It was revealed earlier this month that 45 councillors – including four mayors – had failed to lodge their campaign returns with the Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) following last November’s local government elections.

Under the Local Government Act 1999, failure to lodge a campaign return means a councillor is removed from office barring a successful judicial appeal to the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (SACAT).

Around 40 councils had elected members removed from office, according to Local Government Minister Geoff Brock, with the situation set to trigger another round of supplementary council elections.

But Brock today announced the state government would move to avoid this situation by introducing an “urgent” amendment Bill to parliament giving removed councillors an additional 10 days to lodge their campaign returns.

According to the state government, the Local Government (Casual Vacancies) Amendment Bill 2023 will also ensure any decision made by councils or councillors during their vacancy period “are not invalid”.

“It’s necessary to now resolve this issue so that councils can move on with their important business of providing local services and facilities to their communities,” Brock said in a statement.

“This Bill does not in any way excuse the 45 members who failed to lodge their returns.

“It simply removes the burden that communities who elected these members would otherwise be carrying and ultimately be paying to fix.”

The state government says it intends to pass the Bill in the Lower House this week. It will still require support from either the Greens or SA-Best in the Upper House.

The quick legislative fix comes after the Local Government Association of SA (LGA) on Friday called for an “urgent intervention” to reinstate ousted council members.

“While the LGA accepts that individual elected officials bear personal responsibility for complying with their campaign reporting obligations, it appears the cost and consequence of not submitting paperwork on time is utterly unreasonable,” LGA president and Kimba Mayor Dean Johnson said on Friday.

“The unprecedented scale of this issue, statewide, is also evidence there was a broader problem with the system – after twenty years in local government, I haven’t seen anything like this.”

Campaign returns disclose any gifts a councillor received during their campaign for office. Gifts under $500 do not need to be disclosed, but the councillor is still required to return a form to ECSA stating “nil return”.

The local government sector advocated for the Marshall Government to make the legislative change which gave the Electoral Commissioner responsibility for collecting campaign returns, rather than council CEOs.

Both Brock and LGA have flagged a fresh round of local government reforms could be on the table to prevent this situation happening again.

“I have already stated that we will be looking at steps to ensure this never happens again, through the review of local government elections,” Brock said.