← Hay Shire Council
Mayor & councillors

Mayor & councillors

Hay Shire is an undivided (at-large) council: its eight councillors are elected across the whole local government area by proportional representation, rather than by ward. There is no popularly elected mayor — the councillors elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor from among themselves for a two-year term (the council's 2026–27 Operational Plan lists the current Mayor and Deputy Mayor as holding office to September 2026). Councillors publish direct email addresses, so you can write to them individually. Below is who currently holds office, with links to the council's page and the September 2024 election results.

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 Carol OatawayElected Mayor by the councillors. She polled the highest first-preference vote (366 votes, 22.79%) at the September 2024 election. Mayoral term runs to September 2026.
Deputy Mayor
Cr Martyn QuinnElected Deputy Mayor by the councillors; term to September 2026.
Councillors
8 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 Hay at the 2024 election, only the councillor election.
A seat has changed hands since the election
Cr David Townsend now sits in place of Cr Darren TapperThe NSWEC declared eight councillors elected on 4 October 2024 following a recount: Martyn Quinn, Will Miller, Carol Oataway, Lionel Garner, Darren Tapper, Geoff Chapman, Paul Porter and John Perry. The council's current Councillors page lists David Townsend — who stood in 2024 but was not among those declared elected — in place of Darren Tapper. Confirm the current roster on the council's page.

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) — only Paul Porter carried a party code in the NSWEC results, shown there as Independent (IND). The other seven declared candidates carry no group code in the NSWEC results, so their affiliation is left blank here rather than guessed, and David Townsend's seat was filled after the election rather than at the count. 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.