Local Government Participation and Elections Review

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.