Community profile

Our community

Moyne Shire’s population continues to grow with a compound annual growth rate of 0.7% since 2013, resulting in 17,610 inhabitants with a median age of 45 years. The community is predominantly made up of Australian citizens at 90.48%. 5% of the population state that they require assistance with core activities. 21.9% of the population self-report as having a disability (DoH 2024b).

Moyne Shire households include 11% lone person households and 10.78% single parent family households, with 97.47% of private dwellings being separate houses.

 1.62% residents are Aboriginal, 15% were born overseas, and 8.35% speak a language other than English. The gender distribution is nearly equal with 49.28% males and 50.76% females. The LGBTIQA+ is represented by 5.3% of Moyne Shire population (DoH 2024b) with the community including 0.88% same-sex couples, comprising 24 male same-sex couples and 82 female same-sex couples (REMPLAN 2024).

Moyne Shire expects to see a declining annualised growth rate of population with 0.76% rate in population by 2026, dropping to 0.46% annualised growth rate by 2046, resulting in an expected population total of 20,048 people (REMPLAN 2024).

This is expected to translate to an annualised growth in dwellings from a total of 8971 dwelling in 2026 (0.97%), to 10,398 dwellings by 2046 (0.67%).

Economy details

Moyne Shire covers 548,168,600 hectares of land and generates a gross regional product of almost $1.5 billion.

Total dollar output for Moyne Shire equals $3,521,583 million with Agriculture Forestry & Fishing, and Manufacturing as the standout industry sectors.

Employment reflects this output with 33.7% of the workforce employed within the Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing industry, and 28.6% in Manufacturing.

The total number of jobs in Moyne in 2021 was estimated at 6,950. This reflects an increase of 531 jobs from 2016. The construction industry has shown the largest job growth rate with an increase of 217 jobs between 2016 and 2021.

The Total Value-add in the area is estimated at $1.3 billion, with the major contributors as per above with the addition of rental, hiring, and real estate services accounting for 12% of value-add.

This is supported by the annual growth rate for business count demonstrating a 3.6% increase from 2021 to 2023.

Year 12 attainment rates for Moyne Shire sit at 43.5%, lower than that of Barwon South West at 50.55%, and Victoria at 59.47%.

It is estimated that 73.7% of dwellings are either owned outright or with a mortgage. From 2016 the rate of home ownership has increased by 10.9%.

The weekly household median income is $1530; 13% less than Victorian median income of $1759.

Place details

Community members report feeling trust for public institutions and government, with 51.75% stating reporting the feeling of Civic Trust (DoH 2024a). This is combined with 29.5% reporting having a high level of social trust (trust of acquaintances and strangers in the community).

59% of respondents to the Moyne Shire Community Engagement Survey 2024 rated the importance of planning for population growth as extremely important or very important (JWS Research 2024).

Moyne rated the shire’s business/community development performance index score at 63, an increase from 61 from the past two years performance measures (not measured prior to 2022) (JWS Research 2024).

57.5% of residents report that multiculturalism makes life in the community better demonstrating the importance of diversity in our communities (UC 2024), and highlighting the opportunities to strengthen the sense of place through actions outlined in Moyne Shire’s Aboriginal Engagement and Partnership Plan.

People details

The population age spread across Moyne Shire shows highest percentages of population within the 55–69-year age bracket (a total of 29.5% of the Shire’s population and then followed by the 5 year to 14 year brackets (6.38% and 7.16% respectively, totalling 13.54% of the population)

With 19.9% of adults self-reporting only poor to fair health, below that of Victoria at 20.9% (DoH 2024b), and 18.8% of adults reporting low or medium satisfaction with life, below that of Victoria at 21.9%, the need for supportive wrap-around health services within the region is evident.

Coupled with reports of 16.2% of adults reporting high to very high psychological distress, below overall Victorian rates at 19.1% (DoH 2024b), the consideration for allied health, including mental health services, and home support and care services, and demonstrates the need for collaboration within the public health sector.

Comorbidity, the co-occurrence of chronic health conditions in individuals (AIHW 2016) has a significant impact on health services and is associated with worse health outcomes. 37.8% of residents report one or more long-term health conditions, higher than that of Victoria at 37.81% with 5% of residents reporting the need for assistance with core activities.

These factors have been assessed further in the Health and Wellbeing profile.

21.9% of people in Moyne have self-reported as having a disability. Across all rural regions, 22.9% of men have a self-reported disability, and 24.2% of women have a self-reported disability (DoH 2024b).

Environment details

In the most recent Community Engagement Survey, conducted in 2024, 63% of respondents rated environmental sustainability as extremely important or very important, versus 61% of Victorian respondents (JWS 2024). However, this is in contrast with only 26.6% of dwellings having solar installations (Australian PV Institute 2024).

The prevalence of the agriculture industry within the shire contributes 76% of the 1.4M tonnes of Moyne Shire’s total CO2e total municipal emissions (Snapshot Climate 2024).

Workers in Moyne Shire predominantly drive to work, with 60% reported as driving a vehicle to work. With 28.7% reporting either working from home, or not working, this leaves 11.2% taking alternative travel methods to work, including cycling, scooter, passenger, or walking.

