Golden Plains Shire: History
The Shire was formed on 6 May 1994 by the amalgamation of the Shire of Bannockburn (specifically, the territory remaining after part of that Shire was absorbed into the new City of Greater Geelong in May 1993), the Shire of Leigh, the bulk of the Shire of Grenville and part of the Shire of Buninyong. Upon its creation, it was known as the Southern Rural Shire and was intended to exist temporarily until the Local Government Board drew up final council boundaries for the Ballarat region. However, a few months later it was decided to make the municipality permanent, and it was renamed to Golden Plains Shire on 1 October 1994.
In 2025, based on Victorian government statistics for the year ending September 2025, measured by the criminal incident rate per 100,000 population, Golden Plains had the lowest crime rate of any Victorian municipality.