"It was quite a night" said the 68-year-old.

"The whole council chamber was packed, and everyone just stood up and screamed."

Jump forward three decades and Ms Ord, and the woman who followed her, Winsome McCaughey, remain Melbourne's only female lord mayors.

Nominations for next months's council elections closed on Tuesday.

And with just one female candidate standing for lord mayor of Melbourne – and the incumbent, Robert Doyle the unbackable favourite – 1989 appears likely to remain the last time a woman sat in the big chair at Town Hall.

The Greens' Olivia Ball is the sole female lord mayoral candidate this time around (a Green was also the only woman candidate in 2012 too).

Neither Ms Ord – once from Labor's Socialist Left – nor Ms McCaughey belong to the Greens but on Tuesday, at the Greens' policy launch, both threw their support behind Ms Ball.

Both said it was ridiculous that it was so long since a woman had led Town Hall. The city's first mayor was elected 174 years ago.

"In Australia, we seem to be going backwards in terms of our representation of women," said Ms McCaughey.

She said the Greens had also committed to not taking developer donations, and to being transparent about who was giving them money.

At the 2012 election, lord mayor Robert Doyle took donations of almost $400,000 – much of it from property developers.

This time around Cr Doyle has vowed not to accept any donations from developers.

But Cr Doyle has demoted two women in his camp, pushing both his deputy Susan Riley and councillor Beverley Pinder-Mortimer on to hard-to-win spots on his ticket.

Meanwhile, the wheels came off the campaign for lord mayor of former Brotherhood of St Laurence candidate Nic Frances Gilley on Tuesday.

Mr Frances Gilley had intended to run for lord mayor. Instead, he made a mistake on his forms and can now only run as a candidate for one of the nine council spots.

A Victorian Electoral Commission spokesman said that Mr Frances Gilley "had made a mistake", thinking he was nominating for lord mayor.

The VEC declined to change his nomination after the official closing time.

More successful was current councillor Ken Ong, who has nominated for lord mayor.

Sue Morphet, the former chief executive of Bonds undie maker Pacific Brands, is standing as Mr Ong's deputy.

Cr Ong has also recruited Philip Liu, who ran for the Liberal Party in the seat of Melbourne in this year's election and finished second behind the Green's Adam Bandt.

Cr Ong said that Cr Doyle was showing signs of not being a "real Liberal Party" ticket, by putting Nick Reece, a former deputy chief of staff to Labor premier John Brumby and strategy director for prime minister Julia Gillard, high on his Town Hall ticket.

And he said Cr Doyle had "poorly treated" the female members of his team.

Councillor Stephen Mayne said Cr Ong was the only real prospective challenger to Cr Doyle, and it was a pity Team Doyle's female councillors had been put in precarious spots that would be hard to win.

He said they should be moved up and another sitting councillor, Kevin Louey, dropped down.

Melbourne does not have a ward system, meaning candidates need a high profile – or serious money to spend on mail-outs and campaigning – to win over the council's 133,000 voters.

Businesses in the council area get two votes, meaning they get 60 per cent of the power, leaving residents with 40 per cent.

Docklands resident and retired company director Ron Hunt on Tuesday nominated for Lord Mayor, saying that he wanted to take on Cr Doyle. "It's not his personal fiefdom. I would really like to see the back of him," he said.

Nominations for all of Victoria's councils closed on Tuesday.

Melbourne's outer suburban councils - such as Wyndham, which had 95 nominations for 11 councillor positions, or Casey with 84 nominations for 11 spots - were the most keenly contested.

In the ward featuring high-profile candidate Intaj Khan, there was almost 40 candidates nominated.

Candidates for lord mayor of Melbourne

• Olivia Ball, deputy Roxane Ingleton
• Robert Doyle, deputy Arron Wood
• Phil Cleary, deputy Junxi Su
• Gary Morgan, deputy Michael O'Brien
• Ron Hunt, deputy Doone Clifton
• Ken Ong, deputy Sue Morphet