The verdict on Clover Mooreâs four decades in public office Weâre sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss Normal text size Very large text size On March 27, Clover Moore will have officially notched up 17 years as Sydneyâs lord mayor. If - as expected - she is re-elected in September and serves a full term, she will have been in that office longer than Robert Menzies or Joh Bjelke-Petersen were in theirs. Younger readers would struggle to recall, but by the time she became mayor in 2004, Moore had already been in politics for two-and-a-half decades - initially on South Sydney Council and then from 1988 as a state MP, a job she held alongside the mayoralty until 2012 when the OâFarrell state government forced her to choose between them. September marked her 40th year in public office.