‘The best days of the city are ahead’: Nick Reece wins race to be Melbourne lord mayor

Nick Reece has promised to follow through on cleaning up the CBD, bringing in $2 swims, new gardens and stationing security officers throughout the city after being elected as Melbourne’s lord mayor for the next four years.

Reece won the primary vote with 20,523 votes, while Greens candidate Roxane Ingleton came in second place with 12,445 votes. After preference distribution, Reece recorded 61.5 per cent of the vote, comfortably beating Ingleton’s 38.5 per cent.

Shortly after his win was confirmed, Reece said he was looking forward to the next four years “knowing the best days of the city are ahead of us”.

“I will build a Melbourne that is cleaner and greener, safer and more prosperous,” he said at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. “I will build a Melbourne which is inclusive and diverse.”

Reece refused to say if he would follow through on one of his controversial policies – selling the city’s share in the Regent Theatre to fund an arts festival.

“I look forward to discussing my policies with my councillor colleagues, and these things will be up for discussion,” he said.

Reece, a Labor party member, was running as the incumbent after he was sworn in as Melbourne’s 105th lord mayor in July following the resignation of Sally Capp.

He was elected on a “Team Reece” ticket with incumbent councillor Roshena Campbell, a Liberal party member, as his running mate for deputy mayor.

Despite their party memberships, they ran as an independent team that was not officially endorsed by any political party.

Ingleton said the second placing of the Greens was historic and that it showed how strong the party’s vote was, despite the City of Melbourne electoral system giving two votes to businesses, and allowing non-residents landlords to vote.

The current electoral roll in the City of Melbourne is 31 per cent landlords and 16 per cent businesses.

“That dilutes the Greens vote a lot,” Ingleton said.

“I think that speaks volumes for us to have such an outstanding result this time, just how big the Greens vote really is here in the city.”

Ingleton urged the new lord mayor and councillor group to lobby the state government for reforms to the City of Melbourne Act to remove double voting rights for businesses and require real-time donation disclosure.

Reece, who refused to declare his donations before the election, conceded the legislation “needs a refresh”.

The final computer count for the City of Melbourne elections was conducted by the Victorian Electoral Commission at Drill Hall near the Queen Victoria Market on Thursday. It also finalised the result for nine additional councillor positions.

The deadline for postal votes ended almost two weeks ago on October 25, with the subsequent counting process giving ex-Carlton footballer Anthony Koutoufides a chance to win before Reece pulled ahead.

The final flow of preferences meant Reece was up against Ingleton as the final two candidates. Liberal candidate Mariam Riza finished third, with Koutoufides coming fourth. Arron Wood, considered Reece’s main rival for much of the campaign, ran fifth.

Four incumbents were elected to serve as councillors alongside Reece and Campbell: Kevin Louey (Team Reece), Olivia Ball (Greens), Davydd Griffiths (Labor for Melbourne) and Philip Le Liu (Team Wood).

Joining them are five new councillors: Owen Guest (Liberals for Melbourne), Gladys Liu (Team Kouta), Mark Scott (Team Reece), Rafael Camillo (Team Morgan) and Andrew Rowse (Innovate Melbourne).

Reece thanked the people of Melbourne, Campbell, his campaign team, and his family. His wife, Felicity Pantelidis, was standing next to him at the press conference.

“I put myself forward because I love Melbourne. I believe in this city,” he said.

“I’m hungry for the job, and I’m hungry to work hard every single day to deliver for Melburnians.”

Reece said his priorities were to make Melbourne safer – pointing to his policies of new city safety officers and more CCTV cameras – and improve amenity, with an initiative of trying to force graffiti taggers to pay for clean-ups.

“No one has gone harder on cleanliness and safety than me [during the campaign]. As lord mayor, I’m going to make it a reality,” he said.

Reece and Campbell shared a hug as their names appeared on the screen as the successful winners and the room of about 50 observers clapped. The only other candidates to attend the final count were Phil Read, Gary Morgan, Eylem Kim and Greg Bisinella.

Koutoufides, Riza, Ingleton, Wood and Jamal Hakim were not in the room to see the final result.

Before the election, The Age conducted a survey of council election candidates across Greater Melbourne. All but one of the now elected City of Melbourne councillors responded.

Use the interactive below to see what they said.

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