EXCLUSIVE: John Larter has been officially endorsed by the party.
The Libertarian Party has gained its first local councillor in New South Wales since the party changed its name, with Snowy Valleys councillor John Larter endorsed for the September local government elections.
Under its former name − the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) − the party had multiple councillors including Clinton Mead (Campbelltown), Jeff Pettett (Ku-ring-gai) and Samuel Gunning (North Sydney).
Larter was already a party member and thus an Independent Libertarian councillor. He ran at the 2017 elections as an independent, and was re-elected in 2021, before joining the LDP less than a fortnight after the 2021 election. He was also second on the party's 2022 Senate ticket in NSW, behind now-MLC John Ruddick.
But 6 News understands Larter has now received official endorsement and will run under the party banner for the election on September 14, as part of the party's statewide local government campaign.
Snowy Valleys Council is without wards and made up of nine councillors. Julia Ham is an Independent Liberal, but the rest of the councillors (bar Larter) are independents.
The Greens were the only registered party to endorse candidates for Snowy Valleys in 2021, with Marjory Tomlinson running unsuccessfully, getting 2.8% of the vote.
The Libertarian Party also currently has two local councillors in Victoria − Paul Barker (Surf Coast) and Olga Quilty (Wodonga) − and also is set to run a large campaign for the local elections there in October.
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