Local Government Participation and Elections Review
Consultation has concluded. Thanks for your contributions.
Have your say on ideas and suggestions for changing the way councils operate in South Australia
What's being decided?
The Office of Local Government is conducting a state-wide consultation to give the community an opportunity to provide feedback on ideas and suggestions on how communities can better engage with their councils through a council term and, particularly, at election time.
This review and consultation will focus on these key topics:
- ways to better engage and participate with councils;
- ways to encourage a greater number of more diverse candidates for election to councils;
- ways to increase voter turnout; and
- ways to ensure that council elections are run efficiently, with the highest level of integrity.
The aim of this consultation is to inform reform proposals and the development of the bill to amend local government legislation.
Background
Local councils are often described as the sphere of government that is ‘closest to the people’. The services they provide are often those that touch our day-to-day lives most closely. Yet this involvement with local services isn’t always reflected in how people engage with councils.
While local members are elected to represent their local communities, historically only around one-third of voters choose to vote in their local council elections.
Councils can also struggle to have a good number of diverse candidates willing to stand for election, to ensure that a local elected body has the best chance of representing and making the best decisions for its local community.
Over the past 20 years, the local government sector has been making increasingly large investments in promoting elections, both to encourage nominations, and to increase voter turnout. Despite these investments, engagement with councils at election times has remained at consistently low rates.
The 2023 Local Government Participation and Elections Review will focus on participation and elections, including:
- improving people’s engagement with councils;
- increasing the number and diversity of council members; and
- increasing voter turnout.
Get involved
Find out more by:
- Reading the Local Government Participation and Elections Review Discussion Paper
- Reading the Local Government Participation and Elections Review Summary Paper
Have your say by:
- Completing the online survey below
- Sharing a comment via the community forum ('Guestbook') below
- Emailing your comments to DIT.LocalGovernmentReform@sa.gov.au
- Posting written feedback to Office of Local Government, GPO Box 1533, Adelaide, SA 5001
- Phoning the Office of Local Government on (08) 7133 3277
What are the next steps?
Feedback gathered via this consultation will play a key role in informing reform proposals and the development of the bill to amend local government legislation, including the:
Consultation outcomes will be published on this website and on the Department for Infrastructure and Transport’s website in May 2024.
I have recently completed a Churchill Fellowship exploring youth engagement with democracy. This took me to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In many of these places young people aged 16-18 can run for election in local council elections and vote in local council elections too. In many of these places, local councils also have greater control over resource allocation for key community services (including child and youth services). I think we could learn from those experiences and embrace a more proactive approach to how local government engages with younger South Australians. I think this is urgent to rebuild trust in democratic institutions and to address the challenges outlined in the Discussion Paper. I would be very pleased to discuss my research with the YourSAy team. My detailed report and overview of the project is available here https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellow/sarah-moulds-sa-2022/. My email is sarah.moulds@unisa.edu.au.
Associate Professor Dr Sarah Moulds, University of South Australia
That's not quite true Ken. To save ratepayers money, Onkaparinga council reduced their elected members from 21 to 13 in a representation review not so long ago. So some chambers are able to make the tough decisions for what they believe is the greater good. However I acknowledge that decision actually made the ratio you are describing even worse: 178,550 Onkaparinga residents (ABS ERP 2022)/13 elected members = 13,735 people per councillor).
I would like to see changes to the whole council members and the elections and the number of aldermen in each area and how many rate payers to aldermen ration. Holdfast council have approximately 1 alderman for 2,500 rate payers. Onkaperinga and Marion have about 1 alderman to 10,000 rate payers. The current method of reviewing that is done by the elected councillors and of course their extremely brief review of themselves always comes up with the answer "we have the right ratio" despite it being the lowest is the state. Where else in Australia do people review themselves and determine "yes I should keep my job?" How do we change this? SA State govt won't do anything about it and the Australian government say "its not our job". No wonder votes don't turn up. Then there are the elected members who do not provide contact details to ratepayers or don't provide any feed back to questions put to them. then there are the issues of planning that have been taken out of the hands of councils and controlled by the State Government. Look at the Maturin Road Drug and Alcohol Rehab centre proposed to be put into Glenelg and the council planning and change of use legislation was completely bypassed by a dodgy Labor Government. Also consider the Sea Watch apartments that was allowed to bypass council guideline for the area and addressed direct by the State Govt because it was over $10m. Too many people think councils are becoming lame ducks and will one day be done away with altogether. No wonder they dont turn out to vote on council elections. Currently Marion Council have $20m in the bank. Holdfast Council are in the red to $31m. Despite numerous representations to council by the Holdfast Residents Alliance on the debt level, every year in continues to increase every year. It appears the skills in managing money and budgeting is not a prerequisite to get elected to council.