Kim Davis has been clearly elected as the new Councillor for Pimpala Ward in the City of Onkaparinga and from this exercise there are some very clear lessons that can be learnt.
With 1880 votes out of 4826 she was a clear winner over Michael O’Brien who came second with 1618 votes and Simon McMahon third with surprisingly only 1032 votes. I won’t even talk about my fifth position with 578 votes.
The interesting thing is that Michael O’Brien has been a local for over 20 years with considerable qualifications for the role and has served as Councillor of Pimpala in the past and Simon McMahon has obvious experience and a proven track record as a Councillor and Acting Mayor although because he does not live in Pimpala he would always have been at a disadvantage. People are loath to vote for anyone who lives outside of an arbitrary and imaginary government line even though that means the other person only lives a few kilometres away.
Nevertheless what really stuck out was that Kim Davis, unlike every other candidate, had absolutely no policies. It was impossible to work out what she stood for other than being a complete and total sycophant for the council and Mayor Moira Were. This will make her a huge asset to the establishment but on the flip-side it also means she is unlikely to be a firm advocate for rate payers when it becomes necessary to fight for them against the council. Will she really want to ruffle the feathers of Onkaparinga?
She had a significant presence on Facebook posting up to 4 times a day on issues that were mostly trivial, bordering on irrelevant unless you believe things like sunsets, puppy dogs or getting a cup of coffee are key campaign material. Nevertheless this is politics so we can’t drawer too harsh a line against this behaviour because I’m sure most of us have voted for candidates that have done this sort of thing.
Kim Davis has not run for any sort of office in the past, from what I can tell, but has been able to get support and a huge leg-up from a significant section of the ‘power base’.
She received very regular likes on her candidate Facebook page from Erin Thompson MP, Katrine Hildyard MP, Nat Cook MP, Amanda Rishworth MP, Moira Were as both Mayor and in her private capacity (sometimes on the same post) City of Onkaparinga, Councillor Marion Themeliotis, Councillor Marissa Bell and Councillor Lauren Jew. Kim also got an endorsement from Councillor Michael Fisher who is the other of the two Councillors for Pimpala Ward which is always a great endorsement, if you can get it.
In fact Kim Davis has received likes from at least one of these ‘celebrities’ on almost every one of her Facebook posts. Overall she had a big endorsement from Labour.
The idea of the City of Onkaparinga lending support to one particular candidate is very poor. Should the Council and Mayor, in their official capacities, be giving open support to a single candidate?
Are we supposed to believe this election result is a reflection on what the residents of Pimpala think and want? If so, then we must conclude they are very happy with virtually everything the council and Mayor represents and they want more of the same.
Premier Malinauskas announced that kickstarting mergers of South Australia’s 68 local councils were on the table in 2022 but he failed to bring about the first one when locals voted conclusively against Grant District and Mount Gambier City councils merging. Council mergers may be on the back burner for a while but is the Labour agenda just slipping behind closed doors now as it gives such support to candidates?
If political collusion doesn’t benefit local people and what they want then it should be out of order.
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If this election result is a reflection on what the residents of Pimpala think and want then we must conclude residents are very happy with the council and Mayor and everything they stand for.
Yet, of all the people I spoke to at their door during my campaign there was a very significant percentage who expressed considerable dissatisfaction with the council.
Certainly my volunteers and I found a lot of apathy toward council and the election but we also found an undercurrent of animosity. Everyone who expressed anything even remotely negative mentioned the high cost of rates, fines and the poor response from council when asked to fix things like roads, trees and reserves. These people expressed themselves with anything from a mild frustration to frothing uncontrollable rage that hardly allowed us to get a word in.
If this is correct then where did all these people go when it came to vote and what about the others who we never got to speak to at their doors.
I would, however, like to be clear, that Kim’s election campaign is completely acceptable from top to bottom but what I do object to is when someone like her gets such obvious support and clear promotion by a political party that gives them an unfair advantage against all other candidates.
Too many people believe that voting is a waste of time because nothing will change. With this attitude their belief will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Nevertheless compulsory voting is not the answer. You will never get meaningful participation from anyone forced to take part for fear of being fined.
These non-voting people have been reduced to the status of an NPC (non-player character) that you see in online games like Sim City or Grand Theft Auto. In these games the real players struggle to stay alive or fight to defeat their enemies but the characters that are created by the game act like automatons that move around in a vaguely life-like manner, bumping around and getting in the way only to be destroyed by the real participants.
With 78% of Pimpala not voting we can assume these residents have either given up trying to make a difference; they are all perfectly happy like Kim’s voters or maybe they are all NPCs.
I must admit that I functioned as an NPC for most of my life. I existed in the back row of many clubs ducking questions and calls to action and then when it came to getting cornered into having to volunteer for something I often never returned.
With this country heading into a very bad place more of us need to stand up and stop acting like NPCs. With the council $135 million in debt, rampant fines, stifling bureaucracy and budgets that will continue to escalate we need local people to take action.
If anyone finds themselves thinking this election was just a waste of time and money only to find ourselves back in exactly the same place we started then I ask you to do something. Keep an eye on the proceedings in council and if you see something wrong then I ask you to write into your local ward Councillor and make yourself heard and get others involved.
I would also be very interested to receive a copy of any of those emails or letters from Labour to the party faithfully asking for their support for Kim.
Let me know what you think.
Contact me here;
Mark Nielsen
PO Box 800
Morphett Vale SA 5162
mark@mark4council.com.au
0426 917 772