The Shire of Mornington Peninsula covers the Mornington Peninsula at the southern end of the Melbourne urban area, including Mornington, Mount Martha, Mount Eliza, Rosebud, Somerville, Hastings and Rye.
The council had a population of 169,848 as of the 2021 census.
- Wards
- Redistribution
- Incumbent councillors
- History
- Council control
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- Voting trends by ward
Wards
The Shire of Mornington Peninsula will be divided into eleven single-member wards as of 2024:
- Beek Beek – in the north-east, covering Somerville and Tyabb and parts of Baxter.
- Benbenjie – on the southern shore of Port Phillip Bay, covering McCrae and parts of Rosebud.
- Briars – on the eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay, covering Mount Martha.
- Brokil – on the eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay, covering Safety Beach and Arthurs Seat.
- Coolart – covering the most land area of any ward, covering the southern side of the peninsula, in particular the Fingal, Flinders, Main Ridge, Red Hill, Balnarring and Somers.
- Kackeraboite – at the very northern end of the Shire, covering Mount Eliza.
- Moorooduc – in the north, covering Moorooduc and part of Baxter.
- Nepean – on the western tip of the peninsula, covering Blairgowrie, Portsea, Sorrento and Rye.
- Tanti – on the eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay at the northern end of the Shire, covering the Mornington locality.
- Tootgarook – on the southern shore of Port Phillip Bay, covering Capel Sound, Tootgarook and parts of Rosebud.
- Warringine – on the western shore of Westernport, covering Crib Point and Hastings.
Redistribution
The council previously consisted of six wards, electing eleven councillors. The Cerberus, Red Hill and Watson wards elected one member, the Nepean ward elected two members, while the Briars and Seawinds wards each elected three.
The north-western Briars ward covered the entire new Briars, Kackeraboite and Tanti wards and parts of the new Moorooduc ward.
The north-eastern Cerberus ward covered the entire new Warringine ward and parts of the new Beek Beek, Coolart and Moorooduc wards.
The western Nepean ward covered the entire new Nepean ward and part of the new Tootgarook ward.
The southern Red Hill ward covered most of the new Coolart ward.
The central Seawinds ward covered the new Benbenjie and Brokil wards and parts of the new Tootgarook ward.
The north-eastern Watson ward covers most of the new Beek Beek ward and parts of the new Coolart and Moorooduc wards.
| Briars | Steve Holland | Anthony Marsh | Despi O’Connor |
| Cerberus | Lisa Dixon | ||
| Nepean | Susan Bissinger1 | Sarah Race | |
| Red Hill | David Gill | ||
| Seawinds | Simon Brooks2 | Antonella Celi | Debra Mar |
| Watson | Kate Roper3 |
1Susan Bissinger replaced Hugh Fraser following a countback in 2021.
2Simon Brooks replaced Kerri McCafferty following a countback in 2023.
3Kate Roper replaced Paul Mercurio following a by-election in 2023.
History
The Shire of Mornington Peninsula was created in 1994 as a merger of the former shires of Flinders, Hastings and Mornington.
The council was elected through single-member electorates until 2012 – with the council expanding from nine seats to eleven in 2005.
The 2012 review moved the council to a mixture of single- and multi-member wards. The densely-populated areas along the Bay were split into three multi-member wards each electing two or three councillors, while the areas more distant from the Bay split into three single-member wards.
The council consists entirely of independents, although Labor state MP Paul Mercurio was a member of the council prior to his win at the 2022 state election.
In the current council term, the mayoralty has been held by Despi O’Connor, Anthony Marsh, Steve Holland and Simon Brooks.
Council control
There is not a strict divide between a majority and minority faction but there have been some trends.
Councillors Dixon, Marsh, Mercurio, McCafferty, Race and O’Connor were on the winning side in the 2020 mayoral and deputy mayoral election, and the 2021 mayoral election, and were joined in 2021 by new councillor Bissinger. This group won the mayoralty and deputy mayoralty for the first two years of the term and were always on the winning side.
Councillors Celi and Mar were in the minority in both years, joined by Fraser and Holland in 2020. Holland was absent in 2021, and Fraser had resigned from the council by then.
Things were shaken up in 2022. The six present councillors who had previously formed the majority group split three ways. Three of the six voted for councillor Race, but the others went elsewhere. Then-incumbent deputy mayor Dixon only managed two votes for mayor, being knocked out for the second round.
In the final round of the count, a new majority of Holland, Marsh, Gill, Dixon, Bissinger and Mar supported Holland for mayor, defeating Race 6-4. The same six split evenly between two candidates for deputy mayor, giving each of them three votes to the four for the opposition group, now supporting Celi. The tie was broken in favour of councillor Mar, and all of the six councillors in the majority swung behind him.
