The City of Boroondara covers parts of the east of Melbourne, including Kew, Hawthorn, Camberwell, Balwyn, and parts of Glen Iris, Balwyn North and Surrey Hills.
The council had a population of 167,900 as of the 2021 census.
- Wards
- Redistribution
- Incumbent councillors
- History
- Council control
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2020 results
- Voting trends by ward
Wards
The City of Boroondara is divided into eleven single-member wards as of 2024:
- Bellevue – in the north, covering Kew East and parts of Balwyn North.
- Cotham – in the centre, covering parts of Deepdene, Kew, Kew East and Balwyn North.
- Gardiner – in the south, covering Glen Iris and parts of Hawthorn East and Camberwell.
- Glenferrie – in the west, covering parts of Hawthorn and Kew.
- Junction – in the centre, covering parts of Hawthorn East.
- Lynden – in the east, covering parts of Camberwell and Surrey Hills.
- Maling – in the east, covering parts of Canterbury, Balwyn and Surrey Hills.
- Maranoa – in the north-east, covering parts of Balwyn and Balwyn North.
- Riversdale – in the south-west, covering parts of Hawthorn and Hawthorn East.
- Solway – in the south-east, covering Ashburton.
- Studley – in the north-west, covering parts of Kew.
Redistribution
The council was already divided into eleven wards prior to the recent redistribution. Nine out of eleven wards were slightly modified, but all wards have maintained their name.
Gardiner and Solway swapped territory.
Riversdale expanded slightly north into Glenferrie, which then pushed into Studley and Cotham, and they both expanded north into Bellevue.
Maling expanded west into Junction and Cotham, and Junction then pushed north into Cotham.
| Bellevue | Jim Parke (Independent) | Maling | Jane Addis (Independent) |
| Cotham | Felicity Sinfield (Ind Liberal) | Maranoa | Cynthia Watson (Ind Liberal) |
| Gardiner | Victor Franco (Independent) | Riversdale | Susan Biggar (Independent) |
| Glenferrie | Wes Gault (Greens) | Solway | Garry Thompson (Ind)1 |
| Junction | Di Gillies (Independent) | Studley | Nick Stavrou (Ind Liberal) |
| Lynden | Lisa Hollingsworth (Ind)1 |
1Hollingsworth and Thompson both resigned from the Liberal Party in 2021 after being elected on the Burwood Liberals ticket in 2020.
History
The City of Boroondara was created in 1994 as an amalgamation of the Hawthorn, Kew and Camberwell council areas.
Boroondara has been elected from eleven single-member wards since its first election in 1996. Those wards have had the same names throughout that time. A review in 2019 proposed to replace these wards with four wards electing two or three councillors each, but the review was cancelled by changes to the Local Government Act in 2020.
The mayors in the current council term have been councillors Thompson, Addis, Sinfield and Hollingsworth.
Council control
Unfortunately information about mayoral elections is sketchy. The council’s archive of minutes on its website only dates back consistently to 2022, with the archive of video recordings dating back to 2021.
Councillor Thompson was elected mayor in 2020, with Councillor Addis elected deputy.
The 2021 mayoral and deputy mayoral elections were unopposed with Addis taking the mayoralty and Gault taking the deputy mayoralty.
The last two mayoral elections were more hotly contested than in 2021.
The 2022 election initially produced a 4-4 deadlock, but a further meeting saw Sinfield beat Addis 6-5 at a fresh meeting. Hollingsworth then won the deputy mayoralty. The same six councillors voted for both the winners: Sinfield, Hollingsworth, Parke, Franco, Watson and Stavrou.
In 2023, a slightly different group of six won both offices, but it did so from a very divided starting point. Four candidates ran for each of the two offices.
Councillors Parke, Sinfield, Hollingsworth, Franco, Biggar and Gault ended up voting for the successful mayor and deputy mayor. That included four of the same councillors as in 2022, but replacing Watson and Stavrou with Biggar and Gault.
The five remaining councillors mostly backed in councillor Watson, and entirely voted for Gillies for deputy. The majority bloc was originally split amongst three candidates for each office, but coalesced through the voting rounds behind Hollingsworth and Sinfield.
Candidate summary
No information.
Assessment
A number of Liberal Party members were elected in 2020, but they don’t consistently vote as a bloc. The council is reasonably fluid. It is worth watching to see if the teal and independent groups who have been so strong in this area at state and federal elections since 2020 make an impact in the council election.
| Party | Votes | % | Seats won |
| Independent | 61,016 | 58.3 | 5 |
| Burwood Liberals | 30,736 | 29.4 | 5 |
| Greens | 5,999 | 5.7 | 1 |
| Independent Liberal | 2,745 | 2.6 | |
| Independent Labor | 1,929 | 1.8 | |
| Animal Justice | 1,280 | 1.2 | |
| Independent Greens | 990 | 0.9 | |
| Informal | 7,825 | 2.1 |
Voting trends by ward
In order to understand the relative political position of each ward, I have estimated the results of the 2022 federal election in each ward.
On a two-party-preferred basis, the Liberal Party won all but one ward, with their vote peaking at 56% in the north-eastern corner of the council. Labor won 51% in Solway, in the south-eastern corner.
On a two-candidate-preferred basis, the picture is quite different. In the nine wards entirely contained within the federal seat of Kooyong, Monique Ryan won the 2CP. Her vote was strongest in Glenferrie, and generally at the western end of the council area.
In the two southern wards, which contain areas within Kooyong or within other seats where the two-candidate-preferred vote was between Liberal and Labor, the Liberal Party had the highest share but less than 50%, suggesting that Independent and Labor between them had a majority of the 2CP vote.
We can see the Solway ward is the only real middle class part of this council. There is some public housing as well. It is one of the reasons that Labor was able to win Higgins instead of the Greens longer term i expect the Solway ward to be more Tealish.
I know Solway Ward well, it’s upper middle class with public housing, especially near Alamein Station. North of High Street, there’s little public housing and more Liberal voters. Hence why the Labor vote is higher compared to the other wards. From 2004 to 2016, the ward had Labor councilors. Since Wes Gault won Glenferrie from Labor in 2020, they have completely given up on Boroondara.
@ Ian
Do you think the Solway ward will move from Upper Middle Class to Elite like the rest of the LGA being in a prestige council and that Labor may get outpolled by the Greens in the future. The Glenferrie ward is young renters so i dont think Labor will ever win that from the Greens again likely Labor will come third.
Many homes that date back to the 1930s have either been renovated or demolished and replaced by McMansions, so that process is well underway. The Glen Iris – East SA2 has one of the highest median weekly household incomes in Victoria at $2914 and one of the lowest renter rates in Melbourne at 21%.
@ Ian
Ashburton has a median income of $2743 and only 25% rented i feel it is more like Glen Iris (same LGA) than Ashwood (same postcode) i have seen many private school uniforms at Ashburton station.
Yep, Ashburton is closer to Glen Iris (Burwood before 2000) in socioeconomics and historical ties than Ashwood. Also, they’ve never been in the same LGA – before 1994, Ashburton was apart of the City of Camberwell, while Ashwood was apart of the City of Waverley.