How is the Bass Coast Shire travelling? You be the judge

THEY used to call it ‘Blokes’ Island’.

That was harking back to the day when panel vans loaded with young blokes and surfboards arrived in their droves on Phillip Island looking for waves and work, many of them finding it in the burgeoning housing sector.

But it seems that ‘Blokes Island’ is still a thing, at least where the annual Community Satisfaction Survey of the performance of the local shire council is concerned.

In their responses to the independent survey, carried out this year for the first time by Klein Research, male residents in general across the shire savaged the ‘Overall Performance’ of the Bass Coast Shire Council, marking it down by a whopping 10 points to a fail of 46 points out of 100.

Likewise, residents of the Phillip Island Ward have scaled back their attitude to the shire’s performance by 7 points, again scoring it a fail, at 47 out of 100.

Non-residents also hit the shire hard with a 13 point drop on ‘Overall Performance’, to a score of 48/100. People over 65 were also less than impressed this year, cutting the shire’s score by 4 points to 50, contrasted by the attitude of 18 to 34-year-olds who liked how the shire was performing, up by an impressive 11 points to sector leading score of 70.

So, what is the shire doing to raise the ire of men in general and people on Phillip Island specifically, and what are they doing that makes most Millennials and Gen Z respondents so happy?

We asked Bass Coast Shire Council watcher, Graham Jolly, for his views.

“There are a lot of things that are making people on Phillip Island unhappy at the moment, and our councillors aren’t doing anything about it,” said Mr Jolly.

“It took years to get the Phillip Island Recreation Reserve Master Plan approved by the shire, in 2023, but they’ve done practically nothing with it since then, although they have at least moved to rezone the land in recent times,” he said.

“It’s just ludicrous to think we have so many kids and young families on the island and just one oval between them, and we’re still years away from seeing anything happening down there."

He's talking about the site designated for Phillip Island's new sporting ovals and aquatic centre, at the corner of Ventnor Road and Phillip Island Road on the edge of Cowes known as the Hilton Chadwick Reserve.

“Changes to speed limits without consultation, the streetscape works in Thompson Avenue, and one that could impact the survey next year, McDonalds,” he said.

“Non-residents were already unhappy with fortnightly rubbish collection and the amount they were paying in rates, compared to what it costs them back in Melbourne, but they’ve also been hit with the Emergency Services levy, a doubling of the shire’s short-stay tax and increases in land tax, although not a shire issue it's attached to their second house in local coastal areas.

“But it’s not just Phillip Island. People at the Inverloch end are disappointed with how long it has taken the shire to get on with the shared pathway on Surf Parade,” said Mr Jolly.

“And why council is persisting with a pedestrian crossing in Murray Street Wonthaggi that no one wants, especially the local traders, is beyond me.”

The declining attitude to council on Phillip Island and in parts of the Bunurong Ward is borne out by the results of the survey.

On overall performance residents of both the Bunurong Ward (including Inverloch) and the Island Ward marked the shire down this year, -4 in Bunurong to 58 and -7 in Island to 47 while residents of the Western Port Ward liked how the shire is going, up +3 to a score of 57.

Where ‘Direction of Council’ and ‘Spending of Public Funds’ are concerned, the results this year are even worse.

People of the Bunurong Ward were worried the shire was wasting public funds, cutting their assessment by -10 points to 43 while people on Phillip Island were doubtful about the direction council was taking on a range of issues, savaging them with a -9 hit to a disastrous score of 37 points.

By comparison, the younger age group, aged 18-34, was full of praise for the council on the score of developing tourism (74), environmental sustainability (76), community and cultural events (72), art centres (75), libraries (81), and waste management (77), but not so much for recreation facilities (70), condition of sealed local roads (68), decision making in the community’s interest (59 +5), keeping the community informed (68), feedback (64 and advocacy (64).

In its response, however, the council was taking a glass half-full approach, focusing on the fact that despite a cut in the overall performance rating from 56 last year to 54 out of 100 this year, it was still higher than the average for same-size councils across Victoria at 53.

Here’s what the Bass Coast Shire Council had to say when it released the survey results for 2026 last week:

“As part of this year's approach, Council introduced a hybrid survey method, combining face-to-face door knocking with telephone interviews to capture feedback from a broad cross-section of the community.

“Council also incorporated nine additional questions into the survey to help track progress against key Council Plan strategic indicators and provide further insights into community perceptions of services and facilities, including libraries, art centres, recreational facilities, community events, environmental sustainability, and more.

“The overall performance index score of 54 is on par with the Large Shire result of 53.

“The following indicators are among the highest measured within the report, all scoring in line with or above the Large Shire Group benchmark.

• Libraries (77)
• Arts centres (70)
• Waste management (69)
• Customer service (69)

However, while council sought to accentuate the positive in its assessment, Klein Research highlighted some problem areas highlighted by the 424 people who were surveyed, 300 of them face-to-face.

• Decisions in the interest of the community scored lowest, at 48.
• Recreational facilities (58) sits below both the State (66) and Large Shire (62) benchmarks.
• Males were more critical of Council across all service areas except appearance of public areas.
• Compared with the State, developing and promoting local tourism performed more strongly for Council (61 vs 54), however, it underperformed against Large Shire (61 vs 63).

The survey also assessed influence versus performance, ranking those issues most likely to shift broader community sentiment and by far the most influential issue among those surveyed was ‘Making decisions in the interest of the community’ which was rated consistently low right across the board, but at a score of 48, generally on a par with large councils (49) and the state average (52).

These groups marked the shire down on decision making for the community; 35-49-year-olds -8 (46), males -4 (45), Bunurong residents -5 (50), Island residents -4 (42) and non-residents -4 (49).