Thank you for your participation on the renaming consultation for Officer District Park! We are excited to accounce the official new name is Torongo Park! After Council endorsement and formal registration from Geographical Naming Victoria, the park will hereafter be referred to and promoted as Torongo Park.

The name Torongo is significant because it means “heart” in the Bunurong language. This name was chosen to recognise and reflect the cultural and historical importance of the area, as well as to honour the Bunurong people and their connection to the land. Learn more about the renaming results and process below.

Consultation was open from 13 May - 10 June 2024, where the broader community was given an update on the progress of the project and asked to vote for their preferred name.

Torongo Park has been endorsed by Council as the new name of the park at the Council Meeting on 19 August 2024 and has been formally registered by Geographical Naming Victoria. The park is set to open to the public late 2024 - follow along for construction updates to stay informed.

It was always envisaged that Officer District Park was just a working title and would not be the ultimate name for the park. Community members are being invited to get involved in the process of choosing the ultimate name by voting for their preferred choice.

The park site slopes steeply to the north, south and west with a clear “look-out” point in the centre. This ridgeline extends east along skyline Drive. This ridgeline is the last high point before the land levels out towards Western Port. For this reason, it would have been a significant lookout point for the Traditional Owners.

As a culturally significant site, it was deemed appropriate and desirable for the ultimate name to be in Bunurong Language. As a first step in the process of developing a list of potential names for the park, the Parks Planning Team took up the opportunity to attend the Cardinia Koori kids celebration day in September 2022 to engage with more than 200 Koorie students from 21 different local schools from across Cardinia Shire. As part of this day, students were invited to learn more about the cultural significance and history of the proposed Officer District Park site and what the plans were for its future.

The students were given a list of relevant words in Bunurong Language, along with the English translation which they could use for inspiration or suggest their own. These were then grouped to create a shortlist.

Council officers then contacted Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation to seek their feedback on the suitability of the shortlisted names, confirm the language and meanings were correct and to seek their endorsement of the use of the language for this purpose. This process has now been completed and the feedback of the broader community is being sought to determine which of the potential names becomes the ultimate name for the park. All names being proposed are traditional names in Bunurong Language.

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