Council amalgamations - Electorates united in protest vote ...

Excerpt from the Chronicle:

Electorates united in protest vote

19 December 2007

The vote is in and the shires have spoken with 77% of voters opposed to the State Government's forced amalgamation.

There is no going back.

Of the 85 participating councils there were 696,567 eligible voters. But the Australian Electoral Commission counted 385,847 - that's 55% of voters.

There were 87,252 Yes votes and 297,661 No votes.

In the tiny shire of Ilfracombe, only one of the 144 of the 195 eligible voters on the roll voted Yes. It had the highest No return at 99%. Warroo Shire, based at Surat, had a 98% opposition to amalgamation with 10 Yes votes and 586 No votes.

On the Darling Downs, Millmerran and Clifton shires had a 97% opposition to inclusion in the Toowoomba Regional Council.

Millmerran residents were surprised and angry. They rallied for the Sea of Red protest. Millmerran Shire Mayor Paul Antonio said: 'It's a vindication of our stance. I'm satisfied we represented our people well when you see figures like that. We've been adamant all along that there were better models for regional governance to allow people to have local government representative and feel comfortable about it. But the facts are the amalgamation is now law and we have to fight to do the best we can for our communities. I am delighted we have some hard data that suggests that 97% of our people did not want the amalgamation and that's something we can carry through to the future,' Cr Antonio said.

Federal Member for Maranoa Bruce Scott said the people of his electorate sent a strong message to the Bligh Labor Government. Mr Scott said more than 50,000 voters across 17 shires within the Maranoa electorate voted, with 85% saying no to the amalgamation of their shire.

See - Strong NO vote on amalgamations.