Is everyone satisfied with the way the election for the Council for the City of Onkaparinga went?

I stood for Mayor in last month’s election along with 11 candidates who stood for the 12 vacant Councillor positions. We were all in agreement that Council Rates are excessive and money has been spent or wasted without the full consent of Rate Payers. We sought to extract the Council from all politics and return to the basics of ‘Rates, rubbish and roads’ to make a truly transparent Council that served the people.

We and our supporters put in a massive effort during the campaign delivering about 62,000 flyers to all rate payers. We knocked on almost every door talking to all we could and placed flyers in letterboxes of those not home. This is when you truly appreciate that there are 1552km of roads within the council area!

The work our volunteers did during the scrutineering process was unmatched to the point that Election Commission of SA staff commented no one had ever bothered to check what they did before.

But we lost.

Can it be that the majority of rate payers did not support rate reductions?

We were however successful in getting one Councillor elected, Kevin Rilett in Pimpala Ward. We all congratulate him on his achievement and wish him all the best for his coming term of office.

I was second place to Moira Were, missing by 280 votes.

We would like to congratulate all of the successful candidates who are now in office.

Kevin Rilett is on the far right of this picture

We are currently looking very closely into what happened during the election and will report again in the New Year.

For now we would like to sincerely thank all of our supporters who did such an amazing job during the campaign and scurtineering process and we would also like to thank every rate payer who voted for me and for all of our candidates.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year.

Mark Nielsen