More than a dozen Queensland mayors elected unopposed, including Moreton Bay's Peter Flannery

The mayor of Queensland’s third-largest council will be re-elected unopposed after no-one else put their hand up to challenge him at the looming poll.

About 1,400 people across Queensland have nominated to run for councillor or mayor in the March 16 election, including more than a dozen mayoral candidates who are running without opposition.

Among them is Moreton Bay Mayor Peter Flannery, who leads one of Queensland and Australia’s biggest local government areas with a population of about half a million people.

Mr Flannery, who was elected to his first term at the 2020 election in a close five-way contest, said it was a humbling experience to retain the top job.

“It’s also a bit of a tick from the community I suppose that they support the direction we’re heading with the City of Moreton Bay and the vision I have,” he told ABC Radio Brisbane.

“There’s more work to do. [I’m] keen to get to back to work as soon as we can.

“Either they [potential opponents] got scared off because of how hard the job is, or we’re doing a few things right and so people are giving us the tick to keep doing that for another four years.”

Other mayoral candidates who will be elected unopposed include Lawrence Springborg in Goondiwindi, Ramon Jayo in Hinchinbrook and Samantha O’Toole in Balonne.

Who is running for mayor?

In Brisbane, six candidates have thrown their hat in the ring to run for lord mayor, including LNP incumbent Adrian Schrinner, Labor’s Tracey Price and the Greens’ Jonathan Sriranganathan.

Incumbent Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate is running for re-election but is facing a challenge from eight other candidates.

In Ipswich, six candidates are running for mayor, including incumbent Teresa Harding and current councillor Sheila Ireland.

Following the retirement of Mayor Mark Jamieson on the Sunshine Coast, six candidates have nominated to replace him.

In Logan, it will be a three-way contest to replace outgoing Mayor Darren Power, with former federal MP Brett Raguse nominating for the job as well as incumbent councillor Jon Raven.

It will also be a three-way contest in Redlands to replace outgoing Mayor Karen Williams, with Jos Mitchell, Cindy Corrie and former federal MP Andrew Laming listed on the ballot.

Mandatory training

Electoral Commissioner Pat Vidgen said about 150 fewer candidates were running for local government positions at the upcoming election compared to the last poll in 2020.

Nominations to run in the election formally closed on Tuesday.

“[It’s] not a steep decline, but there is a decline,” he said.

“Part of that I think is the mandatory requirements now to nominate.

“Anyone who nominated by yesterday had to do a number of things, and one of them was mandatory So You Want to Be a Councillor training.

“What we think is that perhaps some people might have done the training and thought, ‘you know what, that’s probably not for me’.”

Queensland voters will head to the polls on March 16 to elect their council for the next four years, with early voting from March 4.

The state has 77 councils.