Today I’m announcing a new project, one I haven’t done before and was quite a bit of work.
I have prepared profiles of the 16 most populous councils in Victoria. I’m hoping this will be the first instalment and I can do some or all of the next 17, but we’ll have to see how much can get done over the next two months before the October elections.
The guides are more difficult to complete than in NSW because partisan affiliations are less clear, and there are no booths to map.
For each guide I have included a list of candidates, with their partisan affiliation outside of all-independent councils, a description of the wards of the council, and of the changes where the wards have been redrawn. I have also included short historical sections and tried my best to summarise which faction or group of councillors seems to be in control of a council by analysing how councillors have voted on mayoral ballots.
In some councils I have been able to include a table of results for each party group in the council, but only where I have felt confident that I have been able to identify all of the party members running. In many councils that wasn’t the case, so I didn’t publish incomplete figures. My thanks to Leo Puglisi and whoever has been working on publishing election results on Wikipedia for this.
I have not published any results maps for the previous council elections, but I have redistributed the results of the 2022 federal election to the new wards and have included a map showing how those votes break down by ward.
I haven’t paywalled any of these guides, but if you find this useful I’d appreciate your support via Patreon.
| Boroondara | Kingston | Mornington Peninsula |
| Brimbank | Knox | Whitehorse |
| Casey | Melton | Whittlesea |
| Greater Dandenong | Merri-bek | Wyndham |
| Greater Geelong | Monash | Yarra Ranges |
| Hume |
This map shows the councils which have been profiled in green. Councils which I would like to profile are in blue. You can click on a council to find the link to the profile, along with some other information.
Thanks so much for making this Ben!!! It means a lot to me, especially with this election approaching.
Just one point, currently Monash council links to Melton, and Melton will not show up.
Thanks Darcy, that’s fixed.
The VEC says they are mailing ballots for the MCC election but I have had issues with receiving mail as I am in an apartment, are you aware of anyway I can vote in person or is this election only mail-in ballots? If so, should I contact them and ask if I can collect the ballot myself and mail-it back? I do not want to be fined because I didn’t receive my ballot.
You can vote in person at your ‘local election office’ if you have no access to mail, the addresses of which will be public on Monday the 9th of September.
@Ben Raue are you only releasing guides for warded councils? If not then can you make one for Melbourne City Council please?
I have released guides for councils with 150k+ population. Melbourne’s population in 2021 was 149,615, so they are next in the queue. I suspect I will end up getting to them. Won’t be much to include without wards, though.
“This map shows the councils which have been profiled in green. Councils which I would like to profile are in green.”
I kinda like the idea of single-member wards. Queensland has it in some councils and now Victoria has them. NSW should do the same. I don’t mind multi-member wards but I prefer single-member wards.
@ Nether Portal
Can i ask you another request can you do a map of Greater Melbourne LGAs plus Mitchell and Greater Geelong councils with main minority CALD religion. I am thinking if Eastern Orthodoxy should be considered a minority religion? as it is practiced by CALD Australians.
@Nimalan sure. I can do that.
@ Nether Portal
Great thanks look forward to it:)
@Nimalan here’s the map of Greater Melbourne LGAs by largest non-Christian religion: https://jmp.sh/tqXugl4u
Key:
* Dark blue: Eastern Orthodox
* Green: Islam
* Orange: Hinduism
* Light blue: Judaism
* Yellow: Buddhism
As requested, I separated Eastern Orthodoxy from Christianity, though in some northern councils even though Eastern Orthodoxy is shown as the largest the largest non-Christian religion in some of those is actually Islam or Hinduism.
I’ve included all LGAs in Greater Melbourne (including Geelong, Macedon Ranges, Mitchell and Queenscliffe).
As we saw with my Greater Sydney and Greater Newcastle map, in Greater Melbourne we can see the same trend of Labor and Liberal areas being more multicultural than Greens and teal areas.
@ Nether Portal
Much appreciated, My council of Manningham has a very % of Eastern Orthodox Christians as are neighbouring councils. This map shows why in seats like Fraser, Cooper, Gellibrand the issue of Palestine will not be important as other minorities outnumber Muslims.
