Bass 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.
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 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
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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.
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.