John Tate is a former councillor and Lord Mayor of the

City of Newcastle The City of Newcastle is a local government area in the Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia. The City of Newcastle incorporates much of the area of the Newcastle metropolitan area. The Lord Mayor of City of Newcastle Council is Counci ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Tate was originally elected as a councillor of the City of Newcastle in September 1980, and was elected Lord Mayor in 1999, continuing in that role until 2012. Tate ran as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

candidate for the

electoral district of Newcastle Newcastle is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales named after and including Newcastle. It is represented since the 2014 Newcastle by-election by Tim Crakanthorp of the Australian Labor Pa ...

in the 2007 state election but narrowly lost to

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

candidate

Jodi McKay Jodi Leyanne McKay (born 16 August 1969) is a former Australian politician who was the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of New South Wales from June 2019 until May 2021. She previously served as a member of the New South Wales Legislat ...

, a former

NBN Television NBN is an Australian television station based in Newcastle, Australia. The station was inaugurated on 4 March 1962 as the first regional commercial television station in New South Wales, and has since expanded to 39 transmitters throughout Nort ...

reporter. Tate re-contested the Lord Mayoral position at the September 2008 New South Wales Local Government Elections as an independent candidate out-polling his rivals with 32% compared to Independent Aaron Buman with 18.6% and Australian Labor Party candidate Marilyn Eade with 18.4%. Tate contested the electorate of Newcastle again at the 2011 New South Wales election. He came fourth, with

Tim Owen Timothy Francis Owen (born 29 October 1955) is a former Australian politician and a former deputy commander of the Australian Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing the electo ...

from the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

winning the seat. Responding to revelations in May 2014 at the Independent Commission Against Corruption about the possibly corrupt funding of election campaigns in the electorate of Newcastle in 2011, by businesses associated with

Nathan Tinkler Nathan Tinkler (born 1 February 1976) is an Australian mining industry executive and was previously the principal shareholder of Aston Resources and Whitehaven Coal. He started out as a mining apprentice in the Hunter Valley, in New South Wale ...

, Tate said he had never received any financial assistance from Tinkler or any entity connected with him.

References