Premature retirement of longtime Brookton councillor Tamara de Lange triggers $14k extraordinary election

A long-time Wheatbelt councillor officially resigned from her seat only three months after the local government election, costing the shire thousands to fill the vacant spot.

After more than six years on the Brookton council, Tamara de Lange formally concluded her time in the chamber at the council’s February 19 meeting. Her term was scheduled to conclude in October 2027.

Moving to Brookton in 2018, Ms de Lange joined the ranks in 2019 and served as deputy president from June 2024 to October 2025, when she chose to step down and Lachlan McCabe was appointed in the council’s reshuffle.

Ms de Lange initially announced her premature resignation via a Facebook post on the Shire of Brookton page on January 12.

The post wrote “that personal circumstances and evolving professional commitments” have led her to completely step away from the council.

At February’s meeting she expanded on the reasoning, saying she needed to focus her time on family matters and her business Bloom’n Events Co.

Ms de Lange said she “thoroughly enjoyed” her time as councillor which had started with a “tap on the shoulder from (former councillor) Chris Hartl” encouraging her to throw her hat in the ring.

“I encourage other councillors to reach out to those who they think would be great leaders and voices in our community because that’s all it took for me, I wasn’t even looking,” she said.

“Thank you very much, I’ll miss you all, I wish you all the best and we have some pretty exciting projects in the pipeline.”

Ms de Lange was gifted flowers and a certificate by the council as a token of appreciation for her work.

Ms de Lange’s retirement will leave Cr Beryl Copping as the only seasoned councillor in the chamber beside newly appointed president Rod Wallis and deputy Cr McCabe, with novice trio Kerry Toop, Gary Crouch and Peta Harben all elected in October 2025.

While the council and community have been supportive of Ms de Lange’s decision, an extraordinary election must be held to fill the newly empty seat, that was estimated to cost at least $14,000.

Her retirement came weeks after the December deadline that would have allowed the shire to join the 18 other WA local government governments conducting extraordinary elections on March 26 and 28.

Brookton council unanimously voted for a postal voting extraordinary election to be held on June 25 by the Western Australian Electoral Commission.

The WAEC provided a $14,000 quote, including GST, for the extraordinary election.

This estimate withstands non-statutory advertising, legal expenses, local government staff issuing replacement votes and casual staffing on election day costs.

The expense can change depending on the number of candidates and election turnout.

The council had allocated $15,000 in the 2025-26 council budget for the conduct of elections, and an additional $4000 would be considered as part of the 2025-26 budget review.

The amount will cover the cost of an uncontested extraordinary election and the WAEC estimated cost for a contested election will be received and accounted for in the 2026-27 council budget.