City of Moreland Victoria | |||||||||||||||
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Population | 181,725 (2018) [1] (33rd) | ||||||||||||||
• Density | 3,560/km2 (9,230/sq mi) | ||||||||||||||
Established | 1994 | ||||||||||||||
Area | 51 km2 (19.7 sq mi) [1] | ||||||||||||||
Mayor | Mark Riley (Greens) | ||||||||||||||
Council seat | Coburg | ||||||||||||||
Region | Metropolitan Melbourne | ||||||||||||||
State electorate(s) | |||||||||||||||
Federal division(s) | |||||||||||||||
Website | City of Moreland | ||||||||||||||
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The City of Moreland is a local government area in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. It comprises the inner northern suburbs between 4 and 11 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD.
It was created in 1994 during the amalgamations of local governments by the state government, being created from the former local government areas of the City of Brunswick, the City of Coburg and the southern part of the City of Broadmeadows. The Moreland local government area covers 51 km2 (20 sq mi), and in June 2018, it had a population of 181,725. [1]
In 2004 the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC), an independent authority created under Victorian state legislation, conducted a representation review of the Council's electoral structure, resulting in a recommendation that the 10 single councillor wards be replaced by three multi-councillor wards. A consequence of the change from single-councillor to multi-councillor wards was a change in election method from Instant runoff voting to proportional representation via Single transferable vote. Elections are held every four years.[ citation needed ]
In November 2021, it came to the council's attention that Moreland's namesake was indirectly associated to a Jamaican plantation site that had traded slaves up to the 1800s by a political group named Nomoreland.net.
The group consisted of a former Greens and a previous state member, a previous Uniting Church President and two Elders from the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation [2]
The historical information was contained in the 2010 Moreland Council publication Thematic History, [3] and published in books and articles as far back as 1944. [4]
In October 1839, Scottish surgeon and settler Dr Farquhar McCrae was sold land between Moonee Ponds Creek and Sydney Road by the Crown in the area's first colonial sale. McCrae gave the land the name Moreland, some suggest he may have named this after a Jamaican sugar plantation that McCrae's paternal grandfather Alexander McCrae worked at [5] from the late 1760s to the early 1790s, which was involved in slave trading, [4] and kept up to 500 to 700 enslaved people in the operation in any one year. [6] Greens Mayor Mark Riley said "The history behind the naming of this area is painful, uncomfortable and very wrong. It needs to be addressed". [7] [8] In May 2022 a choice of three proposed names said to be derived from the Woi-wurrung language was announced by Riley and Uncle Andrew Gardiner, deputy chair of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation: Wa-dam-buk, meaning “renew”; Merri-bek, meaning “rocky country”; and Jerrang, meaning “leaf of tree”. The names were scheduled to be decided by July 2022 following community consultation. [9]
The community consultation for the renaming commenced in May 2022 and ended June 2022. Many residents expressed dissatisfaction with the process resulting in a petition to council. [10]
On 3 July 2022 (coinciding with the start of NAIDOC Week) the Council voted at a Special Council Meeting to officially endorse Merri-bek as the preferred name. [11] The name will then be submitted to the Minister for Local Government for consideration and the Minister’s decision will come into operation once formally accepted by the Governor in Council. [11]
The names have received some concerns from Wurundjeri Elders including Ian Hunter. He expressed that the name is not the correct translation. The closest term would be ‘biik’ which means country or land. The term ‘Merri’ doesn’t exist in Woi-wurrung language. [12]
Moreland Council runs the Counihan Gallery at the Brunswick Town Hall, a free public art gallery named after the local artist, Noel Counihan. Other art events supported by Council include the MoreArt event, an art in public spaces show located along the Upfield transport corridor. The Council also sponsors various street festivals around the municipality, the best known being the Sydney Road Street Party.
One of the highlights of the Moreland City Council is the public library. Moreland City Libraries have five branches.
Other services provided by Moreland Council include maternal and child health service, waste and recycling collection, parks and open space, youth space called Oxygen, services for children, and aged services.
