The council was sacked by the Andrews Government in May 2016 after allegations of bullying, with administrators installed to manage city and council affairs as well as to remove cultural problems that led to the sacking.

[6] While all other local government areas in Victoria went to the polls in November 2016 as per usual, Geelong did not.

Instead, a Citizen's Jury was established to help determine a way forward, including deciding on the structure a future council should take.

Eventually, legislation was introduced and passed the Victorian Parliament to bring forward elections to October 2017 instead of 2020, as was originally planned.

They were as follows: Proportional representation was introduced at the 2017 election, with instant-runoff voting used previously.