Scott Ferguson was elected, unopposed, as mayor during the meeting, but it was the election of deputy, via a show of hands, that was of most interest.

With the support of councillors Scott Denton, Bruce Reynolds and John Newstead, Cr Kingham was elected with four votes to Cr Allan Ewin’s three from David Somervaille, Scott Ferguson and himself.

Cr Kingham said that discussions that he’d had with Crs Denton, Reynolds and Newstead during the pre-poll process, was the impetus for what had come to pass during Monday night’s meeting.

“It was fairly clear that during the election process that the Rotary fellows were all sticking together and that we needed to do something about this,” Cr Kingham said.

“So we had discussions that if we got on we could distribute the committee chairmanships among ourselves and so we talked about groups like the access advisory committee and creating a new tourism committee.

“And when we were elected we just sat down and worked out who wanted to be on what committees and there were never any promises, but rather how do we go about this.”

Cr Kingham said that there was never any suggestion of ‘if you vote for me, I’ll vote for you’ deals, rather that he was simply keen to see the new councillors placed in chairman positions to test them out.

“That’s the way you sort people out as to whether they have ability or not,” he said.

Cr Allan Ewin said that he was disappointed that at the end of the day that Cr Kingham thought he could do a better job.

“He (Cr Kingham) has convinced two councillors he barely knows that he was a better alternative and would do a better job than what Scott (Ferguson) and I had done over the past five years,” he said.

Cr Ewin said that he believed that judging by the election results, the wider community were hoping for a continuation of the status quo.

Cr Ewin received 605 first preference votes to Cr Kingham’s 447.

Cr Kingham said it’s all part of politics.

“Cr Ewin did exactly this to Cr Radburn five years ago when he was deputy.”