City of Townsville

This article is about the local government area. For the metropolitan area, see Townsville, Queensland. For the Townsville CBD suburb, see Townsville City, Queensland. For other uses, see Townsville (disambiguation).

City of Townsville Queensland
Location within Queensland
Population	185,768(2010)
Established	1865
Area	3,733 km² (1,441.3 sq mi)
Mayor	Jenny Hill
Council seat	Townsville City
Region	North Queensland
Website	townsville.qld.gov.au
LGAs around City of Townsville: Hinchinbrook Coral Sea Coral Sea Charters Towers City of Townsville Burdekin Charters Towers Charters Towers Burdekin

The City of Townsville is an Australian local government area (lga) located in North Queensland, Australia. It encompasses the city of Townsville, together with the surrounding rural areas, to the south are the communities of Alligator Creek, Woodstock and Reid River, and to the north are Northern Beaches and Paluma, and also included is Magnetic Island. It currently has a population of 175,542 residents, and is the 18th largest LGA in Australia.

History

Townsville's Town Hall 1895 with, from left to right, Aldermen T. Enright, E.J. Forrest, D.F. Treehy (Townclerk), P. Lillis (Rate Receiver), J. N. Parkes, B.P. McDougall (Accountant)

The City of Townsville was first established as a municipality under the Municipal Institutions Act 1864 on 15 February 1866. The surrounding rural area, which was given the name Thuringowa, was established on 11 November 1879 as one of 74 divisions around Queensland under the Divisional Boards Act 1879. On 31 March 1903, Thuringowa became a shire and Townsville was granted city status under the Local Authorities Act 1902, the ancestor of the current Local Government Act 1993.

The borders of the Townsville municipality were expanded to keep pace with urban growth in 1882, 1918, 1936, 1958 and 1964 — the purpose of expanding the borders was to keep urban and rural administrations separate. This state government convention changed under the Bjelke-Peterson government and the borders between the two local governments became static. By 1986 the Shire of Thuringowa had grown to a population of 27 000 and was declared a city.

In 1939, Fred Paterson stood successfully as an alderman for the Townsville City Council, becoming the first member of the Communist Party to win such an office in Australia. He was then re-elected in 1943. The same year, he stood for the federal seat of Herbert, but was narrowly defeated. He then contested and won the Bowen seat in the Queensland Parliament, holding it from 1944 until 1950.

A succession of endorsed Australian Labor Party mayors and majority councillors held a continuous civic government from 1976–2008, this was the longest continuous Labor administration in the country until Tony Mooney was defeated in 2008.

Following local government reform undertaken by the State Government of Queensland, the City of Townsville and the City of Thuringowa were amalgamated in 2008. The process of amalgamation was completed on the election of a new combined council on 15 March 2008.

Townsville City Council

Townsville City Council is the Local Government Authority that services the Local Government Area of Townsville. The council is represented by 10 councillors and the Mayor, who have been elected by the whole city. The current mayor is Cr Jenny Hill, who was formerly the deputy mayor of the pre-amalgamation City of Townsville in 2007 and early-2008. The former Mayor of Townsville was Les Tyrell who had held the position since 2008, before that he was mayor of the City of Thuringowa.

The council provides many services to residents of the city of Townsville, including infrastructure, water, garbage, public works, and entertainment and leisure i.e. parks, theatres, events etc.

In 2006 the council had an operating expenditure of $201.3M and a capital works budget of $103.3M

Civic Cabinet

The current Civic Cabinet consists of one mayor, elected at large, and 10 councillors, elected from 10 individual divisions. At the last Queensland Local Government election, held on 28 April 2012, Jenny Hill from the centre-left Team Jenny Hill was elected Mayor of Townsville, along with 2 other councillors from the same team. 7 councillors were elected from the rival centre-right Townsville First team, as well as 1 Independent, effectively creating a hung council. Vern Veitch, from Townsville First, was elected as Deputy Mayor by a vote of the Civic Cabinet.

Position	Person	Party
Mayor of Townsville	Jenny Hill	Team Jenny Hill
Division 1 Councillor	Sue Blom	Townsville First
Division 2 Councillor	Tony Parsons	Townsville First
Division 3 Councillor	Vern Veitch (Deputy Mayor)	Townsville First
Division 4 Councillor	Jenny Lane	Townsville First
Division 5 Councillor	Patrick Ernst	Independent
Division 6 Councillor	Trevor Roberts	Townsville First
Division 7 Councillor	Gary Eddinghausen	Townsville First
Division 8 Councillor	Ray Gartrell	Townsville First
Division 9 Councillor	Colleen Doyle	Team Jenny Hill
Division 10 Councillor	Les Walker	Team Jenny Hill

Towns and localities

Main article: List of Townsville suburbs

Population

The populations given relate to the component entities prior to 2008. The next census, due in 2011, will be the first for the new City.

Year	Population (City total)	Population (Townsville)	Population (Thuringowa)
1911	15,731	10,636	5,095
1921	23,690	21,353	2,337
1933	29,300	25,876	3,424
1947	36,436	34,109	2,327
1954	43,098	40,471	2,627
1961	53,715	51,143	2,572
1966	65,303	62,403	2,900
1971	72,023	68,591	3,432
1976	91,279	80,365	10,914
1981	98,900	81,172	17,728
1986	112,917	82,809	30,108
1991	125,010	87,288	37,722
1996	131,371	87,052	44,319
2001	143,841	92,701	51,140
2006	158,647	99,483	59,164

Sister cities

• Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea since 1983
• Shunan, Japan since 1990
• Iwaki City, Japan since August, 1991
• Changshu, People's Republic of China since 1995
• Suwon, South Korea since 1996
• Foshan, People's Republic of China since 2006

External links

• Official website
• Population stats of LGA
• Townsville Region Social Atlas (2001 Census)