Did you know that on a hot day, scattered cumulus clouds in the morning will probably mean rain in the evening? Similarly, the election of a right-wing former weatherman as Newcastle’s mayor will probably spell gloomy weather for the city’s left. Gavin Morris, a self-described independent, received 51 percent of the first-preference vote in a six-way race, more than double that of the second-place candidate.
At a community forum, Morris was asked about his position on using public land to host the festival component of Rising Tides’ People’s Blockade, which, in 2025, attracted up to 10,000 people to protest the city’s fossil fuel exports. He ranted about how the organisers had betrayed the city’s trust by breaking the law “not once but twice”, and how businesses lost potential revenue from a cruise ship that cancelled its visit.
When Morris talked about his vision for Newcastle, he referenced his time in New York in the 1990s, saying he felt safer walking the streets of America’s biggest city than walking along King Street in Newcastle. He praised former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for heavy-handed policing policies that targeted the poorest sections of the city and disproportionately affected Black and migrant communities. Morris wants to replicate this in Newcastle, which shows his priorities are protecting business owners over the hardest done by Novocastrians.
Despite Newcastle being a Labor stronghold, the ALP was no opposition. Labor candidate Declan Clausen’s pitch to voters at the community forum was about how well he could compromise. He bragged about how well he worked with the Liberal Party to secure support for hundreds of decisions in the council chamber. This uninspiring vision resulted in Clausen winning just 16 percent of the vote.
On paper, the Greens had significantly more left-wing policies and presented a vision for a fairer Newcastle council. However, they also continued with the logic of consensus-building taken up by the Labor Party and have not been particularly left wing on council.
Green’s candidate Charlotte McCabe led a campaign against Astra Aerolab, a proposed missile production facility at Newcastle airport. However, she did this not by taking an explicitly anti-war stance, but by raising concerns about the lack of community consultation. The rest of the council framed the consultation to highlight “job creation” while avoiding any mention of missile production. Council then supported the proposal, and it was a victory for the right.
If there is any hope, it’s that NSW Socialist Party members are building a Newcastle branch.
