Clover Moore | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Moore in 2015 | |
| 82ndLord Mayor of Sydney | |
| Assumed office 27 March 2004 | |
| Deputy | See list
|
| Preceded by | Lucy Turnbull |
| Member of theNew South Wales Parliament forSydney | |
| In office 24 March 2007 – 20 September 2012 | |
| Preceded by | District re-created |
| Succeeded by | Alex Greenwich |
| Member of theNew South Wales Parliament forBligh | |
| In office 19 March 1988 – 24 March 2007 | |
| Preceded by | Michael Yabsley |
| Succeeded by | District abolished |
| Alderman of theCity of Sydney for Redfern Ward | |
| In office 1 January 1982 – 26 March 1987 | |
| Alderman of theSouth Sydney Municipal Council for Redfern Ward | |
| In office 20 September 1980 – 31 December 1981 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Clover Margaret Collins (1945-10-22)22 October 1945 (age 80) |
| Political party | Independent |
| Other political affiliations | Clover Moore Independents |
| Spouse | Peter Moore |
| Education | Loreto Kirribilli |
| Alma mater | University of Sydney Sydney Teachers' College |
| Signature |  |
| Website | www |
Clover Margaret MooreAO (néeCollins, 22 October 1945) is an Australian politician. She has been theLord Mayor of theCity of Sydney since 2004 and is currently the longest serving Lord Mayor of Sydney since the creation of the City of Sydney in 1842. She was anindependent member of theNew South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1988 to 2012, representing the electorates ofBligh (1988–2007) andSydney (2007–2012). Moore is the first popularly elected woman Lord Mayor of Sydney.
Clover Margaret Collins[citation needed] was born on 22 October 1945[1] and grew up in the suburb ofGordon, on Sydney'sNorth Shore.[citation needed]
She attendedLoreto Kirribilli atKirribilli andElm Court Dominican Convent,Moss Vale.[citation needed] Moore matriculated to theUniversity of Sydney, and obtained aBachelor of Arts[1] in 1969 and aDiploma of Education[1] from theSydney Teachers' College, while residing atSancta Sophia College.[citation needed]
After graduation she began work as an English and history teacher atSt Ives High School andFort Street High School, before moving toLondon to teach for several years. Moore married Peter Moore, an architect, before returning to Australia.[citation needed]
As a young mother in the Labor Party-dominatedSouth Sydney Municipal Council, Moore became involved in a local resident action group.[citation needed] She decided to run for Council in 1980, after she and other members of the group had met, after three years of attempts, with then-mayor, Bill Hartup regarding a local park. Hartup had demanded to have its grass replaced with asphalt (to aid street-sweepers in seeing broken glass), surrounded by barbed wire (to keep out the drunks at night), and to have its lone tree removed (a nuisance).[2]
Moore was elected as anindependentalderman forRedfern Ward onSouth Sydney Municipal Council at the1980 local government elections.[3][4][5] Moore was one of three independents elected to the Council that formed ade facto opposition to the 9-member Labor caucus and Mayor Hartup who controlled the council and generally made most decisions in closed caucus meetings prior to Council meetings.[2] However, in December 1981, theNew South Wales Government amalgamated theSouth Sydney Council with theCity of Sydney, and Moore became a Redfern Ward Alderman of the newly formed Sydney City Council from 1 January 1982. Moore developed a visible profile in the community, campaigning on a variety of issues both in her position as alderman and in the broader community, particularly in her home suburb ofRedfern. Moore was interested in the environment, conservation, and heritage preservation, being involved in the unsuccessful campaign to save the 1936Rural Bank Building inMartin Place and describing the ALP Lord Mayor,Doug Sutherland, as the "Judas of Martin Place" for his role in approving its demolition in 1982.[6]
Moore ran again for re-election to the three-member Redfern Ward in the 14 April 1984 Council Election, and was highly successful, taking first position, outpolling Bill Hartup with a 21% swing against the ALP, and enabling the election of the second candidate on her independent ticket, Sue Willis, ahead of the sitting Labor Alderman Stan Champley.[7][8][9] In May 1984, Moore ran for the position of Deputy Lord Mayor after the election, but was defeated by the main right-wing Labor candidate, Stan Ashmore-Smith, when the two Independent Communist Aldermen (Jack Mundey andBrian McGahen) sided with the Labor caucus in the vote.[10][11] Moore proved a high-profile campaigner on heritage preservation and environment conservation, gaining the ire of theMiscellaneous Workers' Union when she confronted a Council worker who was undertaking unsympathetic pruning to trees on a street in Redfern exclaiming "its hard enough for trees to survive city pollution without their being massacred by untrained workmen sent to prune them", and denouncing theSydney Cricket Ground Trust as "architectural barbarians, insensitive to the traditions of the ground" for approving the demolition of the historic 1909 Sheridan Stand of theSydney Cricket Ground, which was nonetheless razed in 1986.[12][13]
