tricia hitchen
Processed By Colour Factory 10/09/2012 1:38:40 PMChannel: 3a_FCN_NSW_EDITORIAL_Newsprint_18.6cm_CMYK
tricia hitchen
LABOR suffered a substantial swing against it in Saturday's Penrith Council elections, although figures are somewhat complicated by the fact that no Liberal Party candidates formally stood.
All three wards return five councillors each, but with the counting of votes not yet complete the final results are not known.
In East Ward, Labor mayor Greg Davies, fellow ALP councillor Prue Car and independent Tricia Hitchen have been elected, with independent, and deputy mayor, Jackie Greenow and Australia First's Maurice Grotto current favourites to win the final two spots.
The Greens' Peta Holmes and the independent Paul McDonald each have an outside chance.
In 2008, Labor scored more than 13,700 votes in East Ward, but this time polled only slightly more than 10,000.
In North Ward, Labor's vote is down from 7900 in 2008 to about 5400. Those definitely elected from that ward include ALP councillor John Thain, Liberal councillor Ross Fowler, who stood as an independent and conservative independent candidate Marcus Cornish.
In South Ward, Labor's vote declined from 7095 votes to about 6300.
Liberal councillors Mark Davies and Jim Aitken, running as independents on separate tickets, have been re-elected.
Labor councillor Karen McKeown has also been returned.
The newly elected council will meet to elect a new mayor on September 24.
The Star will continue with election updates as more results become known.
Responsibility for election comment in this issue rests with the editor.