Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Act 2021

Over the last few years, South Australia’s system of local government has been under review. The Statutes Amendment (Local Government Review) Act 2021 passed Parliament and received the Governor's assent on 17 June 2021.

When commenced, the Act will amend a range of laws related to local government in South Australia including:

Key reforms

The major reforms in the Amendment Act are based on ideas submitted during the Local Government Reform Program consultation that was held in early 2019.

Some key reforms include:

a new conduct management framework for council members
an expansion of expert, independent advice to councils on a range of critical financial and governance matters
a modern approach to public consultation
a range of improvements to regulation to reduce councils’ costs.

Staged commencement

The local government reforms have commenced in stages. A summary (in reverse chronological order) is set out below.

The seventh stage of the reforms was included in a proclamation on 18 December 2025, which commenced the provisions in the City of Adelaide Act 1998 to require a natural person to receive ballot papers for elections in the City of Adelaide when exercising a vote on behalf of a group or body corporate.

These provisions were amended with the commencement of the Statutes Amendment (Local Government Elections Review) Act 2025 to require that the natural person must be a State elector (on the House of Assembly roll for South Australia).

The sixth stage of the reforms was included in a proclamation on 11 December 2025, which commenced reforms related to community engagement and public notice requirements. This included establishing a community engagement charter; and supporting and transitional regulations:

Local Government (Amendment of Schedule 5 of Act) Regulations 2025
Local Government (General) (Public Consultation) Amendment Regulations 2025
Local Government (Transitional Provisions) (Public Consultation) Amendment Regulations 2025 — these transitional regulations provide councils with a maximum period of 9 months to adopt a community engagement policy and a 3 month period from the adoption of the community engagement policy to undertake public consultation under the previous public consultation scheme in the Act.

The fifth stage of reforms included a proclamation on 17 November 2022 with the following commencement date:

17 November 2022 (PDF, 72.4 KB)

Notices published in the Government Gazette on 17 November 2022, are available on the Publications page.

The fourth stage of reforms included a proclamation on 7 July 2022 with the following commencement date:

7 July 2022 (PDF, 67.7 KB)

The third stage of reforms included a proclamation on 17 February 2022 with the following commencement date related to the appointment of members of the Behavioural Standards Panel.

17 February 2022 (PDF, 77.6 KB)

The second stage of reforms was included in a proclamation on 23 December 2021, which includes the following commencement dates for various reforms:

The first stage of the reforms was included in a proclamation on 16 September 2021, which included two commencement dates: