Geoff Lake is Monash Council’s longest-serving councillor. He represents Gallaghers Ward which covers part of Glen Waverley - the suburb where he grew up and attended school.
A barrister at the Victorian Bar, he specialises in commercial, planning and employment law.
Since his first election, Geoff has worked hard to improve services and facilities across the City of Monash while keeping rates as low as possible. Monash now has the lowest council rates in Victoria – an outcome he has worked hard to secure.
Geoff has played a prominent role at the local, state and national levels – including serving as President of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) and President of the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV). As part of his role as President of ALGA, Geoff was a full member of the Council of Australian Governments (now called the National Cabinet) and represented Australian councils there alongside the Prime Minister and state and territory leaders.
Appearing regularly in the media, Geoff has delivered a televised live address to the National Press Club on local government reform and was a regular on ABC TV’s News Breakfast Program to review the daily newspapers. He also appeared fortnightly on Tom Elliott’s 3AW Drive program to present ‘Council Watch’.
Away from local government, he has served on various boards, including as chair of a large industry superannuation fund, the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (now Fire Rescue Victoria), a water corporation board, the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST), and he was the founding chair of the Alliance for Gambling Reform.
At the age of 22, Geoff became the youngest person ever to be a mayor in Victoria when he was elected mayor of Monash Council. As mayor, he exposed councillors at the South East Regional Waste Management Group who were travelling for no purpose and at ratepayer expense to extravagant places all over the world. He took on these vested interests on behalf of all ratepayers and stopped these junkets and the wastage of public money.
He was the first mayor to choose not to wear the mayoral robes and he ended the use of the ‘Your Worship’ title and the pretentious ‘MON1’ personalised registration plates on the mayoral car.
He has since served three further terms as mayor.
Geoff believes in effective, transparent, accountable and responsible government and he has pursued greater efficiency throughout the Council’s operations. He has also championed initiatives to strengthen services for vulnerable and disadvantaged people in Monash and has been a prominent advocate for reducing the harm caused by poker machines and gambling advertising in Monash and across Victoria.
For the 2024-28 Council term, Geoff’s key priorities are to deliver the new $100 million+ Glen Waverley Library and Civic Project (fully funded from reserves and the State Government’s acquisition of Council land for the Glen Waverley Suburban Rail Loop Station) and to focus on Council’s future economic sustainability by prioritising service delivery to areas of greatest community benefit.
Geoff is a member of the following committees: