parkeschampionpost.com.au
THE POST, Thursday, September 19, 2024 - Page 1
ESTABLISHED 1891 Thursday, September 19, 2024
rpowell@midwestmedia.com.au
parkeschampionpost.com.au
Parkes voters in new federal electorate
Our NAIDOC Awards
Page 3
Pages 3 and 8
$2.20 inc GST
Rabbitohs honours for Lovett
Page 11
Now Parkes waits Initial count of first preference votes complete, but councillors won’t be declared elected until early October
The Living End is live in town this Friday night. PHOTO: Supplied
THOUSANDS BOOK TIX FOR BIG NIGHT A CROWD of more than 5000 is expected to party at the Parkes Showground Paceway this Friday night, with harness racing’s Carnival of Cups bringing The Living End and Shannon Noll to headline a huge night.
This is a free ticketed event that also features Sara Berki, Robbie Mortimer and our own Michael Green. The on-track action will be top quality, with the $60,000 The Dish feature the first of a series that carries a million-dollar bonus to a horse
that wins all five Cups of the season thanks to Harness Racing NSW. It’s all adding up to rising anticipation for one incredible night of entertainment on and off the track in Parkes. ■ Full story on the back page
FAMILIAR faces lead the polling after the initial count of ballot papers in the Parkes Shire Council election. By Tuesday, the NSW Electoral Commission’s virtual tally room showed Neil Westcott had received 16.2 per cent of first preference votes in the initial count, Glenn Wilson’s Group B 12.83 per cent and Marg Applebee 11.57 per cent. But our next serving council won’t be finalised until between October 1 and 3, with plenty of work still to take place. The check count, which is the official count, is now under way and the crucial distribution of preferences will only take place after postal votes are complete. Postal voting remains open until 6pm on Friday, September 27, with the distribution of preferences to take place from Monday, September 30, the NSW Electoral Commission has advised. As of Tuesday, September 17, the top 10 candidates by first preference votes in the initial count were: Neil Westcott 1,159 first preference or 16.2pc of formal votes to date Group B 918 or 12.83pc Marg Applebee 828 or 11.57pc Douglas Pout 620 or 8.67pc Group A 437 or 6.11pc Louise O’Leary 428 or 5.98pc Bill Jayet 423 or 5.91pc Kenny McGrath 411 or 5.75pc Alan Flavel 305 or 4.26pc Joy Paddison 283 or 3.96pc Continuing candidates, in
order at time of preparing for press, are George Pratt, Samuel Johnson, Jacob Cass, Ken Keith, Darren Stevenson, Neil Hamilton, Anthony Barrott, Irene Ridgeway, Graeme Hunter and Hamish Ritchie. With the initial count complete, every ballot paper is now to be examined and entered into the NSW Electoral Commission’s computer count system. This includes ballot papers that are in the “other and informal” count - 1301 or 15.39 per cent for Parkes shire - as of Wednesday. At this early stage, this is not only informal votes but formal votes that undergo further sorting and counting, the Electoral Commision says. The progressive quota - or the number of first preference votes a candidate needs to be elected was at 651 but this is expected to change. Once a candidate has reached the quota they are elected, and their surplus votes are transferred to continuing candidates for the distribution of preferences. After each transfer, if any more candidates have reached quota, they are elected and added to the queue of surpluses to be transferred. The distribution of preferences is performed by the computer count system to determine the elected candidates and will only take place after the postal votes have been counted.
Your Local Experts are the #1 Rural Real Estate Agency in the Country. The team at Ray White Central West Group lead by Tracie Robertson with offices in Parkes, Forbes, Condobolin & West Wyalong have just been named the Number #1 Agency in the entire Ray White Rural Network for both Property Sales* & Property Management**. We couldn’t have done it without you, our incredible clients. Your trust and partnership have helped us open doors to countless new beginnings. We are determined to continue to provide real value to you, on which we are unwavering. Enhancing our skills and providing market leading technology to get the best results for you. !- )_b|; ;m|u-Ѵ );v| uo r Ň ŐƏƑő ѵѶѵƑ ƐƖƏƏ ŎŔ -v;7 om v;||Ѳ;7 1ollbvvbomĶ ŔŔ -v;7 om m;| ]uo |_ŏĸ