City of Northcote
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City of Northcote Victoria |
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Location in Melbourne
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Northcote Town Hall
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| Population | 49,200 (1992) | ||||||||||||
| • Density | 2,792/km2 (7,232/sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Established | 1883 | ||||||||||||
| Area | 17.62 km2 (6.8 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Council seat | Northcote | ||||||||||||
| Region | Melbourne | ||||||||||||
| County | Bourke | ||||||||||||
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The City of Northcote was a local government area about 5 kilometres (3 mi) northeast of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of 17.62 square kilometres (6.80 sq mi), and existed from 1883 until 1994.
Prior to the 1880s land boom, Northcote had been part of the Jika Jika Shire, which also included the City of Preston. Northcote was severed and incorporated as a borough on 25 May 1883. It became a town on 12 September 1890, and was proclaimed a city on 8 April 1914. On 1 October 1962, it annexed the South Ward of the City of Heidelberg.
Council elections in Northcote were generally contested, at least from the 1940s onwards, by candidates supported on the one hand by local business people, standing as Independents, and candidates endorsed by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) on the other. The ALP came to dominate Northcote Council politics after the early 1950s, and the majority of candidates were returned without opposition until the late 1970s. The ALP was slow to endorse migrant candidates, but it gradually did so as the population of the City of Northcote changed, with non-English speaking background immigrants an increasingly important factor in the council electorate.
Changes in the composition of Northcote Council saw more non-Anglo ethnic Councillors from the late 1970s, and certainly a swing to the political left. In 1980, strongly left-wing Councillors achieved national media coverage, as outspoken Victorian RSL President Bruce Ruxton condemned a number of Council policies that were anathema to those traditionally held by the RSL. These included the flying of the Eureka flag, rather than the Australian flag, from the Northcote Town Hall, and support for an Australian republic. Ruxton claimed 'ethnics and anti-British elements' were responsible for a lack of patriotism. Ruxton was also incensed at the refusal of Scottish-born Councillor Brian Sanaghan, to renew his oath of allegiance to the Queen, after being re-elected to the Northcote Council in 1980. Pressure from Ruxton resulted in Sanaghan's place on the council being declared vacant.
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