Outgoing Penrith Mayor, Greg Davies, has thanked his “enthusiastic and hardworking supporters” for his re-election tonight at a Labor Party function in St Marys.
Councillor Davies won by a huge margin in East Ward and when declaring victory was greeted by massive cheer by his close family, friends and supporters.
“On behalf of the team I want to thank everyone that’s been involved, that’s shown the flag and that’s came out and helped us,” he said.
“It’s been a very very busy day, it’s been a very very busy two weeks with pre-polling and we couldn’t have done it without the support of friends and family.
“People seem to think there is this big party machine that rolls out at election time, we all know that it doesn’t, it’s up to us to call on people and ask them to do us favours and people stood up and came down and helped us.”
The night also belong to Cr Davies’ running mate, Prue Car, and fellow Labor candidates John Thain in North Ward and Karen McKeown in South Ward, who were also re-elected.
Cr Davies believed the recent backlash on the Labor Party at a Federal level didn’t come in to play in today’s elections.
“Based on today’s results I thought we could have been worse off but we’re not, so I’m guessing it’s not a concern,” he said.
Despite Cr Davies being on Council for a number of years, he said election time is never easy no matter how many times you do it.
“It was a very long day but (no matter how many times you do it) it doesn’t get easier,” he said.
“As you get older it gets a lot harder. At 60-years-old it’s a lot harder than when I was 40-years-old I can tell you.”
Another happy candidate on the night was South Ward Independent, Jim Aitken, who was also re-elected.
“I’ve had 17 years (on Council) and I’ve worked every Ward, I haven’t just worked South Ward,” he said.
“I’ve done the work but it doesn’t get easier each time because you’ve got to do it properly. If you don’t do it right, you don’t get yourself in people’s minds.”
