By Violet Li
Independent Jennifer Dizon won the 2024 Casey Council election and will represent Tooradin Ward in the next four years.
Ms Dizon addressed the public at the result declaration in Bunjil Place on Friday 8 November.
She thanked the people who had supported her to make it possible.
“I ran for council because I really want to make a positive change to the community, and I really do hope that I am able to bring in my legal skills on board.
“I look forward to working with my fellow counsellors and congratulations.”
To be elected in Tooradin Ward, a candidate is required to secure an absolute majority vote of 7871.
For the primary vote, Jennifer Dizon topped the game at 4164 votes, and independent Anthony Tassone closely followed her with 4123 votes. Former Liberal member Kuldeep Kaur had 1995 votes, Labor member Andrew Gai 1952, Labor member Ali Yaghobi 1474, Brenton Kelly 1407, and Labor member Ravneet Singh 626.
Jennifer Dizon led in every round of preferential distribution.
In the first round of preferential distribution, Ravneet Singh’s 626 votes went to the voters’ next preferred candidate. Kuldeep Kaur received a majority of 360 preference votes. Ravneet Singh publicly preferenced his Labor fellows Ali Yaghobi and Andrew Gai, while the two of them only received preference votes of 37 and 75.
In the second round of preferential distribution, Brenton Kelly’s 1451 votes were distributed among the remaining candidates. Jennifer Dizon received 525 of them, and Anthony Tassone 495. Jennifer Dizon publicly preferenced Brenton Kelly while Mr Kelly’s preferences were unknown.
In the third round, Ali Yaghobi’s 1616 votes were almost evenly distributed among most of the remaining candidates. Andrew Gai received 491 out of them, Anthony Tassone 486, Jennifer Dizon 438, and Kuldeep Kaur 201, while Ali Yaghobi and Andrew Gai, both Labor members, publicly preferenced each other.
In the fourth round, almost half of Kuldeep Kaur’s 2617 votes were passed down to Jennifer Dizon. Anthony Tassone only received 488 votes, while he and Kuldeep Kaur publicly preferenced each other.
In the last round, Jennifer Dizon obtained 2071 preference votes from Andrew Gai while Anthony Tassone 1517.
Jennifer Dizon won the ward with a significant lead of 1453 votes over Anthony Tassone.
Mr Tassone said he felt really disappointed because he genuinely felt that he had the skills, experience, and capabilities to have made a big contribution to the council.
“But unfortunately, the voters saw it a different way as to who they wanted their elected representatives to be,” he said.
“And I wish Jennifer and all the councillors the best of luck.
“Over the next four years, there’s a lot that needs to be done to restore trust and transparency in this council.
“And as a community, we need to support the council but hold them accountable.”
In terms of the next step, Mr Tassone said: “I think I’ve got a lot to offer to the community of Casey, and there are different ways that I can advocate for the interests of the residents of the City of Casey.
“I would have loved to have done it from within the council chambers, but it wasn’t to be.
“So there will be other ways that I can advocate for the residents.
“And I’ve got some ideas. And they’ll become more apparent in a little while.”
Mr Gai said it was his first time running and he found the results very encouraging
“Nearly 2,000 people put me one and put their trust in me. That meant a lot to me,” he said.
“And to come close to the third place, that was also very encouraging. A lot of people put me second as well.”
Mr Gai said for the local election, it was very hard to tell what the outcome would be.
“I understand a lot of people didn’t know who I was,” he said.
Mr Gai said he relaxed and finally had a good sleep when the voting closed.
“I wasn’t worried at all. Because I know I gave it my best. I worked very hard with the team. I knocked on a lot of doors and talked to a lot of people,” he said.
“Whatever else happened after that was out of my control.
“I said to my volunteers that I’ve been having a lot of good sleep after the vote closing because we’ve done what we could, and we put ourselves into the community.”
