Member's Statement: Port Phillip EcoCentre

Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — On Sunday, 23 October, my colleague Nina Springle and I attended the annual general meeting of the Port Philip EcoCentre. It was wonderful to hear from president Pam O'Neill and executive officer April Seymore about the achievements of the eco-centre for the past year and its plans for the future. Back in the 1990s the seeds of the eco-centre were sown by the members of Earthcare St Kilda, which held its meetings and kept its equipment for its local indigenous plantings and the St Kilda penguin study, now in its 30th year, in the original building, a 1966 brick veneer at the corner of the Saint Kilda Botanical Gardens, which was the base for the gardens and for City of Port Phillip parks staff.

The vision for the eco-house back then was to transform the house and garden into a model sustainable building that would provide education and inspiration to the wider community, acting as a seed for further change. It is absolutely amazing to see today how that vision has been more than achieved. The Port Phillip EcoCentre is a hub for environmental education and community action around Victoria and Australia. The eco-centre runs dozens of programs and projects, concentrating on education and community action. It has run programs in 67 schools, and thousands of people have participated in its programs and volunteered for it over the past year. It is fantastic to see how dynamic and influential the eco-centre has become, and I pay tribute to the hundreds of staff and volunteers who have made that possible since it was launched in 1999.