← Cobar Shire Council
Mayor & councillors

Mayor & councillors

Cobar Shire is an undivided (at-large) council: its twelve councillors are elected across the whole local government area by proportional representation, rather than by ward. Twelve is a large council for a shire of about 4,000 people, and it covers a lot of ground — councillors are listed at addresses from Cobar itself to Ivanhoe, more than 200 km to the south-west. The councillors elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor from among themselves (Cobar does not have a popularly elected mayor); under the Local Government Act that mayoral term is two years. At the September 2024 ordinary election exactly twelve candidates nominated for twelve seats, so the election was uncontested and no vote was held. Below is who currently holds office, with links to their official profiles and the NSW Electoral Commission result.

New to these terms? Read them in plain English
How the mayor is chosen
Either elected directly by voters, or chosen by the councillors.
Ward
A subdivision of a council area that elects its own councillors.
Local Government Area (LGA)
The official area a council governs.
NSW Electoral Commission (NSWEC)
Runs council elections and publishes the official results.
See the full explainer, with formulas →

Who represents you

Mayor
Cr Jarrod MarsdenElected Mayor by the councillors. He is the council's delegate to bodies including the Association of Mining Related Councils and the Far North West Joint Organisation, and signs the Community Strategic Plan 2025-2035.
Deputy Mayor
Cr Michael Prince (Independent)Elected Deputy Mayor by the councillors.
Councillors
12 total — undivided (single ward, elected by proportional representation)
How the Mayor is chosen
Elected by the councillors (not by popular vote); 2-year termThe NSW Electoral Commission ran no mayoral contest for Cobar in 2024, which is what you would expect where the mayor is chosen by the councillors.
Council meetings
Fourth Thursday of the month, 5.00pm, Council Chambers, 36 Linsley Street, CobarOpen to the public and live streamed. Business papers are published on the Friday before the meeting; minutes are published afterwards.

Your representatives

Want to raise something? Contacting your ward councillor or the mayor is one of the most direct ways to be heard between elections.

We list who's in office and link to their official profiles and the election results; we don't characterise anyone's politics. Party labels are those each councillor was elected under at the September 2024 election (NSW Electoral Commission) — 7 of the 12 were declared with an Independent (IND) group code; the NSWEC declaration shows no group code for Jarrod Marsden, Chris Deighton, Peter Florance, Bob Sinclair and Nigel Vagg, so their affiliation is left blank here rather than guessed. The council publishes a contact address, phone number and email for each councillor on the page linked below; we link the profiles rather than reproducing personal contact details. Casual vacancies can change the makeup, so the council's official page has the most current list.

Sources — check it yourself

Figures are current as at the dates shown and may change — always confirm with the linked source. See the notice at the bottom of the page for full details and how to report a correction.