Undecided on who to vote for for Melbourne City council due to the fact I don’t know who has the best chance of unseating the current mayor who succeeded Sally Capp. While there are preferences I’d rather vote who has best chance of defeating the sitting mayor, Can’t vote for the sitting mayor because his running mate for deputy mayor wanted Peter Dutton was PM, and she is a right-wing liberal who lost the Aston-by election.
I also couldn’t vote for the Greens. Will Aaron Wood or the Labor guy make the final 2 this time? What do you guys sensing will happen? there are no polls for the mayoral election here in Melbourne so I would be keen hearing from those who have inside information down on the ground or know someone who does.
Strangely Nicholas Reece is a Labor person but his deputy Roshena Campbell is failed Lib candidate for Aston by-election.
@Nimalan I agree, and interestingly Islam is the largest religion in the Mitchell Shire despite it being outside of Melbourne. While it’s only a small percentage (1.7% which is relatively high for a regional council but still small) this is different to other regional, rural and remote areas where there are very few Muslims.
@ Nether Portal
Melbourne is sprawling into the Mitchell Shire and there are housing estates which adjoin Hume Shire so maybe it is a spillover of Hume LGA which is the most Muslim.
@Nimalan, you are correct as the Urban Growth Boundary is around Wallan
@Nimalan @Marh interesting. Usually Muslims are concentrated in the outer suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne.
@ Marh and Nether Portal
Macedon Ranges is more affluent while there is population growth it tends to be exurbs and more higher income housing estates so unlike Mitchell Shire does not tend to be diverse. Hindus also tend to be concentrated in Growth areas such as Wyndham, Cardinia etc.
@Daniel T do you think Kouta has a chance?
@ Nether Portal
Just wondering if you could do a table for the same councils by % of people who speak a language other than english it would be another way to measure diversity in the LGAs, i think table easier than map as it can be ranked.
@Nimalan sure I’ll see what I can do. Should I still include Macedon Ranges and Mitchell?
@ NP
Much appreciated yep include Macedon Ranges and Mitchell. I expect Mitchell to become more diverse due to urban growth 🙂
I’ve decided to do all LGAs that include a city with over 100,000 people in it OR are located within a greater urban area of a city with over 100,000 residents. I’m taking a break for today but I did the first 58 (all of Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart and Darwin in addition to the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo). Tomorrow or the next day I will do Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Newcastle in addition to the Central Coast and Wollongong.
So far the least English-speaking council is Greater Dandenong in Melbourne, where just 29.3% of residents speak English at home, while 11.9% speak Vietnamese at home. In contrast, the most English-speaking council in a metropolitan area so far is Brighton in Hobart with 91.1% of the population speaking English at home and just 0.3% speaking Mandarin. The least English-speaking council in a metropolitan area outside the capital cities is Cairns where 76.8% of people speak English at home and 1.4% speak Japanese.
Some interesting things so far:
* It’s clear that Tasmania’s only multicultural councils are Glenorchy and Hobart, but there’s an interesting divide between the two. Hobart’s main Asian communities come from China and Nepal, with the Chinese mostly settling in the south and the Nepalis mostly settling in the north (with Chinese being the second-most spoken language in Hobart and Nepali being the second-most spoken language in Glenorchy).
* The Gold Coast and Cairns are again the most multicultural non-capital cities, mostly due to large numbers of immigrants from China and Japan. The Gold Coast also has a large South American and Pacific Islander community while Cairns has large Indigenous and Melanesian populations.
* Despite Cairns being quite multicultural, Townsville is less so despite being a larger city, though Townsville does have a large Indigenous population just like Cairns does whereas the Gold Coast (like other cities with over 300,000 residents) does not.
* Samoan is the main language other than English in Ipswich and Logan, while Chinese is by far the main language other than English in Brisbane.
* Northern Australia is more multicultural than its credited for, with Cairns and Darwin both having large immigrant populations though often from different countries (while both have large Chinese, Indian and Nepali communities, Darwin has quite large Italian, Greek and Filipino communities while Cairns has quite large Japanese and Papua New Guinean communities). Both cities also have large Indigenous populations.
@NP, as for immigrants settling in regional places and perhaps Adelaide, a larger portion are new immigrants or students wanting to avoid the harder visa entries in major cities rather than permanent settlers but once they become citizens, many or even most will move to Sydney or Melbourne
@Ben Raue will there be a Melbourne city council page released? I know its just under 150,000 ppl but it is important
Sorry I don’t think I’m going to have any more capacity to work on these guides. I won’t even be posting candidate lists.
