26-3-09 Long time Altona resident and environmental activist Nessie Hardy was recently recognised for her services to the Victorian community. The Nessie Hardy, as she was often known, was one of twenty women inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women for 2009, during a ceremony held at the Victorian Arts Centre on the 5th of March with her daughters in attendance.

She was honoured for her instrumental role in reforming the environmental practices of the petrochemical industry at the Altona Chemical Complex and helping to establish the Truganina Explosives reserve as a park within the City of Hobson's Bay. Passionate on many issues, Nessie always sought to bring people together, whether it was residents and the petrochemical industry or members from different religious traditions. She took a keen interest in cleaning up soil and groundwater contamination in the Altona area, improving public transport in the western suburbs and better informing the community in a range of health, safety and environmental issues.

Greens MP, Sue Pennicuik, who nominated Nessie for inclusion on the Honour Roll, said of her " Nessie wasn't a trained chemist. She was an ordinary woman from the local community who cared about the impacts that the chemical plants in her area were having on the people who lived in their shadow and on the local environment and she wanted to do something about it. She patiently chipped away at that (the initial resistance of the chemical industry) in her very nice way. She wasn't conflict or ego driven, and she wasn't confrontational. She played a big part in the industry becoming more responsible. She cared. She really did care about people and the environment."

Nessie Hardy left her community better than she found it. She died of cancer on the 17th of January 2007, aged 70 years.