In 2023, Holland and Mar left the majority group, with new councillors Brooks and Roper joining the other four as a new majority supporting Brooks for mayor. In the deputy mayoral ballot, the other five in the majority supported councillor Celi, while Brooks defected to the minority group.
Throughout this four-year period there was a number of defections and reorganisations, and three councillors left the council and were replaced. Throughout this time, Dixon and Marsh were always in the majority. Councillor Gill was absent in 2021 but was otherwise in the majority.
Candidate summary
Sitting councillors Simon Brooks, Lisa Dixon, Steve Holland, Debra Mar and Sarah Race are not running for re-election.
The Greens and Victorian Socialists are each running one candidate, but all other candidates are unendorsed by a party.
Assessment
Factions on this council are very loose and will undoubtedly change with a new council.
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 Labor winning just 50.2% in Kackeraboite in the far north of the shire.
The Liberal Party’s weakest majority was 54% in the large Coolart ward. They generally did better in the bayside wards.
Candidates – Beek Beek Ward
- Cr Kate Roper
- Lavinia Jenkin
Candidates – Benbenjie Ward
- Dinka Jakovac
- Max Patton
- Peter Clarke
Candidates – Briars Ward
- Cr Anthony Marsh
- Cr Despi O’Connor
Candidates – Brokil Ward
- Patrick Binyon
- Marie Murray
- Elizabeth Woolcock
Candidates – Coolart Ward
- Neil Biggins
- Dennice Allen-Breeschoten
- Cr David Gill
Candidates – Kackeraboite Ward
- Stephen Batty
- Daniel McCaffrey
Candidates – Moorooduc Ward
- Bruce Ranken
- Kathryn Smith
Candidates – Nepean Ward
- Andrea Allen
- Monique Toms
- Suzanne Jones
- Eddie Matt
- Cr Susan Bissinger
- Josie Jones
- Krysten Le Marshall
Candidates – Tanti Ward
- Nick Fallaw
- Barry Besanko
- Tom Davies
- Paul Pingiaro
Candidates – Tootgarook Ward
- Cam Williams
- Cr Antonella Celi
- Andrew De Bartolo (Greens)
Candidates – Warringine Ward
- Michael Stephens
- Mark Palmer
- Hilda Rachid
- Simon Meyer
- Nic Robertson (Victorian Socialists)
@ Ben Raue
Is Kackeraboite the strongest Labor ward? It only contains Mount Eliza which is a Liberal heartland and the only part of the Dunkley electorate which returned a Liberal TPP majority in 2022 election. Also with the exception of Portsea, Sorrento Mt Eliza is the wealthiest part.
Nimalan whilst mt eliza is a Liberal stronghold, relative to the rest of the Mornington peninsula it could be less conservative hence why the margin is much narrower
@ Yoh An
Usually the area around Hastings is more Labor as it is industrial as well as Rosebud which has poorer retirees. The suburb of Mornington is more Labor than Mount Eliza.
Look at state results
https://www.tallyroom.com.au/archive/vic2022/mornington2022
Mount Eliza is the most pro Labor area because it’s in a Labor seat of Dunkley. Labor actually has to put effort in Mt Eliza. I’d also think some of it is just a calculation thing, the vote looks higher because it has to factor in higher ALP postals/prepolls in Dunkley vs Flinders
@Drake Mount Eliza is the most Liberal part of Dunkley though.
Yeh but the fact that it’s in a Labor seat, still means Labor has to campaign there. And considering 50% or so people don’t vote on the day, the Mt Eliza calculation would be affected by postals/prepolls from much better Labor voting areas in the calculations.
Labor got 53.8% of postals in Dunkley, there is no way of knowing where the postals came from, so when calculating a margin you just assume the same flow throughout the seat. Compare that to 36.5% on postals in Flinders for the ALP.
The federal results calculation, like my redistribution estimates, use the booth results but also factor in the special votes for the whole electorate. That can sometimes flatten out the vote across an electorate.
So yeah maybe it’s slightly exaggerating the Labor 2PP in that ward because it’s taking postal votes from across Dunkley, hard to say, but I suspect it’s still one of the better areas for the ALP in the council.
After all, the Coalition was struggling in some affluent areas in 2022.
That makes sense if special votes are impacting it. As Drake said Labor would have put more effort in Mount Eliza than the rest of the peninsula which is in Flinders. If Mt Eliza gets moved into Flinders then i would imagine that the Nepean ward and this ward would actually be the most Pro-Liberal area.