IT has now been roughly six months since the wider public found out about an electoral error that saw the wrong councillors given seats at the table in the Adelaide Plains region.
Statements came out at the time from the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) deeming the issue a matter of urgency and rightly so, given the ramifications it has on the local community.
Following that initial communication the issue has been left with the Court of Disputed Returns, with The Bunyip’s latest enquiry yielding comments stating that it will return to the court later this month.
This is likely fairly common policy and no doubt cases appearing in front of this court will often take time due to their complex nature, but what about the stakeholders?
It must be a somewhat awkward situation for councillors Terry-Anne Keen and Eddie Stubing, sitting at council meetings despite knowing they did not receive enough votes to be there in the first place.
Then of course we have Brian Parker and Mel Lawrence, two people that should have been sitting in on council meetings for the past half a year, waiting on the sidelines for a resolution.
None of those four people are at fault for the error, and placing blame anywhere is a redundant activity, perhaps unless asking the question of why it has taken so long to reach a resolution.
Common sense would largely dictate that upon realising the error, the fairest solution would be to replace those on council that did not earn their seat with those that did.
What has instead happened is a drawn out process that is shortchanging residents.
We live in a society where interest in council elections is dwindling and community engagement is a constantly tricky topic to broach.
What motivation does it give Joe Bloggs to go and vote in a council election or attend a council meeting when the people that were elected to represent the community are not even allowed a seat at the table?
Six months is a long time for the people of the Adelaide Plains to be represented by councillors they did not vote for. A resolution needs to arrive sooner rather than later.
