About

May­or Matt Paterson

Phone: 0424 652 640

Email: mpaterson@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au 

Alice Springs Town Coun­cil May­or Matt Pater­son was elect­ed to the role in 2021 as a 30-year-old, mak­ing him the youngest May­or in Alice Springs his­to­ry. Qual­i­fied as an elec­tri­cian, May­or Pater­son is a Mem­ber of the Aus­tralian Insti­tute of Com­pa­ny Direc­tors, Vice Pres­i­dent of LGANT and sits on the board of Tourism Cen­tral Aus­tralia, Cham­ber of Com­merce and Region­al Cap­i­tals Aus­tralia. May­or Pater­son has an exten­sive his­to­ry of work­ing in var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties in Cen­tral Aus­tralia which has giv­en him an inti­mate knowl­edge of the community.

Dri­ven to con­tin­u­al­ly improve the live­abil­i­ty of Alice Springs, May­or Pater­son is focused on deliv­er­ing bet­ter infra­struc­ture for Alice Springs fam­i­lies. He served as a Coun­cil­lor pre­vi­ous to being elect­ed May­or and is pas­sion­ate about pro­vid­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for all res­i­dents in Alice Springs. Being a father to two young chil­dren, May­or Pater­son is focused on deliv­er­ing bet­ter infra­struc­ture for fam­i­lies in Alice Springs and mak­ing the com­mu­ni­ty a bet­ter place for gen­er­a­tions to come.

A dec­o­rat­ed sportsper­son, May­or Pater­son has rep­re­sent­ed Alice Springs and the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry on the crick­et field and has also ded­i­cat­ed time off the field to grow­ing sport in the com­mu­ni­ty. He has served as a Crick­et Aus­tralia Com­mu­ni­ty Ambas­sador, com­mit­tee mem­ber of the Alice Springs Turf Club and a long-time pres­i­dent of his local crick­et club. May­or Pater­son is also heav­i­ly involved in the com­mu­ni­ty out­side of sport, putting a great deal of effort into con­nect­ing mean­ing­ful­ly with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from all walks of life. 

Deputy May­or Mark Coffey

Phone: 0401 116 166

Email: mcoffey@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au

Hav­ing spent con­sid­er­able time across a vari­ety of indus­tries in the Red Cen­tre, Deputy May­or Cof­fey brings a wealth of expe­ri­ence to the Chamber. 

Deputy May­or Cof­fey spent 22 years as part of the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Police Force and a fur­ther 12 years as a Senior Exec­u­tive in the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment. Nev­er one to put him­self first, Deputy May­or Cof­fey has also vol­un­teered his time to a range of com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions in Alice Springs.

Deputy May­or Cof­fey has lent his exper­tise as a board mem­ber of CASA Ser­vices, Parole Board, St John Ambu­lance NT, Health and Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices Com­plaints Review Com­mit­tee, and is the Chair of the Con­nel­lan Air­ways Trust. 

When he has an occa­sion­al spare minute Deputy May­or Cof­fey enjoys his sport, camp­ing and loves a good bush walk.

Coun­cil­lor Mar­li Banks

Phone: 0417 681 111

Email: mbanks@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au

Coun­cil­lor Mar­li Banks, a ded­i­cat­ed moth­er of four and small busi­ness own­er, embod­ies a pro­found com­mit­ment to our com­mu­ni­ty’s well-being. Her val­ues are at the heart of her lead­er­ship, and they res­onate with many of us.

Mar­li is an advo­cate for social and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, believ­ing in the pow­er of informed deci­sion-mak­ing process­es and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry gov­ern­ment prac­tices. She envi­sions safer pub­lic spaces, inclu­sive design, and a robust democ­ra­cy where indi­vid­ual voic­es are heard and val­ued with­in the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty con­text. Her pas­sion extends to cre­ative urban design that har­monis­es with our envi­ron­ment and her advo­ca­cy for women in gov­ern­ment. Mar­li also recog­nis­es the impor­tance of good access to pub­lic spaces, civ­il lib­er­ty, and build­ing safe, close-knit communities.

Cur­rent­ly study­ing Pol­i­tics, Enter­prise and Inno­va­tion at Flinders Uni­ver­si­ty, her aca­d­e­m­ic focus under­scores her com­mit­ment to stay­ing informed and con­tribut­ing to our town’s growth. With these val­ues as her com­pass, Coun­cil­lor Banks inspires us to work togeth­er toward a safer, more inclu­sive, and pros­per­ous Alice Springs. Her ded­i­ca­tion to these prin­ci­ples fuels her lead­er­ship, and she encour­ages us all to par­tic­i­pate active­ly in shap­ing our com­mu­ni­ty’s future.

Coun­cil­lor Alli­son Bitar

Phone: 0491 055 224

Email: abitar@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au

A self-made entre­pre­neur, Coun­cil­lor Alli­son Bitar has been a fan­tas­tic role mod­el for young Cen­tralians since mov­ing to the region in 2002. 

Along with her hus­band, Coun­cil­lor Bitar is a proud local busi­ness own­er and will bring a strong busi­ness mind to the Coun­cil Chamber. 

