The council says residents backed the new name – meaning “rocky country” in the Wurundjeri language.
Moreland City Council will propose changing its name to Merri-bek, ending the inner-north authority’s 28-year association with a Jamaican sugar plantation that used slave labour.
Greens mayor Mark Riley said it was the biggest response the council had received to community engagement, which endorsed its decision to drop the Moreland name over its “offensive, racist association”. The council will share its name with the Merri Creek. Riley said councillors were expected to endorse the new name at a meeting on Sunday. It will then be put to Local Government Minister Melissa Horne for consideration and finally approval by the governor.Riley said he hoped the council would have officially adopted the new name by late September.
Moreland was chosen as the name for the council when the cities of Brunswick, Coburg and parts of Broadmeadows merged in 1994 in council amalgamations under“We really wanted to be inclusive and not have a name that was associated with dispossession – the Wurundjeri didn’t get a penny for that land,” Riley said.