Slashing council bureaucrats to save on rates

25 February 2026

KEY POINTS:
• Comprehensive local government reform will be one of our party’s top priorities.
• Our proposal will streamline administration and slash the bureaucracies that are the greatest burden on ratepayers.
• Elected council members should determine council priorities, not unelected bureaucrats.
Bureaucracy will be restructured and reduced – while full local representation is maintained – in a bid to put people back in charge of their local councils and save money for ratepayers under a new One Nation policy on urgently-needed local government reform.
One Nation SA Legislative Council candidate Carlos Quaremba said the proposal involved splitting the state into three administrative zones, requiring only three chief executives instead of the current 67 earning an average of $350,000 per year.

“Council debts are growing, with total local government liabilities at almost $1.2 billion,” Mr Quaremba said. “Councils are groaning under the weight of increasing expenses, profligate spending outside core responsibilities, and a state government shifting more and more burdens onto them.

“This burden inevitably falls on South Australian ratepayers, right in the middle of Labor’s cost-of-living crisis. It’s not just unsustainable. It’s immoral.

“Comprehensive local government reform will be one of our party’s top priorities. Our proposal will streamline administration and slash the bureaucracies that are the greatest burden on ratepayers. We’ll keep all the councils and their elected members, and consult the community about which councils should be in which zones.

“We’re not stopping there. One Nation will also explore the introduction of a two-tiered rates system which will give ratepayers a choice on whether to pay only for non-negotiable essential council services like road maintenance and rubbish collection, or to pay a higher level of rates to fund non-essential items proposed by councils.

“We’ll scrap those parts of the Local Government Act 1999 which effectively stop elected members speaking out freely on behalf of their constituents. These parts are weaponised by bureaucracies against councillors who don’t toe the line, forcing them to remain silent about poor decisions, budget deficits, woke nonsense and growing lack of accountability and transparency increasingly plaguing local government. One Nation will also move to cap rate increases to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

“We’re going to restore true democracy to councils and put long-suffering ratepayers back in charge of their local governments.”

ENDS