The City of Melbourne respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land we govern, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin and pays respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
We accept the invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart and are committed to walking together to build a better future.
August 7, 2025
Consultation for the Melbourne Town Hall and council buildings smoke-free area proposal has now closed. Thank you to everyone who had their say.
Feedback gathered will be used to inform a final decision about making areas surrounding Melbourne Town Hall and council buildings smoke-free.
The proposal and the community engagement report will be presented to the Future Melbourne Committee on Tuesday 21 October 2025.
Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners
The City of Melbourne respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land we govern, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin and pays respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
We accept the invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart and are committed to walking together to build a better future.
This site is owned and operated by the City of Melbourne using software licensed from Social Pinpoint. For details on how the City of Melbourne collects and protects your personal information in the course of your engagement with the Participate Melbourne website and in-person community engagement activities, refer to the Privacy Statement below. For details of how Social Pinpoint may access personal information, please refer to Social Pinpoint’s Privacy Policy. For information about the broader collection and use of personal information by the City of Melbourne, please refer to our Privacy Policy.
The City of Melbourne takes privacy very seriously. Our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information is regulated by the Victorian Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014. You can find more information about your privacy rights at the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner.
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Content that you post on the site publicly will be able to be viewed by everyone who uses the site and will contain your username. Any publicly available reports from consultations may include quotes that participants have shared in forums, surveys and other consultation tools.
Your feedback, including all demographic details you choose to submit, will be provided to the relevant City of Melbourne work area with responsibility for administering the subject matter or project to which your feedback relates.
The City of Melbourne has created a central repository (the Knowledge Bank) of all survey responses. The City of Melbourne seeks to maintain your anonymity within the Knowledge Bank. Any personally identifiable information that you provide, including name and contact details, will be excluded or masked within the Knowledge Bank to preserve your anonymity. Where you have consented, staff members will also add any verbal feedback you provide to them, in their interactions with you, to the Knowledge Bank. Staff members can filter the responses in the Knowledge Bank by subject matter, neighbourhood or demographics to inform future projects, gain insights into neighbourhood sentiment or key themes, and to ensure the provision of consistent service delivery across the organisation. To further protect your anonymity, where there are very small sample sizes, staff cannot filter in the Knowledge Bank by demographics.
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We may also disclose personal information to various third-party research consultants engaged by the City of Melbourne. You consent to us disclosing your personal information to these third parties to help them interpret, synthesise and gain insights from feedback submitted. The insights derived by these research consultants will assist the City of Melbourne to identify opportunities to improve our services, projects, plans and policies. The City of Melbourne will not disclose your information to another external party without your consent, unless required or authorised by law.
The information supplied to the research consultants is limited to raw feedback responses and excludes the provision of your name, contact details or other information that could directly identify you. However, the information, when supplied to research consultants, will include demographic details such as your age, gender and the suburb from which your survey response is received. All consultants have agreed to the collection, use and disclosure of data in accordance with this Privacy Statement.
In the case of submissions you make on planning scheme amendments, the Council will disclose your entire submission including your contact details to Planning Panels Victoria which sits within the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. Submissions and contact details are stored in a Panel Book (typically a OneDrive file shared between all parties to the panel, where it is stored for 3 months before deleting). Planning Panels Victoria will facilitate all contact with you on matters relating to the panel process including to circulate agendas, inform you of the date and time of the panel hearing and to send correspondence to you on any other matters relating to the relevant planning scheme amendment.
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Updated December 2024
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Updated July 2019
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