In a major coup for the party, Sustainable Australia has also secured two of the 10 council seats – the first time the party has been elected at any level of government in NSW.
Party founder William Bourke will represent the St Leonards ward and Georgia Lamb, a 20-year-old university student, will represent the Cammeraygal ward.
Mr Bourke, who unsuccessfully stood for an upper house seat at the last state election, partly attributed the result in North Sydney to development fatigue among local voters.
“This is the first time we’ve run at a council level because we felt that’s where a lot of planning and environmental decisions are made and I think the new council needs to better represent the community,” he said.
“People are looking at the towers marching down the Pacific Hwy from Chatswood to St Leonards and seeing the complete destruction of their neighbourhood – it’s a bomb site.
“We always thought we had a 50-50 chance to get elected and it’s fantastic to have a young woman also elected - to have that young female voice is something that’s been missing.”
The party, which currently has one upper house seat in Victoria, ran on a platform of stopping overdevelopment, stopping corruption and protecting the environment.
Mr Bourke said that while the party has often been viewed as anti-immigration, he said its policy was focused on reducing Australia’s immigration intake to sustainable levels.
“The idea we’re anti-immigration is a politically motivated smear, mainly from the left and also the commercial right,” he said.
“Sustainable Australia is a pro-immigration, pro-refugee party. We simply want to lower the immigration intake to 70,000.”
With votes now finalised, all eyes turn to the mayoral contest which is due to be determined by the majority vote of councillors at a meeting January 10...
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