A former state MP and current mayor of a major Adelaide council has been fined $600 but has escaped a conviction over publishing dodgy campaign material.
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Marion Mayor Kris Hanna pleaded guilty to one count of publishing electoral material which contained an inaccurate statement.
The charge related to a flyer prepared before the 2018 local government elections.
It included details of pay increases approved for board members of the Local Government Association which were wrong.
Mr Hanna entered his guilty plea on his first appearance in Adelaide Magistrates Court last month and in submissions on Thursday the court was told 24,000 of the flyers had been produced.
But defence counsel John Rau SC argued the inaccurate statement, which was just one element, had no impact on the result of the election given Mr Hanna was returned as mayor with a margin of about 6000 votes.
Mr Rau said his client was embarrassed by the mistake and with the matter becoming one of public notoriety was considerably "chastened" by the experience.
He said the publicity the case had attracted was also a significant punishment.
But a prosecutor characterised the offending as in the moderate range for such matters and while Mr Hanna had published a retraction, it had come very close to the election.
She said the material in the flyer had prompted three complaints to the electoral commission.
Magistrate Ben Sale said Mr Hanna's offending was more the result of carelessness or lack of attention.
There was no suggestion from the prosecution that he deliberately intended to mislead voters.
Mr Sale said he was dealing with a man who had spent decades of his life as a politician, yet was coming before a court for the first time for an offence of this kind.
During his time in public office, Hanna had likely produced many hundreds of flyers, leaflets, Facebook posts, Twitter posts and the like, the magistrate said.
Mr Hanna served as a Labor MP in state parliament from 1997 until 2003 when he quit the party to join the Greens.
He then quit the Greens and contested the 2006 election as an independent.
He eventually lost his seat in the 2010 poll.
Mr Hanna has served as Marion mayor since 2014.
Australian Associated Press
