Photo by Marcus Wong (Wongm), via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s take a tour

Today covered by the City of Greater Geelong, Geelong used to be part of multiple local government areas – the City of Geelong, City of Geelong West, City of Newtown, City of South Barwon and Shire of Corio making up the urban areas, with the urban fringe managed by the Rural City of Bellarine, and parts of the Shire of Barrabool and Shire of Bannockburn.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

Ballarat was similar – today’s City of Ballarat was once the City of Ballarat, Shire of Ballarat and Borough of Sebastopol covering the city, with parts of the Shire of Bungaree, Shire of Buninyong, Shire of Grenville and Shire of Ripon covering the outskirts.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

Today the City of Greater Bendigo, Bendigo was once governed by former City of Bendigo and Borough of Eaglehawk, with Shire of Strathfieldsaye, Shire of Huntly, Rural City of Marong and parts of the Shire of McIvor covering the outer areas.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

Gippsland was a little different – what is now the City of Latrobe was split between the City of Moe and City of Traralgon which governed the cities of the same name, the City of Morwell governed both the city and surrounds, and the Shire of Traralgon, Shire of Narracan and Shire of Rosedale managed the rest.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

North East Victoria was another part of Victoria subject to “double barrelled” LGAs – both Benalla and Wangaratta had a City covering the urban area, and a Shire of the same name covering the surrounding districts.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

Maryborough had some odd boundaries – they just drew a square on the map and called it the City of Maryborough.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

Castlemaine is another box drawn on the map, the City of Castlemaine having since been merged with the Shire of Maldon, Shire of Metcalfe and Shire of Newstead to form today’s Shire of Mount Alexander.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

And finally, South West Victoria – Camperdown and Colac were their own little islands in the Town of Camperdown and City of Colac.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

So how did they all come from anyway?

The short answer is “history” – for the rest I’ll just crib from the Wikipedia page on Local government in Victoria.

Local government had existed in Victoria since before its separation from New South Wales in 1851. The Town of Melbourne was established by an Act of the NSW Governor and Legislative Council in 1842 and the Borough of Geelong was established in 1849. Both bodies continued after the creation of Victoria as a separate colony, and both later became cities.

Road districts were established under legislation passed in 1853. From 1862 many road districts became shires pursuant to the District Councils Bill 1862. To become a shire, the road district had to be over 100 square miles (260 km²) in size and have annual rate revenue of over £1000. Promotion to town or city status was dependent on the gross revenue of the council.

The 1989 Local Government Act eliminated administrative distinctions between cities and shires, introduced the category of rural city and removed the possibility of declaring any further boroughs or towns. Five shires became rural cities.

An example of this evolutionary process is the local councils that once covered Geelong – established in the 1800s as either a “Road District” covering a small township or a “Borough” covering a young suburb, and growing in the years that followed to become a “Shire” or “City” respectively.

1849 – Geelong incorporated as a Town
1853 – Barrabool Road District proclaimed
1853 – Portarlington Road District proclaimed
1856 – Connewarre Road District proclaimed
1857 – South Barwon Municipal District proclaimed
1857 – South Barwon Road District proclaimed
1858 – Newtown and Chilwell Borough proclaimed
1860 – Portarlington Road District renamed as Indented Head Road District
1861 – Corio Road District proclaimed
1862 – Bannockburn Road District proclaimed
1863 – Meredith Road District proclaimed
1863 – Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale separated from Indented Head Road District to form Queenscliffe Municipal District.
1863 – South Barwon Borough created by amalgamating South Barwon Municipal District and South Barwon Road District
1864 – Bannockburn Road District redesignated as Shire
1864 – Corio Road District redesignated as Shire
1865 – Indented Head Road District redesignated and renamed as Bellarine Shire
1874 – South Barwon Shire created by amalgamating Connewarre Road District and South Barwon Borough
1875 – Geelong West Borough proclaimed
1910 – Geelong proclaimed a City
1915 – Meredith Shire added to Bannockburn Shire
1922 – Geelong West proclaimed a Town
1924 – Newtown and Chilwell proclaimed a Town
1929 – Geelong West proclaimed a City
1959 – Newtown and Chilwell proclaimed a City
1967 – Newtown and Chilwell City renamed as Newtown City
1963 – Queenscliffe Municipal District redesignated as Borough
1974 – South Barwon proclaimed a City
1989 – Bellarine proclaimed a Rural City

And where did they go?

