Doug Hamilton with his wife, Pam, at the Cardina Shire inauguration on Monday night.By Sarah Schwager
CARDINIA Shire’s Port Ward election was a closer contest than expected, but sitting councillor and favourite Doug Hamilton came up trumps.
Councillor Hamilton defeated his only other contestant, Philip Murphy, scoring the highest amount of first preference votes for a 2401 to 1684 result.
“I’ve done an awful lot of work over the last two and a half years,” Cr Hamilton said.
“I’ve certainly put a large amount of time into it.”
He said he had attended about 28 events a month during the period.
Cr Hamilton said he was pleased with his percentage of the vote, which had jumped from 51 per cent last election to 58.7 per cent.
“I must have been doing something right. It was a really good result.”
First-time candidate Philip Murphy said he was pleased with the results and had not expected to get so many votes.
“I am happy with it. It’s the first time I had a go,” Mr Murphy said.
“If I decide to run in the future hopefully I’ll have a better shot.”
He said it had been a good clean campaign and he offered his congratulations to Cr Hamilton.
Looking ahead, Cr Hamilton said it was a case of ‘wait and see’ in terms of how the dynamics of the council would work with three new councillors.
“As a councillor I’ll be in there working my hardest to make sure the council works well together and if everybody does that I’m sure it should work.
“No doubt we will work as a group,” he said.
“You’ve got to be positive. We will be there to help people.”
Cr Hamilton said he was concerned about roads in his ward and would pursue the Kooweerup and Lang Lang bypasses as well as gas connections in Kooweerup and other communities.
He said the council would continue to manage the area’s growth in a responsible way and described chief executive officer Don Welsh as a visionary.
