Hobart lord mayoral hopeful Ryan Posselt has compared himself to New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, as an onslaught of candidates accuse him of ‘ageism’ and ‘hypocrisy’ for saying older men should not lead the city.
In a social media post on Friday, Posselt urged young people to vote for younger candidates and women and said “men in their sixties and seventies” or other business leaders were not the answer.
“We need leadership that truly understands the pressure of modern life; pressures young families and young adults face every single day,” he wrote.
“Not wealthy property developers, not washed up celebrity journalists, not men in their 60s & 70s that just don’t get it.”
In a video attached to the post, Posselt said he did not think “old men are going to be the people to lead us in the right direction”.
Posselt said young people were struggling with housing, jobs and a lack of nightlife and that he read “too many comments” claiming young people had it easy.
Speaking to Pulse today, Posselt said he sees “parallels” between his campaign and Mamdani’s, pointing out the New York mayor is four years younger than him.
“He is transformative and he is a disruptor and he is changing New York for the better and I believe that I have similar qualities,” Posselt said.
He said his comments were about who should be lord mayor, not who should sit on the council, which he said should be “a mirror of the community”.
“This is a question of leadership and who is the right fit for the lord mayor’s position,” he said.
He said people with “celebrity status, name recognition” and “in some cases, quite obscene wealth” did not understand the pressures facing everyday Hobartians.
Candidate Charles Wooley, who was singled out in the post as a “washed up celebrity journalist”, told Pulse it is “nasty politics”.
“He’s a three-ring circus come to town,” Wooley said.
“In one ring, he’s a fantastical trapeze artist of loony ideas. In the next ring, he’s some kind of clown.”
“I think he just reads the tea leaves in the morning just goes for it, whatever comes into his head.”
Councillor Louise Elliot said the comments are “outright hypocrisy” and that Posselt is “green with envy”.
“He’s taking shots at people who have actually delivered for our city when all he has under his belt is a heap of bike lanes that will hopefully be ripped up,” she said.
“Ryan is renowned for his brain farts and will say whatever ChatGPT tells him is today’s good idea.”
Elliot said it was “astounding” that someone who preached “kindness and inclusion” could be “so outright prejudiced against people because of their personal attribute of age”.
She said she endorsed his comparison with Mamdani.
“They certainly share the same communist tendencies. Both think they know best and cause far more damage than good wherever they go.”
Councillor Marti Zucco said that he has been subjected to ageist comments in recent years on council and called for candidates to “get onto the issues of the city, not attack individuals”.
Zucco, who said he started his first business at 15, pointed to his record of bringing live music to Salamanca and delivering Hobart’s first skate park.
“A birth certificate does not provide a person with more or less ability to provide an idea on the table,” he said.
Councillor John Kelly said the comments are “blatant ageism” and “an insult to the greater part of Hobart’s population”.
“This guy’s just as shallow as a birdbath and more toxic than a fish farm,” Kelly said.
Posselt said he had stated on the record “plenty of times” that “good ideas come from across the political spectrum and across the age spectrum as well”.
“I strongly believe that we should have a cross-section of the community on the council from older folk even to people in their 20s, so that every single voice is heard,” he said.
“[But] it’s about balance.”
“If we have a council that is predominantly business people, say more than half of the council are businessmen, that’s not reflective of the community because not half of the community are business people.”
“We need to have decency and respect and have representation on council that is reflective of the community in terms of gender [and] in terms of age.”
