New Englanders will head to the polls in September to vote for the councillors on each of our 12 local government bodies. If you were thinking about running in the election, you had better get yourself organised soon, as there’s a lot to know and even more to do.
Check you are eligible
There are no special qualifications that you need to be a councillor. As with most elections, the general rule is that if you can vote for it, you can run for it. However, the following things will disqualify you as a candidate under s275 of the Local Government Act:
- You can’t be a member of the NSW Parliament (with some exceptions)
- You can’t be a judge of any State or Commonwealth court
- You can’t be in jail, unless you’re only there because you didn’t pay a fine
- You can’t have been convicted of an offence in the last two years
- You can’t have been convicted at any point in the previous 7 years of an offence that is punishable by 5 years or more. (Note here that the test is the maximum punishment available under NSW law, not what you actually got.)
- You can’t have been convicted of an offence under electoral funding laws punishable by imprisonment for two years or more
- You can’t be disqualified from holding civic office or managing a company
- You can’t be an employee of a council
The TL;DR version is as long as you’re not a state politician, a judge, a criminal, or a council employee, you should be fine. But if you have any concerns, or any kind of criminal record, seek legal advice.
To be eligible to be nominated as a candidate for an election in a local government area, you also must be enrolled to vote in the local government area before 6pm Monday, 5 August 2024. So double check your enrolment is up to date ASAP.
Get nominated
You can’t nominate yourself to run for local government, you need to be nominated by either a registered political party, or two people who are registered to vote in the same LGA that you are running for (for example, if you are running for Uralla Shire Council, they must be registered to vote in the Uralla Shire Council area).
Nomination is a separate process to being registered to accept political donations or to make payments for electoral expenditure.
Nominations open on Monday August 5, and close at midday on the following Wednesday, August 14. You can create an account on the nomination system and start preparing your applications now here.
If you’re running for Council with friends, you can request to be grouped with a group voting square on the ballot paper as part of your nomination. You can do this regardless of whether you’re affiliated with a registered political party. Group members, and the order of candidates in the group, must be confirmed by the close of nominations at 12 noon on Wednesday, 14 August 2024.
Register to start campaigning (and then track the money)
This is a separate process to getting nominated, and a separate process to registering your electoral material. (Pro tip: if this kind of bureaucracy drives you mad, you probably won’t enjoy being on local council.)
A candidate or group must first be registered for the election before accepting political donations or spending money on their campaign, called ‘electoral expenditure’. Political donations include funds raised through fundraisers as well as other monetary and non-monetary gifts. Electoral expenditure is any expenditure that promotes or opposes a political party or the election of a candidate or group of candidates, or influences voting at an election.
It’s against the law to either accept donations or make electoral expenditure payments without being registered, and once registered you need to meet your obligations to disclose your donations and expenditure.
There are caps on political donations, which means a candidate or group can only accept a certain amount from a person or entity in a financial year. The current cap on donations to a registered group or party is $7,900, and $3,800 for an unregistered group or candidate, or a third party campaigner. Your own money put towards your campaign is not included.
Important note a lot of people miss: you must set up a separate bank account for your campaign funds before your donations exceed $1000.
There are also caps on how much you can spend on your campaign. These caps vary depending on how many people are enrolled to vote in your local government area. See the caps on the NSWEC website.
Register your electoral material
Electoral material that you intend to hand out on election day – such as how-to-vote cards – must be registered with the NSW Electoral Commission. This includes any material that is handed out or left in a position for collection by the public on election day, but does not include posters, corflutes, or materials handed out earlier in the campaign.
The online system for registration of electoral material will be available on 12pm Wednesday, 14 August 2024 until 5pm Friday, 6 September 2024.
Get informed
As you can see there’s a lot of rules around running in an election – the above is only just the beginning. You also need to know about things like authorising your campaign material, the kinds of records you need to keep, and it’s a good idea to learn a bit about what the job entails before you go investing in corflutes and setting up a Facebook Page.
Many candidates never really get started because they don’t take the time to get informed and do all the things they have to do to comply with the rules. Far too many announce their campaign, put up signs and a website, and even do media interviews, before learning that they’re ineligible or they didn’t do some bit of paperwork that they really needed to do.
There is lots of good information on the NSWEC website including webinars specifically about this election, resources and guides from the Office of Local Government and Local Government NSW, and some great information sessions being run by particular Councils.
One information session happening next week worth noting: Narrabri Shire Council is partnering with Gunnedah Shire Council in hosting the ‘Getting Women Elected with the Australian Local Government Women’s Association’ session.
Saturday, 20 July
10.00am – 11.30am
Gunnedah Town Hall
https://www.trybooking.com/CRXES
Getting more women – as well as people of colour, with disability, or different backgrounds is both very hard and very important, so please do consider running if you fit those descriptions.
Some Council General Managers are also very happy to sit and chat with you about things before you commit to standing for the election, but they’re busy people, so reach out sooner rather than later to see if you can get some time in their diary.
The local government elections in NSW will be held on September 14, 2024.
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