Coun­cil­lor Bitar also has valu­able expe­ri­ence work­ing in cul­tur­al her­itage man­age­ment, pol­i­cy design and town plan­ning, as well as a Bach­e­lor of Social Sci­ence (Hons Anthro­pol­o­gy) and a Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma of Urban and Region­al Town Plan­ning. Coun­cil­lor Bitar has been a mem­ber of the NT Her­itage Coun­cil. This will assist her in bring­ing a nuanced approach to a range of issues to the 14^th Alice Springs Town Council.

Coun­cil­lor Bitar is a strong believ­er in work­ing togeth­er with peo­ple from all walks of life for the good of the com­mu­ni­ty and will work hard to make Alice Springs a place peo­ple want to move to and stay. 

Coun­cil­lor Kim Hopper

Phone: 0423 397 235

Email: khopper@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au

Coun­cil­lor Hop­per has been an active mem­ber of Alice Springs for 12 years. She has a back­ground in youth work, cri­sis accom­mo­da­tion and project management. 

Hav­ing been on Boards at a state and Nation­al lev­el and now run­ning a small busi­ness, Coun­cil­lor Hop­per brings knowl­edge of gov­er­nance, man­age­ment and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment to her role at Council. 

Coun­cil­lor Hop­per has been a strong sup­port­er of our local per­form­ing arts and through her busi­ness sup­ports local not-for-prof­its such as ALEC, Watch This Space, and the Com­mu­ni­ty Garden. 

Coun­cil­lor Hop­per and her part­ner are now bring­ing up their young fam­i­ly here and are com­mit­ted to mak­ing Alice Springs a thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ty into the future. 

Coun­cil­lor Michael Liddle

Phone: 0456 529 769

Email: mliddle@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au

Spend­ing his whole life in Alice Springs, there are few peo­ple more in tune with the Alice Springs com­mu­ni­ty than Coun­cil­lor Michael Liddle. 

Born and raised in Cen­tral Aus­tralia, Coun­cil­lor Lid­dle becomes part of the 14^th Alice Springs Town Coun­cil with a wealth of knowl­edge across var­i­ous sectors. 

A strong advo­cate for men­tal health and well­be­ing, in par­tic­u­lar in Indige­nous men, Coun­cil­lor Lid­dle has spent the past eight years work­ing for Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia in var­i­ous roles. 

His ded­i­ca­tion to build­ing strong com­mu­ni­ties in Cen­tral Aus­tralia led him to nom­i­nat­ing for Coun­cil and he will work hard for the bet­ter­ment of Alice Springs. 

Coun­cil­lor Eli Melky

Phone: 0427 012 699

Email: emelky@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au

Coun­cil­lor Eli Melky has always put the com­mu­ni­ty of Alice Springs first, as evi­denced by his long serv­ing com­mit­ment to Council. 

Cr Melky has served as part of the 11^th, 12^th, 13^th and now 14^th Alice Springs Town Coun­cils, hav­ing spent more than 10 years in the Cham­ber fight­ing for a bet­ter Alice Springs. 

Tak­ing a proac­tive approach, Cr Melky is pas­sion­ate about address­ing law and order con­cerns in the Red Cen­tre. As well as want­i­ng a safe and tidy town, he sup­ports busi­ness and tourism growth ini­tia­tives and many oth­er sport­ing and spe­cial events in our town. His years of expe­ri­ence as a Coun­cil­lor, cou­pled with a wealth of knowl­edge of the Alice Springs busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, gives Cr Melky a unique per­spec­tive and he main­tains the hunger to con­tin­ue advo­cat­ing for Alice Springs.

Coun­cil­lor Gavin Morris

Phone: 0413 964 838

Email: gmorris@​alicesprings.​nt.​gov.​au

An active mem­ber of the Alice Springs com­mu­ni­ty, Coun­cil­lor Gavin Mor­ris has spent more than two decades help­ing young peo­ple across Aus­tralia devel­op tools to be suc­cess­ful in life. Coun­cil­lor Mor­ris is cur­rent­ly the Prin­ci­pal at Yipirinya School and a lec­tur­er at Charles Dar­win Uni­ver­si­ty after hav­ing gained expe­ri­ence is schools around the country. 

Hold­ing a Bach­e­lor of Edu­ca­tion, Mas­ter of Edu­ca­tion and PHD, Coun­cil­lor Mor­ris has a vivid under­stand­ing of Cen­tral Aus­tralia and our past hav­ing done his PHD inves­ti­gat­ing Abo­rig­i­nal trau­ma asso­ci­at­ed with the expe­ri­ence of coloni­sa­tion in a remote Abo­rig­i­nal community. 

Coun­cil­lor Mor­ris is extreme­ly active out­side of his pro­fes­sion­al role and is a cur­rent board mem­ber of the NT Board of Stud­ies, Direc­tor of Asso­ci­a­tion on Inde­pen­dent Schools, a board mem­ber of Coun­cil of Gov­ern­ment Schools Organ­i­sa­tion and a mem­ber of the Col­lege of Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander lead­er­ship group. His ded­i­ca­tion to equi­ty for all will be brought to the 14^th Alice Springs Town Coun­cil as a first-time mem­ber of the Chamber. 

Reg­u­la­tion 11 (3)

Coun­cil is required under Reg­u­la­tion 11 (3) of the Local Gov­ern­ment (Admin­is­tra­tion) Reg­u­la­tions to keep a reg­is­ter of the results of all elec­tions and polls. In com­pli­ance with this require­ment, recent elec­tion results doc­u­ments can be found here.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please fol­low the link to the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry Elec­toral Com­mis­sion web­site, here.