On the fourteenth of September, NSW communities will go to the polls to elect our local shire councillors. These people will be the elected officials who work for the good (hopefully) of their local communities. They form ‘Local Government.’ Like all elections in Australia, the elections will be overseen by the Australian Electoral Commission, an independent body which oversees all Australian elections. It’s an impartial, and independent body.

Like in any election, potential councillors must be nominated, and send in their paperwork by a certain date and time to be eligible to be on the ballot. There’s a huge amount of information on their website, including eligibility, processes, transparency, and of course dates and times. If you google, you can find those dates and times quite easily.

Many candidates simply submit their own paperwork. Others, due to an affiliation with a political party (must be declared), have to have endorsement by that party, which may then submit the nomination. The problem this time around, is that the Liberal Party (Australia’s more conservative major party), failed to submit nominations on time for about 140 candidates. 3,889 candidates across all parties, affiliations and independencies have been nominated. In my own council electorate, we have 26 nominated candidates for our twelve positions.

A few years ago, a well known local councillor failed to nominate by the appropriate time, and was therefore unable to run that year. Said councillor did run again at a later date, and was re-elected. But now the Liberal party is threatening legal action to their candidates in.

I have several questions. Firstly, why are there party politics at such a local level of government? (This is something I’ve never understood.) I mean, it’s super local. I assume it’s possibly because of the opportunity for voting blocs, but on local issues, how does adhering to a voting bloc really represent your community? (Which is what I’m looking for in a local councillor – someone in touch with local issues, and someone who works for the good of said community.)

Secondly, if there’s one rule for the common person, why should a political party, which has clearly managed to nominate people on time in the past over many decades, suddenly decide that the rules should be changed because they blundered this year?

Thirdly, what were the individual candidates doing to make sure their nominations were lodged in time? (Can be done online or by hardcopy.) I’d imagine that there’s some kind of receipt/acknowledgement provided by the AEC.

These questions aside, now, like in any election, we locals have to choose who to vote for. I’m really pleased with the variety of our local candidates. Some were a very welcome surprise to me, and I’m quite excited to see (assuming they’re elected), what might happen for my local community.

My community faces quite a few challenges over the next few years. It’s a coal mining community, a horse breeding area, and an agricultural area. It’s rural. We have transitions to manage, new sources of income for people to generate, and challenges around the supply of health and education personnel. A truly visionary local government could reinvent us.

Fortunately, so far in Australia, we haven’t seen the wildly polarised views we now see nightly on the news from various other places infiltrating our politics. There are some, of course, but I’m hoping and praying that we Australians can continue to speak civilly to each other next year when we’re likely have our next federal election. (Despite what our conservative opposition leader seems to want to generate.)

Over here, mostly, we can disagree about politics without it affecting our friendships, families, or indeed our places of worship. This is something I hope to never see. While politics is an important thing (clearly I think so as I’m writing about it), it should never be as divisive on a personal level as I see elsewhere.

I count us as fortunate that our system is a robust one. Despite our revolving door of PMs a few years ago, we seem to mostly be on a steady ship one way or another. It’s certainly not perfect, but I’m encouraged by the fact that anyone can enter Australian politics and potentially end up PM. (Our current PM is a good example.) And our pollies come from many walks of life, and many backgrounds. It’s one of the strengths of our system.

Obviously, I don’t always agree with who ends up elected, but as I said to someone a while back, if I didn’t vote, then I wouldn’t have the right to complain. (Or cheer as the case may be.) Anyway, another month, and our shire councillors will all be elected. It’ll be an interesting ride.