Shire of Mornington Peninsula

The Mornington Peninsula Shire is a local government area in southeastern metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Located to the south of the Melbourne city centre, it covers its namesake Mornington Peninsula, and is headquartered in the suburb of Rosebud. It has an area of and at the it had a population of 168,948.

History

The Mornington Peninsula Shire came into existence on 15 December 1994 when the state government amalgamated the previous Shires of Flinders, Hastings and Mornington.
On August 13, 2019, the Shire voted to declare a climate emergency in response to other similar declarations from councils around Australia. This declaration was later overturned by a motion in April 2025, which passed with a 6–5 vote.
The Shire abolished the 150-year-old tradition of reciting a prayer before Council meetings in December 2020. According to the Australian National Secular Lobby, the Shire was "the first council or parliament to be removed from their list of government institutions that impose prayers on elected representatives”.

The Mornington Peninsula Shire is split into eleven single-member wards. The current council was elected at the 2024 council election:

The 2021 census, the shire had a population of 168,948 up from 154,999 in the 2016 census
^ - Territory divided with another LGA