington, Michael Doherty, Michael Russell, Jim Wilson, Bernard and Michelle Fortin, Ian Bailey, Victor Fenech, Robert Storey, Dianne Baric, Briona Jocic and many rural supporters including Rob Martin, Rita and Members of the Luddenham Progress Association.
LCIT is a proud community-based organisation striving to improve our LGA and to that end our team of around 25 regular meeting attendees provided the essential support to make LCIT the third largest Political Party in our LGA. We consistently manage to get at least 10% of the overall vote hence the Major Parties have a healthy respect for us.
It was a very exhausting election made unnecessarily harder by the manner in which the Election was conducted. The high rate of informal votes, initially almost 23%, is an obvious reflection of that flawed process. Sadly, the varying restrictions governing the handout of HTV flyers and distance limitations at various polling booths made the process considerably more difficult. There was little helpful information on how to vote and how the preferential system operates to ensure a fair community driven outcome is achieved. Few voters understood what is meant by “just put a one in the box above the line”. Sadly, few voters used their preferences wisely if at all.
Ned Mannoun (Liberal) will be the Mayor and I was re-elected in the North Ward and Karress Rhodes in the South Ward. It will mean neither Major Party has a majority in Council and will need at least one LCIT Councillor to support their agenda. IMHO it will effectively be “balanced” Council with no “one party” having a majority.
Voting results can be obtained by following this link: https://vtr.elections.nsw.gov.au/LG2101/liverpool/results
I will continue to represent the best interest of our community as I have done for the past 13 years.
Once again, a very, very big thank you to you all and if I have forgotten anyone, I apologise it has been an exhausting time and we are extremely grateful for all the help we have received.
I will also take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.
I will leave it up to Karress Rhodes to thank her team of supporters in the South Ward.
23rd of December 2021
Kind Regards,
Peter Harle JP
T: 02 8090 2646
M: 04 1273 6956
E: hph10@internode.on.net
W1: http://www.lcit.com.au
W2: www.lcitnorthward.org