Town of Gawler

Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English Template:Infobox Australian place

The Town of Gawler is a local government area located north of Adelaide city centre in South Australia containing Gawler and its suburbs. The corporate town was established in 1857 due to the township's residents' dissatisfaction at being governed by three different district councils.

The Town of Gawler is located within the officially declared boundaries of the Adelaide metropolitan area.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:As of 1.0% of the population were Indigenous Australian, and 76.3% were born in Australia.

The current mayor of Gawler is Nathan Shanks, who was elected in 2025 following the resignation of long-serving mayor Karen Redman on 30 May 2025.<ref name="Resignation2025">https://www.gawler.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0042/1829778/2025-6-24-Town-of-Gawler-confirms-Acting-Mayor-and-appoints-new-Deputy-Mayor.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com</ref>

Shanks was first elected to the Town of Gawler Council as an Area Councillor in 2018. He later served as Deputy Mayor from 2022–2023 and again from 2024–2025, before stepping into the role of Acting Mayor between June and September 2025.<ref name="Resignation2025" /> His election as Mayor in late 2025 marked the continuation of his long-standing involvement in local government and community leadership.<ref name="Election2025">https://www.ecsa.sa.gov.au/gawler-mayor?utm_source=chatgpt.com</ref>

Redman, who had served as mayor since 2014, was the first elected female mayor in Gawler’s history and was re-elected for further terms in 2018 and 2022 before her resignation in 2025.<ref name="Resignation2025" />

History

Local government was established in the area from 1853 with the creation of the District Council of Barossa West (covering the western half of the Hundred of Barossa). Residents of the township of Gawler, at the confluence of the North and South Para rivers, were dissatisfied with the state of local governance. The township intersects four separate cadastral divisions, being at the corners of the hundreds of Mudla Wirra, Nuriootpa, Barossa and Munno Para. As such, the east half of the township was locally governed by the Barossa West council, the western half by the District Council of Mudla Wirra and the southern outskirts by the District Council of Munno Para West. The Barossa West council was seated at Lyndoch some Template:Convert east of the township. The Gawler ratepayers petitioned for their own local government, centred in Gawler, and the Corporation of the Town of Gawler was established on 9 July 1857.

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Council

Council consists of 11 Elected Members comprising a Mayor, and 10 Area Councillors.
The current council Template:As of is:<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} </ref>

Ward	Party Affiliation		Councillor	First elected	Notes
Mayor	Template:Australian party style\|	Independent	Nathan Shanks	2018	Deputy Mayor 2022-2023, 2024-2025, Acting Mayor 2025 (June - September) Current Mayor 2025
Area Councillor	Template:Australian party style\|	Labor	Cody Davies	2018	Deputy Mayor 2023-2024
	Template:Australian party style\|	Independent	Helen Hennessy	2022
	Template:Australian party style\|	Independent	David Hughes	2010	Deputy Mayor 2011-2013,2015-2016
	Template:Australian party style\|	Independent	Paul Koch	2010
	Template:Australian party style\|	Independent	Mick Launer	2022
	Template:Australian party style\|	Independent	Ethan White	2022	Deputy Mayor 2025 - present
	Template:Australian party style\|	Labor	Isaac Solomon	2022
	Template:Australian party style\|	Independent	Brian Sambell	2006	Mayor 2006-2014
	Template:Australian party style\|	Liberal	Jim Vallelonga	2014
		Independent	Karen Redman	2010	Mayor 2014-2025 (Resigned May 2025)

Mayors

As of 2023, 41 people have served as mayor of Gawler in 58 terms of office since the first to hold the position, Richard James Turner, in 1857.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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