In late 1986, Moore started her campaign to become the city's first female Lord Mayor and defeat incumbent Doug Sutherland, declaring "I think everyone would agree it is time for a breath of fresh air and a Lord Mayor committed enough to stay in Sydney to do the job" in a criticism of Sutherland's frequent international trips.[14] However, in March 1987 the state government abruptly sacked the Sydney City Council and appointed a board of commissioners to run it until new elections could be held. Having been unceremoniously dismissed from her elected office, Moore, along with five other fellow former independent aldermenFrank Sartor, Bill Hunt, Brian McGahen, Sue Willis and Jack Mundey, formed Independent Watch, an informal grouping with the purpose of scrutinising the decisions of the appointed commissioners and pressing for elections for a new council.[15]
Instead of standing again for council, Moore decided to run for theNew South Wales Legislative Assembly as an independent at the1988 election, like her previous rival for the Lord Mayor position and fellow former independent alderman, Frank Sartor, who had decided to run as an independent in the inner Sydney seat ofMcKell.[16] Despite not having the backing of a party, she won the seat ofBligh, narrowly defeatingLiberal memberMichael Yabsley.[17][4]
In 1991, she co-authored the New South Wales Charter of Reform of Government. In the same year, she was re-elected for a second term with a massive swing in her favour, increasing her share from 26.7 per cent to 43 per cent. Her power also increased dramatically when, along with fellow independentsPeter Macdonald andTony Windsor, she gained the balance of power in the Legislative Assembly. Moore was to again take the spotlight when theIndependent Commission Against Corruption handed down a finding that was sharply critical of Liberal PremierNick Greiner on 1 June 1992. While the findings were still pending a ruling in the NSW Court of Appeals, Moore and two other Independent MPs made a symbolic march to the NSW Parliament with a threat to withdraw their support of theCoalition's minority government. Hence before the Court ruling was handed down, Greiner's hand was forced, and he resigned on 24 June 1992.[4]
She went on to hold her seat with a largely safe margin at the1995 and1999 elections. The LGBT community thanked her for her support by featuring likenesses of her in theSydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade that year.[citation needed] She was re-elected again in2003.[citation needed]
Prior to the2007 election, the Electoral Commission redistributed electoral boundaries, renaming Bligh to "Sydney", and moving the seat north and west to encompass the Sydney CBD.[citation needed] Moore was elected to the new seat of Sydney.[18]
Although she sat as an independent in parliament, Moore often worked with other minor parties and independents, particularly with theAustralian Democrats, who sponsored some of her bills in the upper house and Moore encouraged voters at the2011 state election to vote for the Democrats in the upper house, along with South Coast Independent MP,John Hatton.[19]
Moore resigned as a state MP as a result of new state laws (labelled in the media as the "Get Clover" laws) preventingdual membership of state parliament and local councils. Following her re-election as mayor in the 2012 elections, she was forced to resign the state seat she held for 24 years before the first meeting of the new council. This resulted in a2012 Sydney by-election on 27 October in which she endorsed independent candidateAlex Greenwich of theAustralian Marriage Equality advocacy group who won in a landslide victory.[20][21][22]
Clover Moore Independent Team Sydney City Council seats | |
|---|---|
| 2004 Election | 5 / 10 |
| 2008 Election | 6 / 10 |
| 2012 Election | 5 / 10 |
| 2016 Election | 6 / 10 |
| 2021 Election | 5 / 10 |
| 2024 Election | 4 / 10 |
In early 2004, theLabor Party government underBob Carr sacked and re-amalgamated the City of Sydney and South Sydney Councils. The move came largely as a surprise, with then-Lord MayorLucy Turnbull being notified by a fax posted under her door. The decision to amalgamate the two councils was widely interpreted by the media as an attempt to get the Labor candidate, former federal ministerMichael Lee, elected as Lord Mayor, as it would bring a large area of largely Labor-voting suburbs into the City of Sydney. However, several of these suburbs also made up Moore's state electorate of Bligh.
When Turnbull announced soon after that she would not seek re-election, Lee appeared to have the position won. Then, on 24 February, Moore entered the race, labelling the council's sacking a "cynical grab for power." Despite her ideological differences with Turnbull, she also sharply denounced the sacking of a democratically elected mayor. By the following day,The Sydney Morning Herald was already predicting that she would present a serious challenge to Lee.[23] Moore won the election, finishing with more than double the vote of Lee, andABC election analystAntony Green announced that she would "romp through" to win, only 90 minutes after counting began.[24] This made her the first popularly elected woman Lord Mayor of Sydney.[25]
In the2008 local government elections Moore was re-elected as Lord Mayor of Sydney.[26] She was returned on a reduced majority in2012, winning 51.1% of the vote.[27] At the2016 election she was comfortably returned to office, improving her vote 8.0% to win 59.1% of the popular vote.[28]
After introducing bike lanes through many parts of inner Sydney, Moore broke an ankle onRide to Work Day in October 2010, while dismounting from her bike, necessitating that she attend some events in a wheelchair.[29]
Under Moore's leadership, the city of Sydney is aiming to reduce carbon emissions 70 per cent by 2030. It has installed bicycle lanes; upgraded its car fleet to hybrids; planted 10,000 trees; provided 600 on-street car-share spaces; installed Sydney's largest building-based solar photovoltaic system; installed water harvesting in 11 major parks and voted to install two newtrigeneration plants.[30]
Moore stated in an article on Impakter.com in September 2018 that emissions in Sydney have been reduced by 52% and the use of water by 36% since the year 2006 and that the city aims to become carbon neutral.[31]
Moore has overseen the construction of the:[32]
She introduced a system ofcycleways within the City of Sydney.[37] These angered some local residents for reducing parking, and critics attacked the cost, while other groups, including local headmasters and school groups, applauded them. The Bourke Street Cycleway won a Sydney Design Award in 2012.[38][39] The state government removed one, subsequently reinstated, and co-funded another one downOxford Street, noting that cycling increased with the impact of theCOVID-19 pandemic.[37]
On 27 October 2007, Moore proposed a Private Members' Bill that would ban the sale of dogs, cats and other mammals in NSW pet stores, and effectively ban the breeding ofcrossbred dogs. The Pet Industry Association responded with a petition opposing the legislation.[40] TheRSPCA Australia gave its support to the measure, although it was rejected by NSW purebred dog breeders.[41]
The conservative Liberal-National Coalition state government introduced the "City of Sydney Amendment (Elections) Bill" into law in September 2014, replacing one optional vote per business with two compulsory votes. This was widely regarded as yet another "Get Clover" law, designed to rig the vote towards a conservative challenger. The attempt failed with little change in the result, caused over 30,000 businesses to be fined for not voting and with the cost of the business register stated to be $1 million a year. The 2021 election saw Moore returned with a 68% to 32% two candidate preferred result with the Australian Labor Party as the second placed candidate rather than the right-wing Coalition. With the Labor Party having won power at the last NSW State Election they passed a law in late 2023 to return to the old system of each business having 1 optional vote.[30]
Between 2014 and 2017Cloud Arch, a steel sculpture intended to be installed overGeorge Street in Sydney, had its budget rise fromA$3.5 million to 11.3 million dollars.[42] It was criticised for both the rise in cost, after a re-design, and for not being suited to the city's aesthetic.[43]
In 2023 Moore proposed cuttingMoore Park Golf Course from 18 holes to 9, in order to create a new park, which drew criticism from golfers, who suggested that it was her self-interest which drove the proposal, as Moore lives nearby.[44][45] The state government supports the move, and the park was in its planning stages as of September 2024[update].[46]
In the June 2025 NSW budget,Chris Minns' government allocated $20 million for works to turn most of the northern part of the golf course to public open space.[citation needed]
Moore was appointed as anOfficer of the Order of Australia in the2023 King's Birthday Honours for "distinguished service to local government, to the people and Parliament of New South Wales, and to the community of Sydney".[47]
| New South Wales Legislative Assembly | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member for Bligh 1988–2007 | District abolished |
| New district | Member for Sydney 2007–2012 | Succeeded by |
| Civic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Lord Mayor of Sydney 2004–present | Incumbent |
| International | |
|---|---|
| People | |