Moreland Council has been one of the leading municipal councils in Australia in adopting policies on climate action and sustainability. A January 2020 Climateworks Australia local government report identified City of Moreland as one of 3 out of 57 municipal jurisdictions in Australia to have a "fully aligned net zero by 2050 target that addresses both operational and community emissions." [13]
City of Moreland is a member of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy, [14] the Cities Power Partnership, [15] Climate Emergency Australia (CEA), Climate Active, The Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action (NAGA), and has declared pledges in the TAKE2 scheme with Sustainability Victoria. [16]
Council declared a climate emergency on 12 September 2018. [17]
For operational emissions, Moreland Council was certified as a ‘carbon neutral’ council in 2012. This required purchase of carbon offset credits. Moreland was the second council in Victoria, and the third in Australia, to receive this certification. A target of 30% less emissions than 2011, with a stretch goal of 40% by 2020, was over-achieved with an emissions cut of 69% by 2020, which will reduce the carbon offsets required to be purchased. [18]
Moreland City Council installed Victoria's first EV fast charge station in 2013. This has now grown to a network of 16 public EV charging stations around the municipality which are powered by 100% zero emissions renewable energy from the Crowlands Wind Farm, near Ararat. [19]
In 2014 City of Moreland joined with the City of Melbourne and several other institutions and established the Melbourne Renewable Energy Project (MREP). [20] This project developed and funded the construction of a purpose-built 39 turbine, 80 MW Crowlands windfarm, which started supplying 100% renewables power to Council facilities and buildings in 2019. [21]
Moreland's community wide municipal emissions in 2019 were 1,609,000 tonnes CO2e, composed of sectoral emissions of: Waste (3%), Transport (17%), Gas (21%), Electricity (59%). [22]
The City of Moreland has set a community emissions reduction target of net zero emissions by 2040 and established the Moreland Zero Carbon 2040 Framework Strategy and the first 5 year action plan to achieve that target. [23]
Other key climate and sustainability policies and strategies driving climate action include: Climate Emergency Action Plan (2020 to 2025), Moreland Integrated Transport Strategy, Waste and Litter Strategy, Achieving zero Carbon in the Planning Scheme, Sustainable Buildings Policy, Urban Heat Island Effect Action Plan, Urban Forest Strategy, Watermap, Procurement policy, Cooling the Upfield Corridor Action Plan, Food Systems Strategy, Fossil Fuel Divestment Strategy, Moreland Nature Plan.
During 2021 City of Moreland supported a climate disaster levy on coal exports, [24] and endorsed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, the first government jurisdiction in Australia to do so. [25] [26]
Moreland City Council | |
---|---|
Leadership | |
Mayor | Mark Riley |
Deputy Mayor | Lambros Tapinos |
Structure | |
Council political groups | Greens (4) Independent (3) Labor (2) Socialist Alliance (2) |
Councillors are elected from three multi-member wards, two electing four members, and one electing three, for a total of eleven councillors. The current council was elected in October 2016, and its composition is: [27] [28]
Party | Councillors | |
---|---|---|
Greens | 4 | |
Independent | 2 | |
Labor | 2 | |
Socialist Alliance | 2 | |
Victorians | 1 | |
Total | 11 |
In order of election by ward, is:
Ward | Party | Councillor | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
North-East | Labor | Annalivia Carli Hannan | ||
Greens | Adam Pulford | |||
Socialist Alliance | Sue Bolton | |||
Independent | Helen Pavlidis-Mihalakos | |||
North-West [lower-alpha 1] | Victorians | Oscar Yildiz | ||
Independent | Helen Davidson | |||
Greens | Angelica Panopoulos | |||
Socialist Alliance | Monica Harte | [29] | ||
South | Labor | Lambros Tapinos | ||
Greens | Mark Riley | |||
Greens | James Conlan | |||
Ward | 1996–1999 [30] | 1999–2002 [31] | 2002–2004 [32] | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1999 | 2000 | 2001 | |||
Box Forest | Tony Abela | Ken Blair (Re-elected in 2002) | |||
Glencairn | Chris Iliopoulos | Robert Larocca (Re-elected in 2002) | |||
Grandview | Rosemary Kerr (Re-elected in 1999) | Stephen Roach | |||
Hoffman | Mike Hill | Andy Ingham (Vacated seat in 2001) | Joe Caputo (By-election in 2001, re-elected in 2002) | ||
Lincoln Mills | Rod Higgins (Re-elected in 1999, vacated seat in 2000) | Vicki Yianoulatos (By-election in 2000, re-elected in 2004) | |||
Lygon | Glenyys Romanes | Leigh Snelling | Fraser Brindley | ||
Merri | Anthony Helou (Re-elected in 1999 and 2002) | ||||
Moonah | Andrew Rowe (Re-elected in 1999) | Mark Higginbotham | |||
Newlands | Stella Kariofyllidis (Re-elected in 1999 and 2002) | ||||
Westbreen | Geoff Lutz | Melanie Raymond | Joe Ficarra |
Ward | 2004–2008 [33] | 2008–2012 [34] | 2012–2016 [35] | 2016–2020 [27] [28] | 2020–2024 [36] | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
North-East Ward | Labor | Anthony Helou [37] (Re-elected in 2008) | Socialist Alliance | Sue Bolton [38] (Re-elected in 2016 and 2020) | |||||||||||
Daniel De Lorenzis | Labor | Stella Kariofyllidis [39] | Ind. Liberal | Rob Thompson [38] | Independent | Ali Irfanli | Independent | Helen Pavlidis-Mihalakos | |||||||
Labor | Mark O'Brien [40] | Labor | Michael Teti [38] (Re-elected in 2012) | Labor | Annalivia Carli Hannan (Re-elected in 2020) | ||||||||||
Greens | Andrea Sharam [41] [42] | Greens | Toby Archer* [43] | Greens | Lenka Thompson* [38] | Greens | Natalie Abboud | Greens | Adam Pulford | ||||||
North-West Ward | Labor | Mark Higginbotham [44] | Labor | Oscar Yildiz [38] (Re-elected in 2012 as a Labor councilor)(Re-elected in 2016 and 2020 as an Independent, no longer a Labor councilor) | |||||||||||
Independent | John Kavanagh [38] (Re-elected in 2008, 2012 and 2016) | Labor | Milad El-Halabi | ||||||||||||
Labor | Kathleen Matthews-Ward [39] (Re-elected in 2008) | Independent | Helen Davidson [38] (Re-elected in 2016 and 2020) | ||||||||||||
Michael El-Halabi | Labor | Enver Erdogan [39] | Labor | Lita Gillies [38] | Greens | Dale Martin | Greens | Angelica Panopoulos | |||||||
South Ward | Labor | Joe Caputo [45] | Labor | Lambros Tapinos [38] [39] (Re-elected in 2012, 2016 and 2020) | |||||||||||
Labor | Alice Pryor [39] (Re-elected in 2008) | Labor | Meghan Hopper [38] | Greens | Mark Riley (Re-elected in 2020) | ||||||||||
Greens | Josephine Connellan [41] [42] (Re-elected in 2008) | Greens | Samantha Ratnam [38] (Re-elected in 2016, resigned 2017) | Greens | James Conlan | ||||||||||
* Toby Archer resigned his seat in 2011 citing family reasons, it was subsequently won by Lenka Thompson in 2012 in a countback. [43] [46] |
The current Mayor is Mark Riley and the Deputy Mayor is Lambros Tapinos. They were elected by council in November 2021 and will serve the 2022 year. [47]
The Wurundjeripeople are an Australian Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the Traditional Owners of the Birrarung Valley, covering much of the present location of Narrm (Melbourne). They continue to live in this area and throughout Australia. They were called the Yarra tribe by early European colonists.
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