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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-24 Daily Xml
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LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (15:34): A couple of weeks ago, we had the conclusion of the local government elections in South Australia, which were interesting to observe. I would like to make some personal remarks about what happened here. I find it totally ludicrous that in the state election, indeed very much so in the state election, within a few hours most of us knew whether we had won handsomely, lost, or won by a small margin.

However, I find it bizarre that when voting closed for the local government elections at 5 o'clock on Friday night, on Saturday night we had a few mayoral results—not all of them—but we then had to wait until the next Tuesday to get the results of the council candidates who had been elected. It is madness. Why a system has to be so out of tune I do not know, and I will make some further remarks in a moment.

Why councils are confused about the caretaker provisions is a debacle. At the Mitcham council nobody was saying anything about anything, yet other councils had candidates, existing councillors and mayors having plenty to say about everything. It is a load of nonsense. Our leader made comment on the mayoral position and how the system is bizarre in her view. I do not think she used the word 'bizarre' but the fact is that you can get some good mayoral candidates—two, three, four, five or whatever—but only one wins, so you lose the rest of the quality that could flow down to councillor positions, as happens in New Zealand and other places. That is something we need to look at.

Also, it is quite clear to me from feedback from councillors and people I have talked to in the community that they believe four-year terms are far too long. We have had discussions about two or three-year terms in here not so long ago. I picked up some comments that were made by the member for Croydon—who I very rarely agree with, but in this case I do—and others around the place. I think it is way past time that we had a total review of the local government sector, the Local Government Act and where it can go and, in particular, the number of councils in the city. This is my personal view. There are far too many and they are not all acting in the best interests of the City of Adelaide per se, the expanded City of Adelaide. Country councils, by and large, work much more efficiently than the host of councils we have in the city.

It worries me what takes place at some levels of local government. I am curious as to where the LGA sits in all of this. I am not convinced any more that the LGA is acting in the best interests of the people of South Australia. It may think it is, but I am wondering just what goes on these days. I had 17 years in local government and I know others in this place had plenty of time there. However, I wonder about cronyism, about decisions being made before council meetings and everything being stitched up. At least in here we can have a good bunfight and eventually we come to a decision based on the numbers.

However, at council level it worries me that too much is happening before meetings, and there is almost an element, it would appear (and has been suggested to me), of some form of conspiracy over decisions that are made. Decisions have been made by councils that have now gone, but they are going to impact on new councils. Even today I had put to me some questions in relation to one council about matters of process for filling positions. My answers have gone back straight out of the act. They have to ascertain as to whether the councillors have acted properly—and I am sure they have—but there are too many questions.

I call on the government, once it gets its leadership spills happening and sorted out, to instigate a total review of local government in this state, to put somebody in there who knows what they are doing, someone who is not connected to local government, and to come back to the house with an upgraded local government act for debate. Let us sort it out once and for all. Let us try to get local government functioning as well as it possibly can in South Australia, rather than the sort of hit-and-miss approach that we have at the moment, and act in the best interests of all South Australians, which I am sure they think they are doing. I am fed up with the nonsense. I have endured a fair bit of nonsense over the past four years from various councils and others and I am fed up with it and I would like to see the parliament pick up on it.

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