{"id":1140,"date":"2023-02-10T12:02:30","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T01:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/?p=1140"},"modified":"2023-02-10T12:02:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T01:32:30","slug":"geoff-brock-goes-awol-while-councils-are-left-to-count-cost-of-election-chaos-and-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/2023\/02\/10\/geoff-brock-goes-awol-while-councils-are-left-to-count-cost-of-election-chaos-and-confusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Geoff Brock goes AWOL while councils are left to count cost of election chaos and confusion<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Regional councils and communities have been plunged into chaos and confusion after Geoff Brock refused to take any responsibility for a local government election bungle that could see 46 elected members lose their positions over an avoidable procedural breakdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Australians will likely be asked to return to the ballot box over the issue which occurred after information required by the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) was not returned by members in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, some regional councillors did not receive notification of the issue, or if they did, were notified on the day the information was due to be returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shadow Minister for Local Government, Sam Telfer, slammed Geoff Brock for \u201ctaking his hands off the wheel\u201d and \u201cwiping his hands of any responsibility\u201d but said \u201cECSA must also share some blame\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is Geoff Brock\u2019s sole responsibility to ensure local government runs smoothly but his failure to do so has resulted in a monumental stuff up that will cost people positions they thought they had won fair and square,\u201d Mr Telfer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe legislation is watertight, but Geoff Brock\u2019s communication of proper process has been non-existent and now we find ourselves in this frustrating and avoidable situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also clear that ECSA\u2019s communication on this issue has been poor \u2013 it\u2019s as if the Commissioner had known this problem was snowballing but chose not to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith so many people impacted, ECSA should have seen the warning signs from a mile away and it shouldn\u2019t have ever gotten this far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe still have a situation on our hands where some regional councillors are unaware of the impact of the issue on them, which once again speaks to Geoff Brock and ECSA\u2019s failure to communicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re forgetting here too is the impact this has on the community and the massive hit to public confidence in the local government area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis chaos and confusion was avoidable and needs to be rectified as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regional councils and communities have been plunged into chaos and confusion after Geoff Brock refused to take any responsibility for a local government election bungle that could see 46 elected members lose their positions over an avoidable procedural breakdown. South Australians will likely be asked to return to the ballot box over the issue which …<\/p>\n

Geoff Brock goes AWOL while councils are left to count cost of election chaos and confusion<\/strong><\/span> Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-government-and-regional","category-parliament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1141,"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions\/1141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samtelfer.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}