Where can we find candidate lists for the vic councils?
Single member wards are winner take all.. a 3 member ward elected by pr allows more view points to be represented
Candidates are all listed on the VEC website, now in ballot paper order.
On this link select the council you want, then click the ‘Find candidates’ button.
https://www.vec.vic.gov.au/voting/2024-local-council-elections
@ Nether Portal
Interesting what is the most diverse LGA in Sydney?
@Nimalan not sure what the most diverse is (as in most languages/backgrounds) but linguistically Fairfield has the lowest percentage of people who speak English as a first language of any metropolitan LGA in Australia. Only 23.4% of people speak English as their first language there, and 21.1% speak Vietnamese as their first language, so it’s almost certain that in a few years that Vietnamese will overtake English as the most spoken language in Fairfield unless there’s a sudden and unlikely surge in the number of English speakers there.
I’ve been doing a table for the most spoken languages in every greater metropolitan LGA. I’ve done all but Perth and Adelaide so far, which I’ll get done soon.
My week consists of work, chill time and early morning Tottenham matches, so I’ve been a bit busy but should have it done by Friday.
Who do we think will win lord mayor?
@ Nether Portal
All good no rush take your time :). In terms of diversity the metric i was looking at was % speaking a non English language. i reckon Cumberland in NSW and Brimbank in Victoria will also be high on this metric.
@Nimalan here’s the completed table: https://jmp.sh/LhGsJwef
It has all LGas in greater metropolitan areas and the top three most spoken languages at home in each LGA with percentages, as well as the percentage that speak English at home.
@ Nether Portal
The link does not work for some reason.
@Nimalan this one should work: https://jmp.sh/mjN1EzJW
@ Nether Portal
It comes up with Page not found (404). I have tried on another browser as well.
Hmm, I’ll have to look at it.
This one works for me: https://jmp.sh/3Mb10b7o
@ Nether Portal
Perfect it works now 🙂 Much appreciated.
@ Nether Portal
Interesting.
1. I am actually surprised that Strathfield and Burwood are in the Top 10. They are middle class to affluent areas although they have pockets of high density which attracts a lot of immigrants.
2. It does not surprise me that very poor LGA such as Fairfield, Greater Dandenong, Cumberland, Brimbank are in the Top 10.
3. I expect Growth LGAs such as Casey, Melton, Cardinia, to diversify quite rapidly as they are full of housing estates which are affordable which attracts immigrants when they are ready to start a family.
4. The least diverse LGAs in your list are mix of peri urban of Capital Cities (Adelaide Hills, Nilumbik, Redlands, Blue Mountains etc) or Provincial (Port Stephens, Queencliffe Kiama etc) or Super Rich (Peppermint Grove, Mosman, Northern Beaches etc).
5. It will be interesting if Newcastle, Wollongong, Toowoomba, Greater Bendigo, Ballarat, Greater Geelong becomes more diverse over time. All of these have Universities. I have always supported Decentralisation to take pressure of the big cities and to encourage immigrants to settle in these areas instead.
@Nimalan I agree, currently the only non-capital cities that have large immigrant populations are the Gold Coast and Cairns. All of those cities plus the Central Coast and Townsville have unis so I would say that would help.
Some middle-class areas are quite diverse, e.g Burwood, the Hills and Strathfield.
@ Nether Portal
Correct these places have a lot of potential to grow and more immigrants in these areas rather than the big cities will help.
@Nether Portal. Great map, however Eastern Orthodox is a form of Christianity.
@ No Mondays
Correct, that was actually my request to mark it out separately as it a CALD form of Christianity with virtually no Anglo-Celtic followers to we can look at ethnic demographics. Nether Portal actually did one for Greater Sydney which is on the Liverpool council thread.
@Nimalan: Thanks for that. I will check out the Greater Sydney map.
@ No Mondays there are also maps for Australian electorates by Main minority religion. https://jumpshare.com/v/ti77W7Qu3JqefwUZIQEp
@Nimalan. Excellent map. The Metropolitan Melbourne ones were as expected.