BENDIGO'S council will hold off judgement about plans to transform how ratepayers are represented despite its initially frosty reception to the idea of overhauling ward structures.
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The council expects to make its position clear after next week, when a Victorian Electoral Commission-appointed panel will release initial ideas and launch public consultations on ward structures and boundaries across the state.
It has in the past critiqued the decision to mandate most councils' move to single-member wards except in special circumstances.
The potentially controversial decision to move away from "multi-member" council wards has been legislated in the 2020 Local Government Act.
Greater Bendigo currently has three wards - with three councillors each - stretching from the centre of the city out to the municipality's furthermost boundaries.
"I think the council's frustration about that is 'why should that be mandated before you do a review?'," the city's chief executive Craig Niemann said on Wednesday.
"Why wouldn't you do the review and come up with a structure that best suits this municipality? But I think it's a case of waiting now for the options to be put up ... we have a look at them and see if councillors agree there is a good reason to put a response in."
The government has previously said single-member wards would "more closely link councillors to the community they serve and ensure representation is genuinely local".
Such a change would shift Bendigo back to the sort of single-member system it had before the 2012 council election.
Back then the council tried in vain to stop the switch to multi-member wards.
Then-mayor Rod Fyffe said that electoral structure could leave significant communities of interest unrepresented while triggering councillor confusion and duplication over their responsibilities.
Those concerns evaporated once the system began.
"They generally realised they would be able to share this workload more smartly, and still be represented at different forums, functions, meetings, etc., but not have to be at everything all the time," Mr Niemann said.
"They really need to share the workload because it's so big these days, and getting bigger ... because expectations and workloads are much greater."
Mr Niemann said that regardless of the ward structure, councillors knew they had to make decisions for the greater good of the entire municipality.
"You'd like to think that council representatives are balanced enough that they would go and listen to people not necessarily speaking, or heard," he said.
"Our current group of councillors is quite a diverse group who probably are fairly representative of the Greater Bendigo community."
The panel's report will be available online after it is published on Wednesday, June 28 and information sessions will take place on Monday at noon and Tuesday at 6pm.
Links to information sessions will be available on the VEC website half an hour before the start time of each.
Public submissions are due by July 19.
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Jenny Denton
Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