Ian Tiley from the University of New England Centre for Local Government has the answer to this one, in his paper Evolution of Council Amalgamation in Victoria Tasmania and South Australia. The proliferation of local governments had been seen as a problem for some time.

Progressive investigations into local government reform have been undertaken since the 1960s, when Victorian local councils numbered 210. In 1962, a Commission of Inquiry into Victorian Local Government recommended reduction in the number of municipalities to 42, but the Inquiry was not acted on. A 1979 Report to government recommended establishment of a Municipal Commission to restructure local government. In 1985, the Victoria Grants Commission undertook a statistical analysis of economies of scale in local authorities of varying sizes and predicted a financial crisis in smaller units unless they were amalgamated.

The Cain Labor Government deciding to take action in 1985, but failing.

In September 1985, Victorian Premier Cain announced a strategy for state-wide amalgamations of local government. There was pressure for amalgamation in some economically-depressed, manufacturing reliant Victorian provincial cities, which had a relatively large number of local authorities in their urban areas, such as Geelong (four), Bendigo (five) and Ballarat (six) councils.

However, a year later, because of a combination of community opposition, bypassing of existing local government power structures, failure to establish majority support, conflicting aims, and lack of restriction in scope, the Premier announced that restructuring would only occur on a voluntary basis and attempts to reduce the 210 local authorities in Victoria at that time failed.

With the Kennett Liberal Government reopening the issue on winning government in 1992.

The local government reform implementation process took place in two stages. The first phase occurred during the initial Kennett Government term of office and entailed a radical agenda that fundamentally altered local government. The second reform phase from 1996 onwards consisted of consolidation of central direction of the local government sector through a variety of means including threats, contempt for some local government representatives and ad hoc interventions by the Minister.

The Kennett government quickly introduced the Local Government (General Amendment) Act 1993 to enable transformation of the Victorian municipal system. The Act established a Local Government Board to provide a process for reviewing local government structure and specifically precluded the Victorian Supreme Court from hearing any proceedings brought against the Board, its staff or the Minister in respect of such review.

The Board adopted a forceful “top-down” style (and community of interest was not considered a relevant issue, except where it could be used to suggest that existing local government boundaries divided communities as strong commercial area.

But merging local government areas wasn’t the only outcome of the Kennett-era reforms.

There were three key features of the municipal reforms.

Firstly, councils were summarily sacked in successive stages so that local government was effectively suspended and communities disenfranchised as Government-appointed commissioners assumed administrative responsibility under strict oversight of the Local Government Board.

The second feature was the ultimate reduction in the number of local government councils from 210 to 78 and allied reduction in staff numbers, buildings, plant and equipment, services and capital reserves.

The third key feature was that an increasing proportion of council budgets were required to be subject to Compulsory Competitive Tendering. The management tools of CCT and the consequent privatisation of services created a more “entrepreneurial” government and reduced the role and function of local government in favour of the private sector.

The hollowing out of local government capabilities following the introduction of Compulsory Competitive Tendering is still seen today.

Footnote 1 – the one that got away

There was one local government area that escaped the forced amalgamations of 1994 – the tiny Borough of Queenscliffe. Covering an area of just over 10 square kilometres and with a population of almost 3,000 people, it is the smallest local government area in Victoria.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Queenscliffvic-airview-0508-2601-63.jpg

Labor Party MP for Geelong North stating at the time.

