The shire was among 39 involved in a two-year Victorian Electoral Commission review, but was one of only a handful to move to the unsubdivided option.
Campaspe Shire’s format of five wards — two with three council members and three single-councillor wards — will be scrapped for the 2024 elections.
Three options were presented by the VEC during the restructure — single-member wards, an unsubdivided council and uniform multi-member wards.
Campaspe Shire, along with neighbouring Strathbogie and Gannawarra shires, will move to the unsubdivided format.
Thirty of the 39 councils that took part in the restructuring process, including Bendigo and Greater Shepparton, will operate under the single-member ward option. Only four went to multi-member wards.
It is a major change for the shire’s current councillors — Tony Marwood, Robert Amos and Christine Weller (Echuca); Kyabram-Deakin’s Colleen Gates, Daniel Mackrell and John Zobec; Rochester’s Paul Jarman; Waranga’s Adrian Weston and the Western ward’s Leanne Pentreath.
All have been involved in recent elections, but may have to lift their profile in other areas of the shire to maintain their roles on council.
Crs Amos and Weller, the two councillors to have filled the mayoral role in recent years, look likely to hold the whip hand.
Cr Marwood won his place on council at the polls in 2020, leading the pack with 21.99 per cent of the vote, ahead of Cr Amos (20 per cent) and Cr Weller, who collected 18.43 per cent of the vote in a field of seven.
Four candidates stood in Kyabram-Deakin ward at the same election: Cr Gates (32.07 per cent of the vote), Cr Zobec (20.78 per cent) and Cr Mackrell (30.23 per cent) tipping out incumbent Vicki Neele (16.92 per cent).
Mrs Neele had only been voted on to council in 2016. Cr Zobec won a 2015 by-election to start his local government career.
In 2012, he was unsuccessful in his bid to join council, attracting just 8.28 per cent of the vote in a field of six candidates. Carol Howell, Neil Pankhurst and Robert Danieli were the Kyabram-Deakin ward councillors at that stage.
Cr Jarman dominated his two opponents for the single-ward Rochester role, collecting 54.54 per cent of the vote to defeat Steve Huntly (23.10 per cent) and Paul Harrison (22.36 per cent).
Cr Jarman had won his place on council in 2012, but was defeated at the polls in 2016, having been one of eight candidates for the Echuca ward’s three positions.
Crs Pentreath and Weston took the Western and Waranga single councillor ward roles uncontested — as they did in 2016.
Cr Pentreath earned her stripes at the February 2016 by-election when she collected 30.61 per cent of the vote to beat six other candidates with a 10 per cent margin.
For some residents, this year’s electoral restructure continues three decades of inconsistency in the representation of constituents on a local government basis.
The council amalgamations of the mid-1990s reduced the number of Victorian councils from 210 to 78, with Kyabram among those absorbed into the new Campaspe shire format — alongside the City of Echuca and shires of Rochester, Waranga, Deakin and part of Rodney.
At that time, only 14.3 per cent of Victorian councils were unsubdivided. By 2014, that number had almost doubled (27.8 per cent).
The higgledy-piggledy nature of shire councils was no better evidenced than in 2014 when all five council ward structures — unsubdivided, uniform multi-member wards, non-uniform multi-member wards, single and multi-member wards (such as Campaspe) and single-member wards represented between 13 and 27 per cent of councils in the state.
Campaspe Shire and 25 other Victorian council areas currently operate with the nine-councillor format, while 34 councils have seven-member representation.
Less than a decade later, another amendment to the Local Government Act moved the election process to every four years — all councils required to conduct the elections at the same time.
Since 2008, there have been seven elections in Campaspe Shire, the scheduled elections of 2020 and 2016, a Western ward by-election in February 2016 and a Kyabram-Deakin ward vote in January 2015, along with the 2012 and 2008 elections.
In March 1997, Campaspe returned to a democratically elected council with seven councillors sitting around the table for the first time at the Echuca chambers.
Kyabram’s Mary Bowman was elected mayor, but at the 2000 election handed the reins to John Elborough — a second successive Kyabram ward mayor.
Mr Elborough was returned in 2003 and again in 2005 before Carol Howell came on to council with Neil Pankhurst as Kyabram representatives in 2008.
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