The mayor of a beleaguered outback council says he's shocked four councillors quit this week.
Four councillors elected to Barkly Regional Council in the remote Northern Territory have resigned in recent days.
Councillors Noel Hayes, Derek Walker and Hal Ruger tendered their resignations on Thursday at the final ordinary meeting for the year.
Councillor Ronald Plummer resigned after the meeting on Thursday.
The four men made up a third of the local government's councillors.
It is the latest difficulty for the council, following staff resignations earlier this year.
Mr Plummer and Mr Hayes have been on the council since 2017, Mr Walker since 2021, and Mr Ruger for the past 19 years.
Mayor Jeffrey McLaughlin said the mass resignation was unprecedented
"I'm trying to work this over and deal with it. I've never had this happen," Cr McLaughlin said.
Resignations latest in string of difficulties for council
Mr Hayes, a local elder and Ali Curung traditional owner, said he resigned because he felt the council was not prioritising bush communities.
"The communities are suffering, we don't have the workers like we had before," Mr Hayes said.
He said this was largely down to mass resignations among council staff.
"After a few months, nobody was coming out bush to look after all the bush communities," he said.
The ABC has contacted Mr Ruger and Mr Plummer for comment.
By-elections in new year
Cr McLaughlin claimed Mr Ruger had left because he was moving to Alice Springs.
He said he did not know why Mr Plummer and Mr Walker had resigned.
"I can't hold a gun to someone's head and say that they have to stay on," Cr McLaughlin said.
"People have a choice."
NT Electoral Commissioner (NTEC) Iain Loganathan said he had not seen a mass resignation like this before.
"I don't recall there being four vacancies at the same time," Mr Loganathan said.
He said NTEC would be liaising with the council to hold by-elections early next year, which would be held concurrently in the Alyawarr and Patta wards.
"Given we're moving into the Christmas period, it would be sometime in February at the earliest," he said.
Allegations of toxic culture
Former council employees have recently made allegations of a toxic culture at the council.
The council has previously said the claims, which do not involve any of the recently resigned councillors, are the "venting" of a "small group of disgruntled ex-employees".
The NT Department of Chief Minister and Cabinet has been assisting the council with a review of the complaints.
The mayor said the council anticipated it could receive the review's final report as early as next week.
He said once council had obtained legal advice, the review would be released to the public.
"There'll probably have to be names and titles taken out of it, but our intention is to be open and transparent," Cr McLaughlin said.
The Local Government Association of the Northern Territory said there was "nothing to comment on at this point".
Minister for Local Government Chansey Paech said he was unable to provide comment as he deemed the nature of the concerns to be "operational".
