Tuesday, 14 October 2025

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (14:08): I want to give a shout-out to the amazing team at the City of Boroondara and especially Electrify Boroondara for their excellent Electrify Your Life expo that I attended over the weekend. It was so well attended by crowds from across the community this year, and I know that this event has gone from strength to strength each year that the council has hosted it, ably supported by the amazing community activists and community groups that go and present and share their knowledge about how we can bring down emissions by electrifying our home and transport choices. Over the weekend, there was just a huge array of information, very bespoke information, for everyone who was interested in just bringing down emissions at a household level and specialised advice for people in apartments. What I really noticed this year was a huge magnification of the amount of information available about electrifying transport choices. There was heaps of information on switching to an EV. There were e-bike demonstrations and test rides available, and I had a really great conversation with Bicycle Network, who were there, and also the Australian Electric Vehicle Association volunteers, who were so good at answering all of my questions. I also want to give a shout-out to Kew High School for their awesome barbecue, which was an electric barbecue that was powered off an EV that was in the parking lot at the expo. It was a really, really wonderful vibe on the weekend, with so much enthusiasm. The community was out in force. What I love about this event is that there are many people there who have completed their own home electrification journey and are now looking to share the lessons that they have got and the knowledge that they have gained with others, and there is definitely an appetite for getting off gas in Boroondara.