Relationship breakdown with CEO<\/p>\n
The series of council resignations was kicked off by former shire president Eddie Smith, on Friday, May 1.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9b929bc8e1431be6075cfc1ee45b9d25.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Eddie Smith said stepping down from council “tore his heart out”. (ABC News: Kelsey Reid)<\/p>\n
Mr Smith had sat on council for almost 20 years, including as shire president from 2019.<\/p>\n
Speaking with ABC Radio Perth, Mr Smith said he could no longer legally fulfil the role due to a “total breakdown in the working relationship” with the chief executive officer’s office.<\/p>\n
The former shire president said he did not feel comfortable discussing specific issues and had concerns over possible legal action if he were to speak “openly and honestly”.<\/p>\n
“It just about tore my heart out,” Mr Smith said.<\/p>\n
“You put a lot of work into these things, and over the last six and a half years, especially as shire president, I took a lot of pride in some of the things we actually got through.”<\/p>\n
Mr Smith highlighted the council’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a point of pride in his tenure as shire president.<\/p>\n
![\"Carnarvon](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/7c4c7d565f3050fe96e701be4666b1a1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Carnarvon is located 890km north of Perth in the Gascoyne region. (ABC News: Kelsey Reid)<\/p>\n
“The support I’ve received from the community \u2026 has been overwhelming, massive, it’s just shocked me,” an emotional Mr Smith said.<\/p>\n
“And I thank them, from the bottom of my heart, I thank the Carnarvon community.”<\/p>\n
While Mr Smith said he was not expecting the five other councillors to follow suit in resigning, he described their support as “absolutely amazing”.<\/p>\n
“It bears witness to the way we conducted ourselves as a team.”<\/p>\n
Commissioner appointment a ‘priority’<\/p>\n
Local Government Minister Hannah Beazley initially attempted to backfill the council positions with the remaining three unsuccessful candidates from the most recent local government elections.<\/p>\n
![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/8c95b833d4a64dd74ece82be3b81f8d3.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Hannah Beazley described the situation in Carnarvon as “unusual” and “a relative surprise”.\u00a0 (ABC News: Emma Wynne)<\/p>\n
The minister said in a statement that the three prospective candidates declined the offer.<\/p>\n
“This leaves the Council without a quorum and therefore unable to function,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“It is an absolute priority for me to appoint a Commissioner to ensure that the Shire of Carnarvon can make decisions and continue to deliver services to its residents and ratepayers.<\/p>\n
“The Commissioner will be in place until an extraordinary election can be held.”<\/p>\n
![\"Carnarvon](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3ba1206dc91b383175ee3812052736e2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Eddie Smith thanked the Carnarvon community for their support.\u00a0 (ABC News: Kelsey Reid)<\/p>\n
According to Mr Smith, the state’s local government inspector recently visited Carnarvon at Mr Smith’s request and held “very good” meetings with the administration and council.<\/p>\n
However, he said the meetings were unsuccessful in mending issues between the parties.<\/p>\n
Ms Beazley said in addition to a commissioner being appointed to the Shire of Carnarvon, she would support the local government inspector appointing a monitor.<\/p>\n
Shire of Carnarvon CEO Amanda Dexter said she welcomed the news of a commissioner.<\/p>\n
“This means that effective decision-making will continue at the Shire of Carnarvon,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I would like to reassure the community that, as always, our focus remains on the delivery of services, events and support for our community.<\/p>\n
“At this stage, the Shire will not be providing further comment regarding individual resignations or statements made by former elected members.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former shire president in regional Western Australia says the decision to resign from the position after 20…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[7953,5251,7950,7951,1774,7952,335,7954,464,7915],"class_list":["post-6568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-perth","tag-amanda-dexter","tag-commissioner","tag-eddie-smith","tag-hannah-beazley","tag-local-government","tag-mandy-dexter","tag-perth","tag-shire-of-carnarvon","tag-wa-news","tag-wa-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}