Council elections are typically hyperlocal in Australia. But this year something unusual is going on.
In New South Wales, third-party groups separate from the main political parties are out in force, campaigning about a war on the other side of the world.
The Israel-Gaza war has been a point of contention on local councils for nearly a year, with councillors debating whether they should endorse boycott measures, call for a ceasefire, or even get involved at all.
More than 40,000 people have died in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, since Israel launched its military offensive in response to Hamas’s 7 October attack in southern Israel, in which an estimated 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage.
Two groups, Better Council and We Vote for Palestine, are each hoping to sway voters on the issue before the NSW council elections on Saturday.
Better Council has been targeting Greens candidates by letterboxing and plastering corflutes around the inner-Sydney council areas of Waverley, Woollahra, Randwick and the inner west.
As one of its brochures claims, a party “focused on radicalism is one that cannot properly provide services for residents”. The Inner West Greens councillor Dylan Griffiths says none of Better Council’s materials mentions specific concerns about his party’s views on the war.
Better Council, which was registered as an association in June, describes itself on its website as a “non-partisan grassroots group of young professionals who are passionate about keeping local government focused on local issues”.
The lobby group says it is not aligned to any political party and does not endorse any specific candidates.
Better Council’s campaign materials are authorised by Sophie Calland at an office address in Sydney’s CBD. Calland, who has been acting as a spokesperson for the group, has said she is a member of the Labor party.
Better Council has been promoted on a Telegram channel associated with the Christian Zionist group Never Again is Now Australia.
One of the administrators of the Telegram group chat posted a call-out for volunteers to distribute 50,000 flyers to “help expose the Greens” and accused “some councillors” of “inciting anti-Jewish sentiment”.
Calland tells Guardian Australia it “seems [Never Again is Now Australia] picked up our message” and Better Council did not ask for a promotion.
She says her group has gained traction because its campaign “resonates with residents” and that it is “not due to any larger conspiracy”.
Better Council’s website was registered by a company called DBK Advisory. Its director is Alex Polson, a former staffer to the Liberal senator Simon Birmingham.
Polson has not been publicly involved in the Better Council campaign. He declined to comment when contacted by Guardian Australia.
On his LinkedIn, Polson describes DBK Advisory as a “boutique advisory firm specialising in corporate strategy and public affairs”. It is registered to the same address as Better Council, and its own website is just a contact form.
The former NSW Labor MP and politics lecturer Dr Meredith Burgmann is dubious about Better Council’s chance of success.
Burgmann says anyone going into a polling booth intending to vote for the Greens “won’t be put off by someone saying not to”.
“Voters are actually a lot cleverer than people think. They actually do know what they want to do,” she says.
“And there’s always been groups called Better Council and things like that, but they’ve mostly been about local issues like saving some park or another.”
Calland claims Better Council is merely concerned that local councillors are spending “valuable time and resources” debating “international issues like Gaza”.
However, she singles out Greens candidates in Sydney’s eastern suburbs who took a pledge organised by the We Vote for Palestine campaign.
That pledge, organised by a coalition of 44 pro-Palestinian advocacy groups, assesses council candidates’ views on the conflict.
Its coordinator, Subhi Awad, says the campaign, which launched four weeks ago, is “about transparency for voters”. It has not been registered with the NSW Office of Fair Trading.
“Our campaign is ultimately about helping voters see who they feel is trustworthy, and which candidates are aligned with their values,” he says.
We Vote for Palestine campaigners Michelle Berkon and Jepke Goudsmit have been putting up corflutes and handing out leaflets at polling booths in eastern Sydney, and say they have been met with some pushback from locals.
“We’ve had corflutes torn down and disappear, and we don’t know how. All we are trying to do is educate people,” Berkon says.
“We should know who we are voting for, even at a local level, and we should know where our tax money goes. I don’t want my local council to be supporting what is internationally recognised as an apartheid regime.”
Berkon says Australians are “connected to these conflicts in more ways that people realise”.
“That gives us a responsibility to know what we are supporting as a country, as a state and as a local government area,” she says.
The political expert Rod Tiffen says it is not unheard of for Sydney councils to debate and take positions on international affairs, but it is unusual for third-party groups to campaign so actively in local government elections.
Tiffen, an emeritus professor at the University of Sydney, argues “nothing any Sydney council does will influence what’s happening in Gaza”.
“What they’re trying to do is use this as a platform to lobby, more generally, on their cause … which may then influence government policy some other way,” he says.
The City of Sydney and Canterbury-Bankstown councils could tear up some contracts after passing motions to review investments that benefit companies involved in weapons manufacturing or those profiting from human rights violations in Gaza.
The We Vote for Palestine pledge surveys candidates on issues including calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, divestment from financial ties with Israel, and support for Palestinian refugees. Its organisers plan to run a similar campaign before the Victorian council elections next month.
Councillors and potential candidates are each sent the pledge, and can choose to endorse it completely, or parts of it, with their response published for voters’ consideration on a website.
Awad says 120 NSW candidates have endorsed the pledge, a majority of whom are Greens or independents.
“The reaction has been incredible, so many people are pleased that they are able to vote in a way that matters to them,” he says.
“There are far more people who care about this issue than people assume.”
He dismisses criticism that the campaign is divisive or irrelevant to local councils. He says it allows voters to make a judgment of candidates’ “moral positions”.
“I don’t think being against genocide or war crimes is a divisive position,” he says.
“Many voters want to know that their politicians stand against this war and against arming and covering for this war, and so it has a definite place in this election. It is about moral positions.”
Sinéad Francis-Coan is a Greens candidate in Newcastle who has taken the pledge. She says the campaign has been positively received by voters in her area.
“Some people think councils should be restricted to roads, rates and rubbish,” she says. “But on the flipside, we see councils hosting multicultural reading clubs, and people realise there is far more a council can actually do.”
