THE City of Greater Bendigo\u2019s council electoral ward structure is set to change from its current three-ward, three-councillor system to a nine-ward, single-councillor model.<\/p>\n
Mandated by the State Government as part of the Local Government Act 2020<\/em>, two information sessions were held earlier this week by the Victorian Electoral Commission, before a draft report on the plan was released on Wednesday in the plans.<\/p>\n The municipality has had a single ward structure in the past and long-term current City of Greater Bendigo Lockwood Ward representative Cr Rod Fyffe has been elected under that system.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always preferred the single wards, simply because the people get to know quite quickly who their councillor is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that that also makes it more manageable for the councillors themselves. When I had a single ward, I had 11 square kilometres, and I went to just over 1000 square kilometres.<\/p>\n \u201cThe community is not united in any way shape or form, whereas under a single ward structure generally there is more ability to get to some sort of commonality within the community, that\u2019s what I think.\u201d<\/p>\n City of Greater Bendigo CEO Craig Niemann said electoral structures need to be reviewed at times as they need to comply with voter volume representation limits.<\/p>\n Yet he also wasn\u2019t supportive of the compulsory move back to single councillor wards.<\/p>\n \u201cCouncil\u2019s not convinced that that\u2019s the right structure for this municipality, being a significant urban area but also a significant rural area in the municipality and the number of small towns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the single-member ward structure is going to be a challenging one to identify and deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n President of Advance Heathcote, Peter Maine, said he was not sure if the proposed change would make much difference to the further out areas of urban Bendigo.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 64-million-dollar question there is who would come out the woodwork and who would actually take on the role and be able to deliver for the community of Heathcote?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall, I think that a redesigning might be interesting, I\u2019m not quite sure how single councillors would go over large areas in terms of their connection to community.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of the planning for single councillor wards, the VEC is seeking feedback on the plan, mostly around electoral boundaries until Wednesday 19 July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE City of Greater Bendigo\u2019s council electoral ward structure is set to change from its current three-ward, three-councillor system to a nine-ward, single-councillor model. Mandated by the State Government as part of the Local Government Act 2020, two information sessions were held earlier this week by the Victorian Electoral Commission, before a draft report on […]<\/p>\n