…we are not sure why it was omitted. The Minister for Local Government said it was because Queenscliffe is unique. The Premier said it was because of the council’s effectiveness. Some people suggest the uniqueness of Queenscliffe has a lot to do with the number of influential Liberal Party members living at Point Lonsdale who have exerted pressure

Footnote 2 – the mysterious Yallourn Works Area

Out in the Latrobe Valley west of the City of Moe was the mysterious Yallourn Works Area.

VicPlan map, Local Government Areas pre-1994 amalgamations layer

I knew Yallourn was a company town run by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria.

Photo by , via Wikimedia Commons

Which was eventually swallowed up by a coal mine.

But I didn’t realise Yallourn was also an unincorporated area subject to the almost total control of the SECV.

Yallourn was a company town, which meant that the State Electricity Commission was simultaneously landlord, employer and governor. The Commission decided who lived there, and exercised control over public and private space in the town.

The establishment of the Yallourn Town Advisory Council in 1947 curtailed the SEC’s autocratic administration of the town. But resident action groups were no match for the SEC or the Victorian Parliament once the decision was made in the 1960s to get rid of the town.

Footnote 3 – Kennett complains about ‘woke’ names

In 2021 the Moreland City Council was in the news for wanting to change its name due to links to slavery, and Jeff Kennett weighed in by saying that councillors who voted for the name change should pay the cost of the changeover. One small problem there Jeff – you created it back in 1994 when you amalgamated the former local government areas of the City of Brunswick, the City of Coburg and the southern part of the City of Broadmeadows.

Footnote 4 – PTV’s local area maps and local government areas

Public Transport Victoria doesn’t publish a full map showing all models of public transport in Melbourne – they stopped updating it back in 2009 – but does have a series of local area maps broken down by local government areas.

As someone who grew up in Geelong, it has taken me years to work out which local government areas cover which part of Melbourne, and I still don’t know the borders between most of them – just rough mappings to suburbs.

So perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on the people I’ve met who didn’t know that Victorian towns outside of Melbourne are big enough to be divided up into named suburbs.

Further reading

• Evolution of Council Amalgamation in Victoria Tasmania and South Australia by Ian Tiley.
• Local Government Areas for Victoria prior to the 1994 amalgamations dataset at Data Vic.
• Controversial council amalgamations redesign Melbourne, The Age, 1994,
• State Electricity Commission (Yallourn Area) Act 1947

Plus the former local government areas in regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne are listed over at Wikipedia.

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The inner suburbs of Fitzroy and Brunswick are shooting fish in a barrel – houses there have been unaffordable for average families for decades now.

We then see the northern expansion of gentrification – Northcote, Thornbury, Preston and most recently Reservoir – plus the very distinct ‘Pascoe Vale South’.

Melbourne’s west isn’t left out either – Yarraville gentrified decades ago, with those priced out and setting for West Footscray also able to pick up an Able and Game card.

And who is left out

Note the complete lack of suburbs from Melbourne’s east and south – the former is full of old money, the latter with fake tan and yoga pants.

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In December 2015 I thought that that V/Line was planning to fix this omission, when a sign reading ‘Ballarat / [blanked out] / Geelong Platform 4’ appeared on the station concourse at Sunshine, with ‘Bendigo’ being hidden beneath the brown sticky tape.

However it was not to be – a few weeks later a new sign appeared, with the mention of ‘Bendigo’ having been removed.

One can dream of the day when a quick change between a Ballarat / Geelong and Bendigo train is possible!

Footnote

At Sunshine station it isn’t uncommon for V/Line to dominate the list of next train departures, with their services outnumbering those provided by Metro Trains.

These trains being:

• V/Line: 3 trains an hour to Geelong, and 2 trains an hour to Bacchus Marsh, with every second train continuing to Ballarat.
• Metro Trains: 3 trains an hour to Watergardens, with every second train continuing to Sunbury.

Makes the 20 minute off peak service on the Sunbury line look like a joke, doesn’t it?

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The story starts in November 2010, when the Coalition promised to build a new railway station at Epsom if they won the 2010 state election.

