Bass Coast Post
  • Home
    • Recent articles
  • Federal Election 2025
  • News
    • Point of view
    • View from the chamber
  • Writers
    • Anne Davie
    • Anne Heath Mennell
    • Bob Middleton
    • Carolyn Landon
    • Catherine Watson
    • Christine Grayden
    • Dick Wettenhall
    • Ed Thexton
    • Etsuko Yasunaga
    • Frank Coldebella
    • Gayle Marien
    • Geoff Ellis
    • Gill Heal
    • Harry Freeman
    • Ian Burns
    • Joan Woods
    • John Coldebella
    • Julie Paterson
    • Julie Statkus
    • Kit Sleeman
    • Laura Brearley >
      • Coastal Connections
    • Lauren Burns
    • Liane Arno
    • Linda Cuttriss
    • Linda Gordon
    • Lisa Schonberg
    • Liz Low
    • Marian Quigley
    • Mark Robertson
    • Mary Whelan
    • Meryl Brown Tobin
    • Michael Whelan
    • Mikhaela Barlow
    • Miriam Strickland
    • Natasha Williams-Novak
    • Neil Daly
    • Patsy Hunt
    • Pauline Wilkinson
    • Richard Kemp
    • Sally McNiece
    • Terri Allen
    • Tim Shannon
  • Features
    • Features 2024
    • Features 2023
    • Features 2022
    • Features 2021
    • Features 2020
    • Features 2019
    • Features 2018
    • Features 2017
    • Features 2016
    • Features 2015
    • Features 2014
    • Features 2013
    • Features 2012
  • Arts
  • Local history
  • Environment
  • Nature notes
    • Nature notes
  • A cook's journal
  • Community
    • Diary
    • Courses
    • Groups
    • Stories
  • Contact us

Cr Le Serve elected mayor

15/11/2023

8 Comments

 
PictureBass Coast Mayor Clare Le Serve is flanked by Deputy Mayor Rochelle Halstead and acting CEO following a tense election.
By Catherine Watson

THE last time Clare Le Serve was elected mayor of Bass Coast was in November 2012 and she’d been a councillor for just two weeks.

Eleven years later, following a tense contest, she’s been re-elected mayor for her swansong year as a councillor representing the Western Port Ward.

At today’s council meeting, she defeated fellow Western Port councillor Rochelle Halstead by 5 votes to 4.

Bass Coast mayoral elections are usually unanimous, with councillors having done the wheeling and dealing before the public meeting. This one went down to the wire, with the tensions there for all to see.

Cr Geoff Ellis nominated Cr Halstead but voted for Cr Le Serve.
Cr Halstead said she was disappointed not to be elected to the top job but respected the decision. “I just wish politics hadn’t played such a major part in the decision.”

The immediate past deputy mayor had been earmarked for the mayoralty but the Post understands she lost the confidence of some of her colleagues in the lead-up to the Voice referendum.
Mayoral vote
  • Cr Clare Le Serve: Crs Michael Whelan, Leticia Laing, David Rooks, Geoff Ellis and Le Serve.
  • Cr Rochelle Halstead: Crs Brett Tessari, Ron Bauer, Les Larke and Halstead. 
There was some consolation when she was elected deputy mayor by five votes to four over Cr David Rooks. This time she had Cr Ellis’s support.

The vote revealed the tensions emerging within the council. As the elder stateswoman of the council, Cr Le Serve's diplomacy will be sorely needed in the year ahead.

After 10 years of generally united councils, the current council has split into progressive and conservative factions which will only become more pronounced leading up to next year’s election. 

Cr Le Serve has a long history of grassroots community work within the Waterline communities. She describes her style as “assertive, not aggressive”. “I say ‘Don’t yell at me from a distance. I’m not listening. Come and sit at the table and let’s talk about it’.” 

Inbetween her two mayoralties, she contested and won two more council elections – in 2018 she was the sole survivor of an anti-council backlash – and entered two state elections as an independent for the seat of Bass.  

She stood as an independent in the 2014 state election with the express purpose of making the Liberal Party stronghold of Bass more marginal and achieved that by securing 11.4 per cent of the primary vote, almost all of it from the Liberal Party.

It made the electorate marginal and for the first time the Labor Party started paying it some attention. The rest is history. Ahead of the 2018 election Labor opened up its election war chest to win our hearts and votes, promising a major upgrade of the Wonthaggi Hospital and a new secondary college campus. 

The seat remains marginal, with Labor MP Jordan Crugnale retaining it by just 200 votes at the 2022 election. ​
8 Comments
Mark Robertson
16/11/2023 02:32:32 pm

Congratulations Clare, we are in good hands.

Reply
Barbara Theresia Moje
16/11/2023 04:30:04 pm

Congratulations Mayor Cr LeServe and Deputy Mayor Cr Halstead. Two women leaders must be a first, for sure!!? Go, Team BCS!!

Reply
Noel Maud
16/11/2023 06:00:26 pm

Congratulations Clare. Safe hands for a challenging year.

Reply
Linda Nicholls
16/11/2023 06:05:42 pm

Congratulations Mayor Clare Le Serve and to our Deputy Mayor Rochelle Halstead.
A mighty Team.

Reply
Leigh Phillips
16/11/2023 06:07:15 pm

Congratulations Clare, great decision by councillors

Reply
Felicia Di Stefano
18/11/2023 08:10:45 am

The BCP first with the news again! Thank you, Catherine. We were hoping it would be you, Clare. Congratulations and thank you for your support on important issues in the past.

Reply
ian
19/11/2023 10:53:48 am

Congratulations to Clare Le Serve a dedicated councilor who has consistently represented her electorate over many years as councils and management change
Well done

Reply
Levinus Van Der Neut
21/11/2023 08:09:57 pm

Well there you go i was always of the opinion that councils were apolitical.Looks like i was wrong so hopefully it will never raise its ugly head in our council chamber ever again

Reply



Leave a Reply.