Hobsons Bay councillor Luba Grigorovitch has resigned from the council, saying her new role with Victoria’s Rail, Tram and Bus Union would not enable her “to give 110 per cent”.
The Victorian Electoral Commission will conduct a countback at 9.30am on February 13 to fill the council vacancy.
Cr Grigorovitch, 28, is a second-term councillor representing Wetlands ward, comprising the suburbs of Altona Meadows, Seabrook and Laverton.
The commission’s Thomas Harper said 4659 ballot papers that elected Cr Grigorovitch would be recounted.
In November, Cr Grigorovitch made history as the first woman poised to lead the male-dominated, 8000-strong, blue-collar union.
“I started the handover for my new role just on two months ago, before Christmas, and it was evident that being the state secretary and a councillor – it’s not doable,” she said.
“I felt that I couldn’t do the job justice and I couldn’t give council the same level of attention and time as I was previously giving because I now have to give a lot more time to my day job.”
Elected to the council in 2008, Cr Grigorovitch is also Hobsons Bay’s women’s charter champion.
She will stay on until the countback is completed.
Ousted councillor John Hogg, who received the second-highest number of primary votes in Wetlands ward (16.7 per cent), said he believed he was unlikely to be elected. He said former mayor Carl Marsich, who received 14.75 per cent of primary votes, was “likely to be elected on the back of preferences from Cr Grigorovitch”.
“If the election was to reflect the wishes of the community, I would be in the council,” Mr Hogg said.
Mr Marsich said primary votes did not matter in a countback. “It’s quite a different system from what I can see,” he said.
“I’ve noticed in some other councils, where someone might have had only a couple of percentage votes, they got elected basically as a result of the preference flow.
“Obviously, I was No.2 on [Cr Grigorovitch’s] ticket … so I assume, obviously, I’d get a fairly good preference flow from that process.”
