Exploring local government

01 June 2026

Explore your local government with this list of questions, activities and resources. This blog post delves into everything from finding out about your local councillors, what your council is responsible for, to how your council compares to other 'like' councils in your area.

Questions

From the sources provided, create a ‘My Council’ profile, including images of some of the key services your council provides.

Council areas can vary from 10.8 square kilometres to 22,000 square kilometres in size. Some have populations of less than 3000, some have more than 340,000.

  • How do you think the size and population of a council area might change the work of a councillor?

Pick two councils and compare the performance from one of the services

  • Which council is doing better?
  • Why do you think this is the case?
  • What evidence can you find on the council website that might explain why they are doing better?
  • Suggest some new ideas that the two councils could do to improve this service further?

Pick a council from two different categories, for example one metropolitan and one large shire. Pick a service and look at how they are performing.

  • Which council is doing better?
  • Why do you think this is the case?
  • What evidence can you find on the council website that might explain why they are doing better?
  • Why doesn’t the ‘Compare your councils’ allow you to compare councils from different categories?
  • Suggest some new ideas that councils could do to improve this service? Remember to consider the difference in the council’s location, size and population.

Explore three levels of government more with the Three levels of government flash cards

There is also additional information about council responsibilities available on the Vic Councils' website 

 

Local government's powers and responsibilities

Victoria has 79 local governments, known as councils and shires, that have been delegated responsibility from Parliament of Victoria to manage and address local issues and plan for their community’s needs.

Councils are based on geographic location and help to support the local community through enabling economic, social and cultural development. They are able to make local laws that help keep the community safe such as laws about noise, fire hazards, nuisance pets, graffiti and parking.

Some of other things local governments are responsible for include waste, leisure centres, parks and gardens and pet registrations.

Read more about what councils do
 
Rubbish collection is one of the responsibilities of local government

What do councillors do?

Councillors are democratically elected for four years at council elections. After the election the councillors elect a Chief Operations Officer who ensures services are delivered and decisions are implemented, and a Mayor who is the spokesperson for the council and helps to make sure decisions are fair.

The councillors hold regular meetings to make decisions about budgets, policies and direction of the council or shire. These meetings are public, so community members are able to attend.

One of the biggest differences for councillors in the decision-making process is that they are making a decision as part of a collective and on behalf of the community; i.e. that decisions should reflect the community’s needs. This is often referred as transparent and defensible decision making.  

Councillors also need to follow meeting rules and processes, and adhere to standards of conduct to help build transparency, as well as trust and confidence in local government

 

Find your council

There are a couple of different websites that can help students locate their councils or shires. It is worth noting that in some cases students might go to school and live in different council or shire areas, especially if they are close to the boundaries or if their council area is small.

Victorian Electoral Commission, Interactive map

Once the address is entered the map will show electorate information for federal, state and local electorates.

Visit the VEC Interactive map 

Know your council

Once the address information is entered, the map will show the local government council area. Clicking on the council name links to a council profile, including its location, description of the geography and any other important information. There is the main contact details of the council, Mayor, CEO and Councillors.

Find out more about your local council or shire 

Vic Councils

For this map you need to hover the mouse over the different council and shire areas, and clicking on the council name will bring up contact details, a link to the website and a link to current councillors.

It does provide a good visual comparison for the size of different council and shire areas, and there are PDF copies of the metropolitan and regional council maps available.

Connect to your local council and find out who your local councillors are 

 

About your council

Your council website

To find out what services your council offer and specific information about your local area, visit your local council’s website.

Australian Bureau of Statistics

The ABS has a breakdown of data according to each local government area. Details include:

  • population
  • median income
  • number of businesses
  • median weekly household rent
  • median monthly household mortgage
  • land area (in hectares)

There are dropdown boxes to explore this data in more detail, and it is also possible to download a copy of the data in Excel, which may be useful in selecting specific data sets for students.

Access your local council by searching the Australian Bureau of Statistics website

Know your council dashboard

The know your council dashboard allows you to select a council, and then a council service to see key performance data, and where available, comments from the council about its performance.

For example, if you select ‘Libraries’ you can see the specific council’s data on for example library membership, visits per population, and loans per population. 

The dataset is also available for download in Excel.

FInd out more about the performance of your local council

Libraries are one of the responsibilities of local government

Comparing councils

Each local government is different, whether it be the size of the area it covers, the number of people or the different composition of the community. Therefore, how each council supports and serves its community can look different to each other.

The ‘Know your council’ site allows you to make comparisons between services for ‘like’ councils in the same category.

To help people make comparisons between councils and shires across different services, each of the local governments have been classified into five categories:

  • Metro
  • Regional
  • Large shire
  • Small shire
  • Interface (ten councils on the outskirts of Melbourne)

Students can pick their own and a ‘like’ council to compare across a range of services. The data can then be represented as either side-by-side bar graphs or in table format.

Compare your local council's performance with other 'like' councils

Note: Interface councils are not a council size category. They are a recognised planning and growth region:

  • The 10 councils form a ring around metropolitan Melbourne.
  • They experience significant population growth.
  • They often face challenges around:
    • Housing growth
    • Transport infrastructure
    • Community services
    • Urban-rural transitions
    • Environmental management