‘Urgent’: No call on council elections despite looming deadline
With SA Parliament’s winter break looming, the state government is running out of time to announce if it will delay local council elections.
The state government is yet to announce whether it will pass legislation to delay local government elections until mid-2027, despite the fact that parliament is about to go on winter break.
Acting South Australian electoral commissioner Leah McLay asked the state government to postpone council elections two weeks ago, citing fears a repeat of problems in the 2026 State Election could reoccur.
At a press conference last Tuesday, Special Minister of State Kyam Maher said that a decision on delaying elections would be made in the “coming days”.
Maher said that, as there was only one sitting week left and rescheduling the elections would require legislative change, “realistically”, any postponement of the election date would have to be voted on before winter break.
Both the upper and lower houses will sit on June 16, 17 and 25, while the State Budget estimates committee will be held from June 18 to 24.
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State Parliament will take a break in July for the school holidays and will return on August 18 for three sitting days of both chambers.
If no legislation is passed, then elections will remain in November.
In a statement to InDaily this morning, a South Australian Electoral Commission (ECSA) spokesperson said McLay had asked Maher to give her request “urgent consideration”, adding that “we understand that is happening”.
ECSA did not specifically address whether it thought there was enough time to pass legislation before parliament goes on break.
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A state government spokesperson did not say when a decision would be made but said the government “continues to consult with key stakeholders on concerns raised by the Acting Electoral Commissioner”.
At the press conference, Maher confirmed that he had an initial meeting last week and received formal advice last Thursday.
He said the government discussed the request in cabinet last Tuesday in the afternoon.
“We are exceptionally frustrated, we are exceptionally disappointed that we’ve got to this stage,” he said.
At a press conference last Tuesday, acting electoral commissioner McLay said she was concerned about ECSA’s ability to hire temporary staff for council elections, which are slated for November.
“We anticipate that we will have some challenges doing that, given the levels of frustration, fatigue, and so forth that our temporary election workforce is facing post the state election,” she said.
McLay said the Local Government Association and South Australia’s 67 councils were notified about the request on Tuesday.
Among the issues plaguing the 2026 State Election were technology glitches, long queues to vote, electoral staff not rocking up and missing ballots that were subsequently “discovered”.
An independent review of the 2026 State Election is currently underway, which will also investigate reports of ECSA staff having their pay delayed and claims that Aboriginal Australians were mistreated at the ballot box.
Maher declined to comment last week on the absence of SA electoral commissioner Mick Sherry, who has been on personal leave since April.
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