Wyndham councillor and former mayor Josh Gilligan has announced he will leave local government at the end of January 2027, bringing to a close more than a decade in public life and three consecutive terms representing one of Melbourne’s fastest-growing municipalities.
Cr Gilligan announced his decision on Friday, saying he had informed Wyndham Mayor Mia Shaw that he would remain as Wimba Ward councillor until the end of the current term of state-appointed municipal monitors on January 31 before stepping away.
“Today, I advised the Mayor that I will conclude my time as a Wyndham City Councillor when the term of the municipal monitors finishes at the end of January 2027,” Cr Gilligan said.
“I intend to remain until then to ensure their work can be seen through properly.”
His departure will come well before the next scheduled Victorian council elections in October 2028. Cr Gilligan was re-elected to the newly created single-member Wimba Ward at the 2024 election, winning 56.96 per cent after preferences against former councillor Kim McAliney.
Because Wimba is a single-councillor ward, his departure would ordinarily trigger a by-election to choose his replacement, provided the vacancy occurs more than six months before the next general council election.
Cr Gilligan used his announcement to deliver a stinging assessment of the state of local government in Victoria, arguing regulation and the existing legal framework had made councils increasingly difficult to govern.
“Local government in Victoria is being regulated into paralysis,” he said.
“The law that governs it empowers too many vested interests, leaving the sector ungovernable and repellent to the very leaders we need in the tier of government closest to the people.”
The comments come at the end of a turbulent period at Wyndham City Council, which has been under the oversight of municipal monitors Jim Gifford and Jo-Anne Mazzeo since May.
The Victorian Government appointed the pair for nine months, from May 11, 2026 until January 31, 2027, saying they would help restore stability in council leadership and strengthen governance, decision-making, service delivery and the wellbeing of councillors and staff.
Cr Gilligan’s decision to time his departure with the end of that monitoring period means he intends to remain through the remainder of the external oversight process before vacating his seat.
The long-time Tarneit resident was first elected to Wyndham City Council in 2016 and went on to become the city’s youngest mayor at the age of 26 during the 2019–20 term.
He served as deputy mayor before returning to the mayoralty in November 2025, when councillors elected him to lead the city for a second time.
Wyndham City’s official profile records that Cr Gilligan is serving his third council term and has twice held the mayoralty.
His second stint as mayor ended abruptly in February this year after an independent arbiter found he had breached the Model Councillor Code of Conduct over comments made about former mayor Kim McAliney.
The arbiter ordered Cr Gilligan to apologise and suspended him from council for one month, automatically creating a vacancy in the mayoral office.
Cr Gilligan apologised for the comments at the time, saying he took responsibility for his words and regretted the hurt they had caused.
He was subsequently suspended for a further two weeks in June following another internal arbitration involving fellow councillor Robert Szatkowski.
His successor as mayor, Preet Singh, later became embroiled in a separate controversy after it emerged he had written a character reference for a man subsequently convicted of child sex offences.
Cr Gilligan joined all other Wyndham councillors in calling for Cr Singh to resign as mayor. Cr Singh eventually stepped down from the mayoralty in July but remained a councillor.
Councillors then elected Cr Mia Shaw on July 23 to serve as mayor for the remainder of the 2025–26 mayoral term.
Against that difficult political backdrop, Cr Gilligan’s farewell statement focused heavily on what he regards as the achievements of his decade at Wyndham.
“Over three terms, I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of serving our community on Wyndham City Council,” he said.
He pointed to battles over planning and infrastructure, including what he described as “two Supreme Court wins (and one loss)” pursued in an effort to secure better outcomes for residents.
Cr Gilligan said one of his proudest legacies was reform to the way parks and other infrastructure were delivered alongside housing in new estates, as well as the broader Wyndham Plan designed to ensure critical roads and infrastructure were provided as the municipality grew.
He also highlighted his campaigning against developers using sunset clauses to cancel off-the-plan property contracts, an issue he publicly pursued after dozens of Tarneit families were affected by cancelled land contracts in 2018.
At the time, Wyndham councillors called for stronger consumer protections and urged the Victorian Government to investigate the use of sunset clauses.
Cr Gilligan also pointed to campaigns against contaminated soil being brought into Wyndham Vale, opposition to plans for a prison in Point Cook, local road projects and efforts to secure community infrastructure.
Council records show Wyndham campaigned in 2020 against proposals to place contaminated soil from the West Gate Tunnel Project at a Wyndham Vale rail stabling site.
Another issue singled out in his farewell statement was Bemin Secondary College and the battle to preserve land in Truganina for education rather than housing.
Cr Gilligan described the result as “a win for people power” and said the campaign illustrated both the rewards and political cost of his confrontational approach to state government.
“No single site better captures the dilemma of my decade in public life: secure enduring outcomes for working families, but accept that with every victory for a more liveable Wyndham, against the state, closed another door to ascension to higher office beyond the benches of local government,” he said.
He also referred to securing “nearly half a billion dollars in infrastructure” for Tarneit and said his approach to council had always been driven by the belief that Melbourne’s west should receive services and infrastructure comparable with more established parts of the city.
“I have always believed Wyndham must be more than a city of housing,” Cr Gilligan said.
“A resident in Truganina or Tarneit should never have a life expectancy 15 years less, on average, than a Victorian in the eastern suburbs. This mantra drove every decision, action and agenda I pursued.”
The $500 million figure referenced in his statement was presented as his assessment of infrastructure secured during his time in office rather than an independently audited personal funding total.
Wyndham itself is experiencing extraordinary population growth and infrastructure pressure, with council repeatedly campaigning for additional roads, schools, public transport, health facilities and community infrastructure to keep pace with residential development.
Cr Gilligan said residents had ultimately been the measure by which he judged his political career.
“In any thriving democracy, residents are the only jury that counts,” he said.
He pointed to his three election victories, including his strong 2020 result.
VEC figures show Cr Gilligan received 9,490 first-preference votes in the former Chaffey Ward in 2020 — 24.61 per cent of all formal first preferences in a crowded 27-candidate contest — and was the first candidate elected in the ward.
At the 2024 election, after Wyndham moved to 11 single-member wards, he topped a 12-candidate Wimba Ward field with 25.25 per cent of first preferences before finishing with 6,891 votes, or 56.96 per cent, following the distribution of preferences.
Cr Gilligan said becoming Wyndham’s youngest mayor, leading the municipality through the COVID-19 pandemic and later serving as deputy mayor were among the greatest honours of his career.
He also thanked council staff and residents across Tarneit, Hoppers Crossing and Werribee who had supported him over the years.
“There are so many people I owe my success to. You know who you are,” he said.
“Thank you, Wyndham. It has been a pleasure.”
His announcement will add another change to a council that has already experienced considerable turnover and leadership instability in 2026.
Former councillor Jennie Barrera resigned in May, prompting a by-election for Heathdale Ward, while Wyndham has had three mayors during the current mayoral term following Cr Gilligan’s suspension, Cr Singh’s eventual resignation from the mayoralty and Cr Shaw’s election in July.
For Cr Gilligan, however, the decision marks something broader than another chapter in Wyndham’s recent political turbulence.
His farewell reads as a final judgement on a decade spent fighting over how one of Australia’s fastest-growing communities should be planned, funded and governed — and on a local government system he believes has become increasingly hostile to those prepared to challenge it.
He will remain at the council table for another five months.
Then, when Wyndham’s municipal monitors finish their assignment on January 31, Cr Gilligan says his own time at Wyndham City Council will finish with them.
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