Draft:Keiran Snape

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Keiran Snape (born 9 November 1990) is an Australian activist, community advocate and politician who was elected to the City of Adelaide Council in a by-election and was sworn in on 17th August 2021. Since January 2024 he has served as the Deputy Lord Mayor of Adelaide. He is a member of the Greens South Australia but sits in the chamber as an independent.

Early life[edit]

Snape was born on 9 November 1990 in Manchester, England, the son of bricklayer and an office manager. In 1998 the family moved to the Isle of Man where Snape attended Onchan Primary School and Cronky Berry Primary School before going on to Ballakermeen High School where he studied history and politics.

In November 2006 Snape became one of the youngest ever voters in the world when the Isle of Man lowered its voting age to 16 for the 2006 Manx General Election. In 2008 at the age of 17 Snape and his family visited South Australia to activate their Australian visas, and moved over permanently 8 months later. Snape's father had previously lived in Australia as a child from 1970 - 1977.

Political Career[edit]

Early Career[edit]

Snape first participated in South Australian politics during the 2014 state election, where he handed out materials for the Greens in the seat of Waite. He joined up as a member shortly after. He went on to support Greens candidates at the 2014 Fisher and 2015 Davenport state by-elections. In December 2015 he ran as an independent candidate for the City of Adelaide in a supplementary election caused by the resignation of Robert Simms.

He then went on to stand for the Greens in Makin at the 2016 federal election and again as an independent for the City of Adelaide in the 2018 local government elections. He was elected Assistant Convenor of the Greens South Australia by party membership for the 2021 calendar year.

City Council[edit]

In 2021 Robert Simms resigned from the City Council for a second time, to fill a casual vacancy caused by the resignation of Mark Parnell in the state Legislative Council. This created a supplementary election for the council wide position where Snape ran on a progressive platform of community values, pedestrian accessibility, active transport, Adelaide Park Lands advocacy and heritage protections. He was elected with 1126 primary votes and 1753 votes after preferences were distributed.

In 2022 Snape was comfortably re-elected, this time to South Ward where he received three times the number of votes of his nearest competitor.

In November 2023 Snape was elected by his colleagues to serve as Deputy Lord Mayor for the 2024 calendar year.

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