Train station for Epsom planned
Lauren Henry
November 11, 2010

The Coalition plan to build a new train station at Epsom, if they are elected at the state election. Coalition spokesman for transport Terry Mulder, in Epsom this morning, said the station would include a 160 metre platform, 100 sealed car parks and 95 train services. Mr Mulder said the Epsom Station would be built by 2013.

Mr Mulder said the Coalition would also employ staff for a renovated Eaglehawk station, and provide more train services and 100 sealed car parks. He said both Epsom and Eaglehawk upgraded facilities would cost $6 million, plus $2 million for more train services and $250,000 for boom gates.

I saw the proposal as an half-witted brain fart trotted out as an election stunt, with no thought given to how the new station would be served with trains, yet alone fit into the existing V/Line rail network.

The problems with Epsom

Epsom is located on the existing V/Line serivce to Echuca, which only receives one train each way Monday-Friday, and two trains on Saturdays and Sundays – a railway station is useless if no trains serve it! A problem then, but surmountable if the existing Bendigo services were extended north by one station to serve Epsom.

However, building a station at Epsom had an extra sting in the tail – the existing station at Eaglehawk, a northern Bendigo suburb on the line towards Swan Hill.

At the time of Epsom station being proposed, Eaglehawk only received a token train service – the twice daily Swan Hill train stopped there on the way through, as well as a handful of Bendigo trains extended one station to the north.

You might naively ask:

Why not alternate existing Bendigo services to terminate at either Eaglehawk or Epsom. Both stations would still get a reasonable service without requiring any extra infrastructure south of Bendigo.

Here is a hypothetical example of a Bendigo resident catching the train to Melbourne:

Bendigo to Epsom is about 7 km by road, as is Bendigo to Eaglehawk and Epsom to Eaglehawk.

Imagine you drove to Eaglehawk station to catch a train into Melbourne for a day out. You have lunch, do some shopping, then decide to come home. Lets check the timetable to see what train we can catch:

Lets catch the 1515 you say. That goes to Bendigo. OH WAIT! It goes to Epsom, and our car is at Eaglehawk. I’ve got to wait an hour until the 1615.

This leaves us at the crux of the matter – you can’t serve two places with a single train!

Jarrett Walker, transit planning consultant and author of ‘Human Transit’, has this to say about how transit is like a river:

We should suspicious whenever we see a branch drawn as though one line can effortlessly divide into two equal lines. Often, such a branch will be called an extension, a very slightly misleading word because it suggests that an existing, known quantity of service is being extended. In fact, a branch always means one of three things.

Either:

• points beyond the branching point have less frequent service or
• one of the branches operates as a shuttle, requiring a connection, or
• in a few rare cases, the train itself comes apart, with some cars proceeding along one branch and some along the other.

Across Victoria, examples of all three branching strategies can be found:

• Beyond Ringwood station, services alternate between Lilydale and Belgrave,
• Off-peak Alamein services operate as a shuttle, connecting to mainline services at Camberwell,
• Ararat and Maryborough services split at Ballarat, and continue as separate trains.

For anyone who has had to use the above services, you already know they are sub-optimal solutions.

Note that in the latter case, V/Line doesn’t allow passengers to stay on board while trains are joined and split – everyone gets turfed out onto the platform for a couple of minutes, even in the middle of a bitterly cold Ballarat winter!

Making stupid ideas reality

In May 2013 it was announced that Epsom station would go ahead.

Epsom to receive a railway station in 2015
Blair Thomson
May 7, 2013

A new train station will be built and operational at Epsom in two years. The $9-million station was announced in today’s state budget and aims to improve public transport access in North Bendigo. Local rail services will also undergo a shake-up, with Epsom and Eaglehawk to become terminuses for some services.

Construction started in mid-2014:

Epsom station on track
Hannah Knight
June 17, 2014

Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder has turned the first sod on the new Epsom Train Station project.

With the official opening of Epsom station held on October 11, 2014.

