With the new guard of the Adelaide City Council comes a new Lord Mayor, Jane Lomax-Smith. As her first order of business, she plans to stick to her election pledge of “effective leadership”, declaring she has “no intention” of chairing meetings until 2am.

Last week, Jane Lomax-Smith was announced as the new Lord Mayor for the City of Adelaide, narrowly defeating former senator Rex Patrick by 52 ballots and incumbent Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor by 690.

Speaking to CityMag four days after the count, and displaying caution (“we’re waiting for the count to finish”), the Lord Mayor says her four years in the job will revolve around three election commitments we’d already discussed: exercising effective leadership within the chamber, addressing high vacancy rates for retail and office dwellings, and plugging the skills shortage.

Jane says she will also reverse a 2019 decision led by former Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, returning to fortnightly council meetings rather than monthly.

“I have no intention of chairing meetings at 2am in the morning,” Jane says.

“You can’t run an organisation of the size and with the financial status of the Adelaide City Council through the night. It’s not fair to council members, it’s not fair to the staff and certainly not fair to the city.”

One of the reasons the meetings ran into the early hours was due to “so many items” being crammed into one agenda, she says. She expects restoring the meeting schedule back to its original structure will ameliorate this.

Jane Lomax-Smith: not Queen of Tarts but Lord Mayor of Adelaide

Jane will be joined in the chamber by new and old characters. Among the returning members are area councillor Arman Abrahimzadeh, north ward councillors Phillip Martin and Mary Couros, central ward councillor Simon Hou, and south ward councillor Keiran Snape.

New faces include area councillor Janet Giles; central ward councillors Carmel Noon, Jing Li and David Elliott; and south ward councillors Mark Siebentritt and Henry Davis.

This new crop of elected members are not bogged down with the historical baggage of factions, Jane says, which presents the new council an opportunity to “work together more collaboratively”.

“I have every faith in the fact that they want to work together and to be seen as an effective group,” she says.

“I think that’s a really strong motivation, because it would be tragic if people try to re-invigorate or re-litigate the past.”

There were several members of the former council who were not successful at the election. This list includes veteran councillor Anne Moran; business owner Franz Knoll; and prominent Team Adelaide member Alexander Hyde, who indicated to the media he was considering seeking legal advice due to losing by a slim margin amid allegations of voter harvesting.

City of Adelaide CEO Clare Mockler congratulated Jane on her election as Lord Mayor, referencing her dedication during her 1997—2000 posting in the position, and her career with the State Government.

Rex Patrick has said he will contest the results of the election. In a statement sent last week, Rex said he had requested a recount of the Lord Mayoral ballots and would petition the Court of Disputed Returns to have the positions of Lord Mayoral, area and central ward declared “void”.

“The difference between first and second place in the Lord Mayoral election was 52 votes, which means that a change in the count of 27 votes would change the outcome of the election,” he said.

The first council meeting is scheduled for 29 November, 2022.