Town of Gawler


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. 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.
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. His election as Mayor in late 2025 marked the continuation of his long-standing involvement in local government and community leadership.
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.
WWW gawler.sa.gov.au

History

Local government was established in the area from 1853 with the creation of the District Council of Barossa West. 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 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.

Council

Council consists of 11 Elected Members comprising a Mayor, and 10 Area Councillors.
The current council is:

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.

Suburbs

Waste management and recycling

Garbage, recycling, and green waste collection services are provided by the Northern Adelaide Waste Management Authority.