Residents of Great South Coast (incorporating Moyne, Corangamite, Glenelg, Southern Grampians, and Warrnambool City Shires), report climate change concerns, with 63% concerned about coastal erosion and changes to sea levels, 60% concerned about heatwaves, and 46% concerned about air pollution (SV 2017).

When considering top three priority issues, 75% of respondents highlight climate change as an issue that requires urgent action, however only 18% of Great South Coast respondents rated climate change as an issue of importance to Victoria. Respondents rated healthcare, cost of living and housing, economy and jobs, education, and roads and transport as higher priority issues over climate change.

When considering responsibilities for climate change, 85% want climate change action from local governments (SV 2017).

Whilst 98% expect action from climate change from individuals, only 83% of residents state that they are willing to take action on climate change (SV 2017).

In relation to Moyne’s built environment, in 2023-24, the value of building approvals in Moyne was $73.299 million. Of this, residential approvals accounted for 80.7% ($59.142 million).

Community values and priorities

Regional priorities

Regional priorities are represented by South West Victoria Alliance (SWVA), most recently highlighted in its report, “A stronger south west – A call for investment in Childcare in Communities”. The publication focuses a spotlight on the impact of the current childcare crisis being felt across the nation, highlighting the stressors contributing to this as:

  • High unemployment
  • Lack of housing
  • Lower education attainment levels (SWVA 2024a).

SWVA also highlights broader calls across the region for:

  • Local roads and infrastructure upgrades
  • The establishment of a Local Government Sustainability Fund
  • A Small Grants Program to help councils boost local wellbeing and foster community pride
  • The development of a Hydrogen Innovation Plan for south-west Victoria (SVWA 2024b).

Among further regional priorities discussed at Parliament in May 2024 were:

Environment

  • Energy transition plan for the region, to understand training needs, future employment opportunities and infrastructure and community needs.
  • Develop the Hydrogen Opportunity via a Clean Energy Training Hub
  • Development of a Sustainable Water Strategy

Community

  • Childcare – Development of a Centre of Excellence to train more staff and address the workforce shortage.
  • Housing – expansion of key worker housing projects in the region using successful models already implemented
  • Workforce – develop with government strategies to address workforce shortages

Future possibility

  • New tourism – explore ways to support emerging tourism sectors like geothermal
  • High- Value agriculture – enabling infrastructure is needed, roads and other transport infrastructure (SWVA 2024b).

Council Priorities

Moyne Shire will continue to focus on articulating priorities through development of:

  • Moyne Shire Council Plan 2025-2029 (incorporating the Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan)
  • Asset Management Plan
  • Long Term Financial Management Plan
  • Workforce Plan
  • Updated Environmental Sustainability Strategy.

It also has identified actions for delivery from:

  • Aboriginal Engagement and Partnership Plan
  • Disability Inclusion and Access Plan
  • Youth Strategy
  • Arts and Culture Strategy
  • Open Space Strategy 2020-2035.

Shire service areas

Council priorities seek to address the community focus on service areas, outlined within the Moyne Shire Community Engagement Survey 2024.

Individual Service Areas of Importance where importance exceeds performance by 10 points or more, suggesting further investigation is necessary includes Local streets and footpaths, consultation and engagement, population growth, and waste management.

The individual service area with the strongest influence on the overall performance rating is “Decisions made in the interest of the community”.

Good communication and transparency with residents around Council decision making and demonstrating efforts to advocate for the community provide the greatest opportunities to drive up overall opinion of Council’s performance. Following on from that, other individual service areas with a more moderate influence on the overall performance rating are:

  • Town planning
  • Business and community development
  • The condition of local streets and paths
  • Community consultation and engagement
  • The condition of sealed local roads
  • Elderly support services
  • The appearance of public areas (JWS 2024).

Within these service areas, the appearance of public areas and Council’s elderly support services have high performance index scores (72 and 69 respectively) and a moderate influence on the overall performance rating. Other service areas with a moderate influence on overall perceptions, but where Council is performing less well, are town planning, local streets and paths, and community consultation (index scores of 51, 55 and 57 respectively). However, most in need of Council attention is the condition of its sealed roads, which is rated as poor (index score of 39) and is a moderate influence on overall community opinion[1].

The service areas ratings by the community show that waste management, slashing and weed control, consultation and engagement, emergency and disaster management, local streets and footpaths all rate at a total of 74% or higher, having selected this service area as extremely important or very important.

The report on the community engagement survey provides guidance for addressing key service areas to focus on. The report identifies that Lobbying and community decisions should remain a focus as improvement will have a stronger influence and help drive up positive opinion of overall performance.

Elderly support services should have key positive influences on overall rating and should remain a focus – but currently performing “well” here. Improvement will have a moderate influence on overall perceptions.

Appearance of public areas should have key positive influences on overall rating and should remain a focus – but currently performing “well” here. Improvement will have a moderate influence on overall perceptions.

Community consultation; condition of streets and paths, and town planning were identified as needing to focus on these areas satisfactorily to ensure negative perceptions do not have an overly negative impact on community perceptions of overall performance.

Condition of sealed local roads listed as an area of focus as currently performing “poorly” here and changes will have a moderate influence on overall perceptions (JWS 2004).

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