Geelong’s northern suburbs are set for an increase in council representatives to equal the number of councillors in more-affluent parts of the municipality.
And the north’s Windemere is also in line for a local Aboriginal title to help residents “connect” with the ward’s name, according to City Hall.
Councillors agreed this week to seek the shake up after recent reports that the ward, encompassing northern Geelong to Lara, included some of Victoria’s highest rates of disadvantage.
The mayor would write to the Local Government minister seeking the introduction of a third councillor for Windermere and a ward name-change to You Yangs, City Hall said.
Ward councillors Anthony Aitken and Kylie Grzybek raised a notice of motion at Tuesday’s council meeting requesting equal councillor numbers across all four wards from 2020’s council election.
The pair pointed out that Windermere was the only ward with two councillors despite covering the most area and “experiencing some of the highest levels of disadvantage”, City Hall said.
“Council acknowledges that Minister Adem Somyurek has proposed to address this issue with the re-introduction of individual wards within Victorian councils. However, it’s believed these reforms will not be introduced until the 2024 general election.
Cr Aitken and Grzybek’s canvassing of “many members of their ward” found that residents had “no connection” with the Windermere name, City Hall said.
“You Yangs is derived from Wurdi Youang or Ude Youang, the Aboriginal names given to the area that hold a number of meanings including ‘big mountain in the middle of a plain’, ‘big or large hill’, or ‘bald’,” the City explained.
“Council believes the community would identify more strongly with this name, therefore improving engagement and understanding of the local government system.
Cr Aitken said he and Cr Grzybek both considered the ward’s allocation of two councillors an “anomaly” when the other wards had three each.
“We’ve canvassed this issue with our councillor colleagues for a number of months. We respect that it will cause some change in the electoral boundaries if it is adopted, which may be unsettling for some councillors, but Kylie and I strongly believe that the need for equal representation in Geelong is more paramount than concerns about changes in electoral boundaries.”
“The fact that the most disadvantaged areas in our region are within this ward is another strong argument that there should be equal representation.
“It comes down to the question of how many voices our northern communities have at the table, and at this point in time there are only two voices. We’re therefore calling on the Minister for Local Government to use his legislative and regulatory powers to address this for the 2020 Council elections.”
The ward’s renaming would be “another significant reform for our northern community”, Cr Aitken said.
“The You Yangs are the most powerful geographical symbol we have in the north of Geelong, and the proposed new name would give residents a stronger connection to their ward by its naming after this aboriginal language derived place name.”
Quotes attributed to Cr Kylie Grzybek, Windermere Ward:
This motion is about fairness. We need a fair and transparent system. My community has two votes, and the other parts of the Greater Geelong community have three. That is simply not fair.
We need equal representation across the City of Greater Geelong.
The You Yangs name would be a respectful, iconic and culturally appropriate place for our ward to be named after.
