Howard Salkow

Senior Journalist

The driving force behind the Daintree’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell Micro-grid proposal, which is backed and funded by the Federal Government, is calling on those elected to the new Council to work for the good of the shire.

And Daintree Renewable Energy president Russell O'Doherty, said he was looking forward to working with Michael Kerr, who now has an unassailable lead over incumbent mayor Julia Leu and is expected to be declared the shire’s in-coming mayor within days, if not sooner.

“Michael will be a breath of fresh air and we know we have his full support for the micro-grid project north of the Daintree.

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“And now what we would like to see is the four councillors – once they are finalised – act in the best interests of the shire, and in our case, north of the Daintree,” said O’Doherty.

O’Doherty is equally pleased he may finally have overcome his many frustrations. 

When the DRE made a fresh call to Council to publicly support the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Micro-grid, O’Doherty was greeted with an indifferent response.

In his plea, O’Doherty said it was time for some real action by Council on the Daintree energy project.

And O’Doherty, and his committee, was haunted by the indifferent response they received from Mayor Julia Leu following their deputation to Council last year.

“When we asked Council for a letter of support, her parting words were: ‘Let’s see what the outcome of the election (May Federal election) is before we make a decision.’"

The plans to build an Australian a renewable energy electricity grid for townships living among the World Heritage-listed Daintree rainforest would be a first. 

Meanwhile, in the councillor count, Peter McKeown is sitting on 3405 votes or 14.74 per cent, the second-highest number of votes received behind Lisa Scomazzon.

Coming in next is Roy Zammataro, looking very likely to return to office for a second term with 3055 votes or 13.23 per cent.

Rounding out the top four is incumbent Abigail Noli who has 2834 votes or 12.27 per cent.

Ms Noli’s position is less certain sitting on a knife’s-edge with candidate Natalie Johnson only 71 votes behind her with a small portion of postal votes left to be counted.