Epsom train station officially opens
Hannah Carrodus
October 11, 2014

Minister for Public Transport Terry Mulder said the $7.76 million Epsom and Eaglehawk Rail Improvements were a great example of the wider benefits a station can bring to a regional growth area.

“Tomorrow, we’ll see this is not just a $7.76 million investment in a station; we’ll see this is a $7.76 million investment in the people of Greater Bendigo,” Mr Mulder said.

Liberal candidate for Bendigo East Greg Bickley said that people in the growing Epsom area were looking forward to using the new station when services begin tomorrow.

“Four months ago work started on this project, and now we’re just one day from being able to jump on a train,” Mr Bickley said.

“The community has rallied behind the new station, and I’m sure there will be a few very excited people ready to make the historic 10.10am trip to Bendigo and on to Melbourne tomorrow morning.”

Mr Mulder said that there would be four trains a day stopping at Epsom, with two services heading to Melbourne and two services coming from Melbourne.

Turns out two trains each way per day to Epsom wasn’t enough to entice local residents to get out of their cars.

Empty Epsom has Jacinta Allan seeing red
Adam Holmes
November 4, 2014

Just three weeks after it opened, each of the 100 car parks at Epsom Railway Station were empty halfway through a Monday morning.

Member for Bendigo East Jacinta Allan stood in the middle of the bitumen expanse to highlight a perceived lack of interest in the rail service.

One train leaves Epsom at 8.25am for Bendigo, and another arrives at 5.29pm.

Ms Allan said to have a successful rail service, people needed a reason to make it a regular part of their lives.

“We know that if you provide the service, people will use it from the get-go,” she said.

“We want people to choose to travel by rail. We need to give them that option.

“It’s not a service that people are using because it doesn’t meet their needs.”

I could have told you that before you spent $7.76 million on the station!

Doubling down on stupid

Just to prove that both sides of politics can come up with stupid ideas, in the lead up to the 2014 state election Labor also came up with their own half-baked scheme.

Labor pledges $2m for a Bendigo rail service
Tom Cowie
October 30, 2014

Bendigo could one day have its own local commuter train service if Labor wins the state election. But the state government says the promise is uncosted and won’t deliver any new trains.

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews has pledged $2 million to set up a Bendigo Metro Rail taskforce, which would advise the government on the feasibility of trains running solely in the goldfields city.

Following their election win the study has commenced, with the Bendigo Metro Rail fact sheet having this to say:

Bendigo Metro Rail aims to deliver a commuter train service for Bendigo, with an increased number of services running from Epsom, Eaglehawk and Kangaroo Flat to Bendigo.

Bendigo Metro Rail aims to reduce local traffic and allow people to commute to work, school, TAFE and university via rail.

Presumably the theory behind Bendigo Metro Rail is that just because the city already has a two railway lines running through it, running more trains along them will magically make people leave their cars at home.

Unfortunately, this neglects one important point: a rail service is useless if both your origin AND destination are both found on it.

Bendigo is a small enough place that you can drive from one end of town to the other in 20 minutes: you’re going to have to be running those trains pretty bloody often in order to provide competitive door-to-door travel times, and if the only way to the station is by driving, the war is already lost.

Further reading

I found this interesting paper, titled Developing business cases for regional rail stations: a Victorian case study.

August 2015 update

In August 2015 the Bendigo Metro Rail Community Consultative Taskforce released their report – the Bendigo Advertiser detailed their recommendations:

• Stage 1: five return train services per day to Epsom and Eaglehawk, along with including Kangaroo Flat on every trip between Bendigo and Melbourne.
• Stage 2: further services to Epsom, Eaglehawk, Bendigo and Kangaroo Flat, as well as station upgrades and connectivity with walking and cycling paths.
• Stage 3: 20 minute peak and 40 minute off-peak services between Bendigo and Kangaroo Flat, with alternating services to Epsom and Eaglehawk at peak times.

Note the useless 40 minute off-peak frequency – if you missed one train, you could drive to the other end of Bendigo and back, and still get done before the next train!

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