Around fifty people attended a community meeting on Wednesday night to discuss the upcoming amalgamation plebiscite.
The meeting was hosted by shadow minister for regional South Australia Nicola Centofanti and shadow minster for Local Government Sam Telfer.
It was one of two meetings, with one held earlier on Wednesday at Port MacDonnell.
Many questions raised on the night addressed the lack of communication and consultation both prior to and after the announcement, a lack of detail around the legislation, what the new proposed council may look like and how it will effect the smaller towns.
Many spoke against the idea of amalgamation.
Mr Telfer said turn out to the meetings had been encouraging, and was a sign of local sentiment around the issue.
“It probably is reflective of the fact that there’s a little understanding of what the ramifications for this process might be for their communities,” he said.
“There’s a lack of transparency from the government within the legislation.
“That just creates uncertainty in local communities and it’s been highlighted to us from the city of Mount Gambier and the District Council of Grant community members that have been out here.
“The challenge is the government putting from a top down decision making process, something which really should be driven from the bottom up.”
Ms Centafonti said there had been consistent narratives across both meetings regarding the plebiscite.
“Those the consistent narratives are that people feel like they haven’t been consulted with and that they haven’t had enough information given to them and not enough transparency around what will this process mean going forward,” she said.
She said the next step for them, as shadow ministers will be to go and make some amendments to the legislation, which is due to be discussed and voted on next Tuesday.
“Sam and I will obviously go away, and we will work on a set of amendments that we will try and get into this piece of legislation to improve the transparency and and then that clarity around representation and proportional representation within the vote, then it’ll be our job to speak to the crossbench and try and garner their support for our amendments.
Ultimately, they’re not our amendments, they’re the community’s amendments from what we’ve heard today.
“There is a strong sense out there that people want us to ensure there’s more transparency around this process and that’s what I will be saying to the crossbench, that whilst we might be drafting them, and lodging them, these amendments really come from the heart of the community.”
During the meeting, Ms Centofanti implored with attendees to send letters and emails to the members of the crossbench
“If they are concerned about this process and the way this process has been done, then I would implore them to contact their local member, contact the premier, contact the local government minister, and also contact the the members of the Upper House to seek their support for for their amendments.”
In attendance at the meeting were local council and mayoral candidates, business owners and residents.
