The view from Geelong mayor Trent Sullivan’s office in Wurriki Nyal is a sharp reminder not just of City Hall’s flash new super-laminated timber and glass lodgings but the broader transformation of a city undergoing its biggest changes since the Gold Rush.
History is in the making. Big time. Everything in Geelong is changing: its appearance, its economy, its modus operandi, reputation, population, infrastructure, suburbs, demographics, its workforce.
The city’s growing like Topsy. Visitors and tourists can’t get enough of the place. Investors and seachangers can’t insinuate themselves fast enough – so much so that property prices are on par with Melbourne’s inner suburbs.
With distinct commercial, industrial, residential, port and rural bailiwicks in Victoria’s second largest city, Geelong has a fair sprawl of interests, portfolios and players competing for attention, and cold hard government scratch. A lot of balls in the air. And a fair spread of challenges, too.
So why would a bloke throw his hat in the ring for all of this at the tender age of just 23?
As a young business/law student with short stints in hospitality, mining and real estate – and close family ties to pubs and hospitality – Trent Sullivan figured the council needed new blood and a voice for the future.
Reviving the CBD, helping local business, fixing its parking and bus woes, driving events and festivals, obtaining a convention centre, all needed to be on the program for a prosperous Geelong.
Geelong-born and bred, schooled at Fyans Park Primary, Geelong High, Geelong College and Deakin, he’s now, at age 30, the youngest mayor ever at Geelong. More history in the making.
He’s also the 99th mayor, a figure that includes a few repeat offenders, not to mention some unforgettable colourful figures.
If you cast back, the mischief-makers were an entertaining lot. Foster Fyans, the very first mayor, was a monster by today’s standards – the barbaric Flogger Fyans, commandant of the notorious Norfolk Island penal colony.
Joseph Grey, in the 1890s, was charismatic and respected by all – until he cleaned out the upper end of town and cleared out. Even after he was jailed for five years, he landed a job as secretary of the Geelong Harbour Trust.
Frank de Stefano was stripped of an OAM and jailed for seven years for pinching $8.6m, including $5m from a quadriplegic. Even a bloke nominated as mayor for just for a day, Graeme Hoy, wound up behind bars for a $16m Ponzi con.
Others, of course, have been considerably more steadfast citizens, thankfully. Names like Hitchcock, Austin, Thomson, Hopkins, Richardson, Brownbill, Purnell, Fidge … many of them with a political reach and impact far beyond just Geelong.
Rummage through a Geelong street directory app and you’ll find more mayoral fixtures again: Cowie, Johnstone, Meakin, Humble, Carr, Bostock, Gurr, Ritchie and Hearne to name a few. You’ll still find Grey, Fyans and De Stefano, oddly enough.
Trent’s well aware of the weight of history on his shoulders as Geelong goes through a transition that’s easily its greatest since white settlement.
It’s a notion that’s not lost in the design of the airy, light-filled Wurriki Nyal, either, which Trent explains has a clear line of sight to its predecessor, the historic Gheringhap City Hall edifice, where council meetings proper continue to be held.
The new city HQ also hosts outlooks across Johnstone Park, police, court, rail, Corio Bay and Geelong’s changing CBD skyline – the city’s built-form DNA – imbuing it with a strong sense of dynamics.
What’s interesting about Trent’s central post in all this is his relative youth – an attribute placing him closer to the new arrivals driving much of Geelong’s growth than a good many preceding mayors.
“While Geelong is very attractive to people of all ages, a lot of our growth is being driven by people in their 20s to late 30s who want to settle here and raise their family,” he says.
“We’ve seen an acceleration, especially in the past few years, of people being drawn to Geelong for affordability and lifestyle reasons. Geelong has been through a period of rapid reinvention in the past decade.
“We’re now known for our innovation; our incredible business growth and major investment; a booming visitor economy; and for a lifestyle that mixes cosmopolitan with country.
“We’re a thriving city, with diverse natural assets such as the bay, a range of beaches, bushland and a great food and beverage scene.”
The key to maintaining this momentum, Trent says, is keeping a sense of community, keeping people connected to where they live, while providing services and facilities they expect from a metropolitan city.
It’s a big ask and the geography of said momentum is in fact shifting. While Armstrong Creek has fielded much of Geelong’s recent growth, attention is about to turn north and west in a big way.
Nine separate precincts are planned over 5500 hectares across the Lovely Banks and Batesford region. Think all of Armstrong Creek and more again. It’s a bit like adding a Ballarat to the population.
Trent immerses himself in helping oversee all this with a will. He’s up early as five in the morning at his Portarlington home. He’ll exercise and be answering emails by six. That’s often after he’s had meetings and engagements running late into the night.
His portfolio and committee commitments are boggling: The Potato Shed, creative communities and culture, tourism and major events portfolios, employment and remuneration committee, Geelong Art Gallery, Geelong Regional Library, G21 Arts, Heritage and Culture, Regional Cities Victoria, Tourism Greater Geelong and The Bellarine …
It’s a full-time, and full-on, gig. But he reckons he’s up for it. A few months back, before he assumed the mayoralty, he was working full-time with the Bureau of Statistics, serving as acting mayor and wrapping up post-grad studies in organisational leadership all at the same time.
This article appeared in Geelong + Surf Coast Living, autumn 2023
