Safety Beach

Safety Beach is a residential beach suburb on Mornington Peninsula, 55 km south of Melbourne. It is situated between Dromana and Mount Martha.

Although the water off the beach consists of a large, safe and shallow area, that is not the reason for the name. The naming dates back to the permanent European settlement of Port Phillip when, a few months after the arrival of Batman and Fawkner at Melbourne, the Tasmanian pastoralist John Aitken safely brought on shore a cargo of livestock through the shallow water. He then took up a pastoral run, Mount Aitken, near Sunbury.

Safety Beach is backed by a drainage basin which receives the waters of several streams. It was known as the Kangerong Basin and the name was recorded in the title of Flinders and Kangerong shire (1874-1914). The basin was generally under-regarded as a beach venue, but by the late 1940s Broadbent's guide to Mornington Peninsula noted that Safety Beach was a rapidly growing settlement complete with a store. During the 1990s the first wave of cheaply run-up holiday houses was in the process of being replaced, and behind the housing the Mount Martha country club and golf course were established.

In the early 2000s the Kanerong drainage basin was scooped out and turned into the Martha Cove waterway, a marina with potentially 1150 waterside house sites, although king tides and heavy rain caused Tassels Creek to back flood into some houses.

Safety Beach has a foreshore reserve and beach, a sailing club and three caravan parks off Marine Drive.

Safety Beach's census populations have been: