The Shire of Moyne is a local government area in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, located in the south-western part of the state. It covers an area of and at the 2021 census had a population of 17,374. It includes the towns of Port Fairy, Koroit, Mortlake, Macarthur, Peterborough and the rural districts of Caramut, Ellerslie, Framlingham, Garvoc, Hawkesdale, Kirkstall, Panmure, Mailors Flat, Purnim, Wangoom and Woolsthorpe. It also entirely surrounds the City of Warrnambool, a separate local government area.
The Shire is governed and administered by the Moyne Shire Council; its seat of local government and administrative centre is located at the council headquarters in Port Fairy. It also has a customer service centre in Mortlake and works depots in Koroit, Mortlake and Macarthur. The Shire is named after the Moyne River, a major geographical feature that meanders through the LGA.
The industry base for the area includes: dairy, beef cattle, sheep, vegetable production, seafood, other food products, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, quarrying, and tourism.
Traditional ownership The formally recognised traditional owners for the area in which the Shire of Moyne sits are the Eastern Maar peoples and Gunditjmara people, who are represented by the Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation (EMAC) and the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (GMTOAC).
History The Shire of Moyne was formed in 1994 from the amalgamation of the Shire of Belfast, Shire of Minhamite, Borough of Port Fairy, the vast bulk of the Shire of Mortlake and Shire of Warrnambool, as well as parts of the Shire of Dundas, Shire of Mount Rouse and Shire of Hampden.
The Local Government Board, tasked with drawing up new council boundaries in Victoria's south-west in 1994, observed that the Moyne sub-area was "the most difficult for [it] to consider", thanks in part to "seemingly irreconcilable tensions between urban and rural interests". The Board first determined to amalgamate the largely agricultural Shires of Minhamite, Belfast, Mortlake and Warrnambool. Merger with the City of Warrnambool was considered next, but rejected, as it was felt that the city's urban economic interests were sufficiently detached from those of its rural hinterland that the city was strong enough to stand alone. Numerous submissions requested the same treatment for Port Fairy; options explored by the Board included maintaining the Borough of Port Fairy (rejected out of hand), a "coastal strip" municipality stretching from Port Fairy to Warrnambool, or amalgamation of the City of Warrnambool and Borough of Port Fairy into a single, non-contiguous municipality. In the end, the Board considered that Port Fairy belonged in Moyne, because Port Fairy had strong links to its rural hinterland in its role as a service town; Port Fairy's tourism sector was heritage-focused, unlike Warrnambool's; and the special challenges of managing the coastal–farmland interface between the two settlements were best dealt with by a rural-focused shire.
At public meetings held in the respective towns, Caramut and Macarthur residents strongly favoured being included in Moyne in preference to the proposed Shire of Southern Grampians. By contrast, the meeting at Peterborough, located at the extreme south-eastern tip of the Shire of Warrnambool, was split on the question of whether the town should join the Shire of Corangamite. In the absence of a strong argument either way, the Board declined to alter the established boundary.
In January 1996, after a further Local Government Board review, about 370 km2 of farmland in the Lake Bolac and Nerrin Nerrin districts was transferred from Moyne to the Rural City of Ararat. At the same time, Moyne gained about 40 km2 near Chatsworth from the Shire of Southern Grampians.
Council Current composition The council is composed of seven councillors elected to represent an unsubdivided municipality. Councillor Jordan Lockett Mayor Myra Murrihy Deputy Mayor Jim Doukas Lisa Ryan Susan Taylor Lloyd Ross Karen Foster
Administration and governance The council meets in the council chambers at the Mortlake Municipal Office. Administrative activities are conducted at both the Port Fairy and Mortlake offices, which also provide customer services centres.
Townships and localities The 2021 census recorded the shire population at 17,374, up from 16,495 in the 2016 census.
Population Locality 2016 2021 ^ 1,521 1,410 ^ 44 39 64 71 ^ 98 113 ^ 50 39 92 75 ^ 116 127 ^ 571 596 ^ 123 129 ^ 246 256 ^ 44 49 52 37 * # 215 235 238 311 ^ 124 125 ^ 107 84 ^ 1,907 1,994 46 52 ^ 188 222 147 157 158 169 21 25 ^ 243 248 ^ 43 42 33 31 ^ 56 63 402 385 322 311 143 130 ^ 304 304 205 195 366 406 9 22 ^ 142 188 2,055 2,184 100 115 ^ 6 9 522 469 425 490 47 36 67 73 76 83 113 106 58 65 1,372 1,477 ^ 36 48 120 124 93 96 ^ 38 48 56 50 ^ 14 12 76 90 ^ 333 318 267 233 61 46 105 115 424 442 ^ 622 677 ^ 247 322 3,340 3,742 ^ 37 47 ^ 14 21 270 292 37 50 132 128 117 128 47 34 ^ 22 25 64 69 ^ 2,288 2,254 10 18 141 110 91 88 81 83 ^ 212 198 27 19 ^ 113 94 226 237 34 42 ^ 29,661 31,308 72 77 55 53 368 436 ^ 361 436 422 364 ^ 169 160 267 284 ^ 111 113 77 63 ^ - Territory divided with another LGA * - Not noted in 2016 Census # - Not noted in 2021 Census
See also List of places of worship in Moyne Shire List of localities in Victoria
References
External links
Moyne Shire Council official website Metlink local public transport map Link to Land Victoria interactive maps