Council election leaves Wagga City Council and 93 others with no mayor for six weeks

At previous elections, all councillor positions became vacant on election day but the mayor held onto their position until the first meeting of the new council, whereas a change to the rules will now see council-elected mayoral positions also become vacant on the day of the election, leaving the majority of NSW councils with zero community representation for weeks.

General manager of Wagga City Council Peter Thompson said under current rules Wagga will likely be without a mayor from election day on December 4 until the first council meeting on January 10.

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Wagga City was the first council to alert the Office of Local Government to the problematic legislation some weeks ago, arguing for the law to be rewritten to avoid a potentially dire situation.

"Changing the legislation and removing any representative between those dates undermines the whole concept of how local government is meant to function," Mr Thompson said.

Current mayor, councillor Greg Conkey, said the proposed situation would be "unacceptable".

"Between this pandemic and bushfire season in the middle of December, anything might happen" he said. "The mayor is called upon to make certain decisions and if you don't have an elected representative, who will make those decisions?"

Mr Thompson agreed saying the decision "puts a lack of importance on having a mayor".

"If things go wrong - we have a bushfire, pandemic or floods - people need to know they've got people they have elected in the room, in the building who are delivering key representation," Mr Thompson said.

"It can't be someone like me, the government isn't meant to work that way. It is a balance between the democratically elected group and the bureaucratic group."

When approached on the issue by Wagga City Council, it is understood the Office of Local Government claimed the change was intentional and inconsequential. The Office of Local Government has been contacted for comment.

Mayor Conkey said the situation betrays a double standard from the state government.

"No one could imagine a state without a premier for three to six weeks but according to the Office of Local Government it is acceptable for a community the size of Wagga not to have any representative overseeing the city," he said.

Councillors concurred, with Councillor Dan Hayes calling on the state government to amend the rules immediately.

"It's a woeful decision by the state government and they need to change it immediately," Cr Hayes said. "There is a pattern there - they just don't care about local government."

Councillor Rod Kendall agreed, saying if councils had been consulted in the first instance these issues could have been thrashed out ahead of time.

"This is not acceptable for the community," Cr Kendall said. "The community expects the council to continue to function through the election period."

The change in mayoral vacancy law has come about as a result of a 2016 amendment to the local government act which stipulated that once a person vacates the position of councillor, they must also vacate the position of mayor.

Mr Thompson said documents from the time indicate that this rule was intended to be used in the cases of councillors vacating midway through their elected term for reasons as varied as death, resignation and disqualification.

He said it was never intended to apply to the election period and would be an easy fix if the Office of Local Government were to agree to do so.

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