Tuesday, 3 October 2023

Hastings electorate tourism

Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (19:03): (342) My side of the peninsula, or the Ninch, is not always considered, or in fact is not considered, to be a hot tourism destination, and yet there is so much to see and there is so much to offer from the electorate of Hastings and Western Port. We have amazing wetlands with an abundance of native flora and fauna, art galleries, restaurants, walking tracks, bike tracks, wonderful wineries, distilleries and breweries, a plethora of amazing markets with products made solely from locally grown produce, quiet beaches, surf beaches, and of course some of the best boating and fishing anywhere in Australia. Recently I had the pleasure of hosting the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events at the fabulous McClelland Gallery in Langwarrin. The gallery attracts people from all over regional and metro Melbourne as well as tourists from around Australia and indeed the world. It was a pretty quick visit, just enough to whet the minister’s appetite, and there is so much more that I would love to share with him.

So my adjournment matter is to the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, and the action I seek is to ask the minister to make some time in his diary to come down again, but this time further down in my electorate to the small township of Somers, and specifically to come along to the amazing heritage-listed Coolart homestead. The Coolart homestead is a beautiful example of late Victorian architecture dating from 1895. The surrounding formal gardens and lawns feature native and exotic plants, perfect for a stroll or a picnic or a wedding, a music festival or a film festival. The late Tom Luxton purchased Coolart in 1937 and immediately had the property declared a sanctuary for native wildlife. In 1938 the then curator of Footscray gardens David Matthews redesigned the garden for Coolart, and this is the design enjoyed by visitors at Coolart today. The farmyard outbuildings are even older than the homestead, originating from the early days of settlement when Coolart was farming and grazing land. One of Coolart’s oldest buildings is the barracks, built in the 1860s. Coolart was bought by the Victorian government in 1977 in recognition of its historic buildings and significant wetlands. I look forward to showing the minister this magnificent homestead and one of Somers’s best tourism destinations.