Time to talk about a new Southern Peninsula shire

May 2023

Mornington Peninsula Shire has been under an intense spotlight since the 2022 community satisfaction survey resulted in the worst-ever report card.

The Committee for Peninsula now believes it is time to look at the complete review of the existing boundaries and a new shire. This is also timely as the Victorian Electoral Commission is to review ward boundaries before the 2024 council election.

Clearly the council is not coping.

A higher than usual churn of experienced senior management and of councillors over the past five years are contributing factors to the shire’s loss of corporate memory and poor performance.

Added to this is the preoccupation of council with the future use of the Tyabb airport and some councillors taking leave of absence from council to secure political advancement by election to state and federal parliament. For this shire, in its present form, to adequately fulfil its statutory duty to its ratepayers, and to do so in every corner of its widespread boundaries, is a goal too far.

Whether this can be blamed on COVID, the destructive storms of October 2021, the flood damage of 2022 or changes to the Local Government Act favouring the administrative apparatus over councillors listening to and responding to the community, the fact remains that the shire in its present form is struggling.

Back in the days when the Kennett government, in its wisdom, went about a series of shire amalgamations, it made some financial sense to join the shire of Flinders with Mornington and insolvent Hastings. The result was a complex monolith of densely populated residential hubs mixed with green wedge zones, significant creeks and wetlands, a vast coastline, small towns and villages, agri-businesses, heavy and light industry, a waste landfill, an airport, port, naval base, recreation, holiday accommodation and tourism.

Now, 30 years on, this monolith is unworkable. And ratepayers are aggrieved.

There are reports of Sorrento traders venting their anger over being alienated and ignored by the current council to the extent that they now want their own republic (“Call for Sorrento to break away” The MPNews 10/5/23

Each year 11 councillors do budget-battle for diminishing capital works for their wards. There is not an equitable distribution for capital works and services throughout the shire. Post-COVID, even the renovated (at a cost of $285,000) mobile library prime mover has been stopped and this service cut from Rye and Sorrento.

The shire in its present form is in crisis. The community is not being heard or adequately informed and consulted.

The formation of the Southern Peninsula Shire would mean priority would be given to a reduced length of a vast coastline of 190km, a green wedge zone of 520 square kilometres and the plethora of coastal and rural villages that constitute one of Victoria’s most desired holiday destinations.

Priority would be given to managing the summer season, when the annual pilgrimage of holidays-seekers descends upon the southern peninsula, increasing the resident population by more than 50 per cent.

These are just a few of the characteristics of an area that warrants a local government that can also adequately meet the demands of waste management, not just dumping it in our backyard at the Rye landfill.

The Rye landfill adds to the shire’s carbon footprint and requires the shire to pay more than $2 million a year in landfill levy tax to the state government. This tax is recovered from the shires ratepayers as part of its uncapped waste charge.

In contrast, Mornington is following in the footsteps of Greater Geelong and ought to have its own council to cater for its specific needs.

While Mornington attracts high-density residential developments for commuter populations in a corridor of burgeoning population growth - and further growth is planned - there is now the perception that it has already over many years sucked in a greater portion of juice out of the current shire’s dietary - and increasingly bitter - orange and will continue to do so.

Sprawling housing estates and retirement villages are sweeping across grasslands between the Nepean Highway and the Moorooduc Highway - forming an ever-expanding Mornington metropolis that is becoming even more disconnected from the southern peninsula.

The official address of the Mornington Peninsula Shire is Boneo Road, Rosebud, but council offices also operate in Dromana, Hastings and Mornington, where resides the largest cohort of council officers.

So, there is the bizarre situation where the planning office is located at Mornington, social services at Hastings and everything else at Rosebud. How cost-effective and functional can that possibly be?

A Southern Peninsula Shire should reshape and simplify the shire and its functions, and reset a full administrative apparatus and a functional council back in Rosebud to govern from this central geographical location and return control of the shire and its administrative apparatus to the community it is supposed to serve.