SHAUN Whitechurch’s elevation to Federation Council has come at the perfect time, according to a former Corowa Shire councillor, who appears set to join him in local government.
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Norm Wales is poised to become one of a small number of former councillors to win a spot on the newly created council with Mr Whitechurch out-performing five other groups with almost 20 per cent of the first preference votes counted.
“He has got the community and the town at heart,” Mr Wales said.
“He is a go ahead man.
“It’s a new council, a big area and he brings a lot to the table.”
“We’re obviously pretty happy with the result,” he said.
“We got the support we hoped we would get.
“It looks like Urana is also going to have good representation and that is important.
“With the voting still to come it will be interesting to see where the preferences go and who fills the remaining spots.”
Mr Whitechurch is the operations manager at Corowa’s Focus Engineering with his boss James Webb also on his ticket.
He said he sensed a mood for change in the community leading up to the election.
“The feeling we were getting before voting started was we needed new blood and people had lost a bit of faith in the previous council over the amalgamation,” Mr Whitechurch said.
“They were looking for change and that is what we tried to tap into.
“My message was ‘if you want change, you've got to make change’.
“I think the people have spoken.”
Mr Wales, a former policeman, was first elected to Corowa Shire in 2004.
Former Corowa mayor Fred Longmire, who also joined council in the same year as Mr Wales, could still sneak onto council again.
He has a healthy number of first preference votes (405 with nearly 80 per cent of votes counted), but has only one other member in his group and is going to have to rely on preferences in coming days.
It’s a similar story for another former Corowa mayor, Paul Miegel, who has 534 first preference votes, but is also short of the 677 quota required presently.
Mulwala’s representation on council remains unclear.
Tickets led by Bronwyn Thomas (466) and Andrew Kennedy (355) are both short of the quota and former councillor Daryl Davey, who stood as a below the line candidate, faces an uphill battle with only 189 votes to date.
