Blog Posts

Copping a spray

17/8/2016

By Geoff Ellis

FRANKENSTEIN wasn't the first scientist to have the next best thing become the exact opposite. He won’t be the last. Glyphosate-based products have long been the standard for weed control. Now concerns are being raised about their long-term effect. The jury is still out so, for once, perhaps we should take a cautious approach. Remember DDT?

0 Comments

Gippsland's hall of fame

13/8/2016

0 Comments

By Geoff Ellis

LAST month members of the Bass Coast South Gippsland Reconciliation Group stood in the Sale Entertainment Centre trying to make sense of the motto on a crest. “MISERIS SUCCURRERE DISCO”.

It’s in the detail of one of six plaques by Annemieke Mein commemorating famous Gippslanders. This plaque was the last item on our itinerary; the final monument to honour Angus McMillan.

0 Comments

120 Respite Drive

16/7/2016

0 Comments

Nice work if you can get it

4/6/2016

0 Comments

Geoff Ellis looks back fondly to the days when employment services found jobs for people.

0 Comments

Petrol price puzzles

6/5/2016

0 Comments

By Geoff Ellis

RECENTLY I drove to Cranbourne and back in a morning. At Wonthaggi unleaded petrol was 115.9 cents (Brand A, Brand B and Brand C). At Bass, 34 kilometres away, unleaded petrol was 96.9 cents (Brand B). At Tooradin it was 91.9 cents for e10 petrol (Brand D). Nineteen kilomtres up the road from Tooradin, ULP was 90.9 cents with a voucher (Brand B).

0 Comments

Spoilt for choice

9/4/2016

0 Comments

Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak

By Geoff Ellis
April 9, 2016

"ANY customer can have a car painted any colour they like ... so long as it is black," Henry Ford (inventing the mandatory option) in 1909.*

“We should buy a Betamax VCR.” Geoff Ellis (planning to get married), ca 1982.

0 Comments

A flicker on the hill

26/3/2016

0 Comments

Put Ricky Muir first and a politician second, urges Geoff Ellis.

0 Comments

Home and hosed

5/3/2016

0 Comments

After 10 years of talk and planning, The Cape estate is starting to take shape. Developer Brendan Condon sells Geoff Ellis on the benefits of eco-houses.

0 Comments

The inside story

27/2/2016

0 Comments

Cartoon: Natasha Williams-Novak

The passionate local people who staff Wonthaggi’s visitor information centre are the best possible advertisement for the area.

0 Comments

Man versus nature

13/2/2016

0 Comments

Geoff Ellis’s tree change has thrown up surprising challenges. Some of them have eight legs.

0 Comments

Back to the daily grind

3/1/2016

0 Comments

A month of relentless eating leads to a month of remorseful sweating for Geoff Ellis, who finds his mind wandering in strange places.

0 Comments

Tales of tragedy and triumph

12/12/2015

0 Comments

Pam Rothfield tells Geoff Ellis the stories behind some of the graves in the historic Phillip Island cemetery.

0 Comments

Oceans without borders

28/11/2015

0 Comments

A Wonthaggi-based organisation is leading a citizen science project aimed at cleaning up sewage outfalls around Australia.

0 Comments

That sinking feeling

14/11/2015

0 Comments

The prospect of the State Government placing the first order for water from the Wonthaggi desalination plant has opened some old wounds, reports Geoff Ellis.

Neil Rankine (back row, left), Vilya Congreave (blue jacket, centre of back row) and Jessica Harrison (red cap, right of the row) at a blockade of the desalination site, July 8, 2008. Photo: Catherine Watson

0 Comments

A Waterline mystery

7/11/2015

0 Comments

By Geoff Ellis

LAST year, while cleaning out his Grantville shed, Allan George found something that doesn’t belong to him. In the bottom of a box was a Dead Man’s Penny that commemorated the death of John Andrew Cunningham. This plaque had been issued to the soldier’s Father, William Cunningham, of Malvern, in May, 1923.

0 Comments

Someone to watch over us

31/10/2015

0 Comments

On a visit to Grantville cemetery, Geoff Ellis discovered its occupants are in trusted hands.

0 Comments

Old habits die hard

15/10/2015

0 Comments

Geoff Ellis farewells the chips and chocolates.

0 Comments

Bimbadeen, place of good view

30/8/2015

0 Comments

Climate change is just the latest challenge for Bob and Anne Davie. Geoff Ellis reports on a Ventnor couple who have always faced up to the ethical, economic and environmental challenges of farming.

0 Comments

Taking the long view

20/6/2015

0 Comments

Farming is big business for Caleb and Shiona Berry, and that includes planning for a more sustainable future, writes GEOFF ELLIS.

0 Comments

Fields of broken dreams

23/5/2015

0 Comments

Migrant Pea Pickers, US, 1938. Photo: Dorothea Lange

Consumers should use their wallets as an agent of change to demand fair working conditions for all, writes GEOFF ELLIS.

0 Comments

Pastures of plenty

23/5/2015

0 Comments

Brian Enbom and his beefies on his Jumbunna property

Like all good farmers, Brian Enbom always has another thing to do. Our local Landcarer of the year fits more into a day than seems humanly possible, writes GEOFF ELLIS.

0 Comments

In the blood

9/5/2015

0 Comments

“Have you gone raving mad? I mean, I came here in all good faith, to help my country. I don't mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint?” Tony Hanock in The Blood Donor.

GEOFF ELLIS rolls up his sleeve and reflects on his family heritage, good and bad.

0 Comments

Everyone's a loser

14/3/2015

0 Comments

Cows are not the only victims of the modern dairy industry, writes GEOFF ELLIS.

0 Comments

Forward>>

Geoff Ellis

Geoff Ellis is a Bass Coast Shire Councillor, Chairperson of the West Gippsland Regional Library Corporation Board, delegated member of the Bass Coast South Gippsland Reconciliation Group, supporter of South Gippsland Rural Australians for Refugees, member of the South Coast Inclusion Network (LGTI reference group), Chair of the BCSC Access and Inclusion Advisory Committee, member of the Unemployed Workers Union and is currently a non-financial member of the ALP.

Copping a spray

Gippsland's hall of fame

120 Respite Drive

Nice work if you can get it

Petrol price puzzles

Spoilt for choice

A flicker on the hill

Home and hosed

The inside story

Man versus nature

Back to the daily grind

Tales of tragedy and triumph

Oceans without borders

That sinking feeling

A Waterline mystery

Someone to watch over us

Old habits die hard

Bimbadeen, place of good view

Taking the long view

Fields of broken dreams

Pastures of plenty

In the blood

Everyone's a loser

Geoff Ellis

Archives

Categories