Point of view

Along for the ride

12/12/2018

Vanessa McGrath, right, aims to create a carpooling community in Bass Coast.

By Vanessa McGrath

WHILE I was living in Europe I often used carpooling apps like BlaBlaCar to get from one city to the next. These apps are different from Uber, as the aim was not for the drivers to make money or to be a replacement taxi. Instead carpooling is about sharing resources more efficiently, making friends and creating a community.

Since returning to the Bass Coast I have tried to make a similar community of carpooling enthusiasts.

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Vale Malcolm Dunn

27/11/2018

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Malcolm Vivyan Dunn was the backbone
of the Kernot community

By Rob Parsons

MALCOLM Dunn died on Saturday November 17 doing what he loved best … riding his beloved motor bike with his Vietnam Veterans MotorCycle Club.

I first met Malcolm when I became his neighbour in July 2013, so I have only known him for the last five years. He was the first person to welcome me into the district, introducing me to the local Kernot farmers lunch group, and helping me with his tractor to lift a heavy fountain into place in my front garden.

Since then I have found out that Malcolm has been the building block of this small community in the hinterland of Bass Coast. With his tractor and bulldozer (his father had one of the first in the area) he helped build the local Kernot Hall, church, tennis courts, playground and covered barbecue. In fact just about everything except the Kernot store. Only a few weeks ago he was helping clean up the Kernot railway reserve with his tractor. He was always helping his neighbours with cutting hay and looking after their cattle and property.

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Reading the riot act

1/11/2018

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Bass Coast’s mobile library will be retired by June 30 next year. West Gippsland Regional Library Corporation has invited mobile library users to suggest replacement services and alternative ideas.

By Joy Button

LAST week I learned the Waterline townships in Bass Coast will lose their mobile library service in June 2019.

It’s just one more example of the Waterline communities being disadvantaged. Imagine the storm that would erupt in Cowes if their library service was closed, and they were offered a replacement service of a trolley load of books to peruse, and a drop-off and pick-up point with a librarian being contactable by telephone.

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A sense of belonging

31/10/2018

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Etsuko Yasunaga on the Inverloch inlet beach, 2018

Etsuko Yasunaga came to Australia with a suitcase, a little savings and a little English. These days she is happy to call Inverloch home.

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My highlands home, my Bass Coast home

19/10/2018

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Jennifer Boer in her PNG highlands garden with friends shortly before
her return to Australia last year.

After eight years in PNG, Jennifer Boer counts her blessings to be living in Cape Paterson – but also recalls a taste of paradise in PNG.

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People like us

4/10/2018

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Graduation day … a photograph of Nicole taken about 18 months before she took her own life.

By Joy Button

MONDAY, September 10, World Suicide Prevention Day ... I spend the day quietly thinking and wondering how my life has come to this. Eleven years after my daughter Nicole chose to end her life, on the day of her birth, at 38 years of age, I still don’t have the answers.

If you had asked me 12 or 13 years ago what I know about depression, I would have said nothing. I had no understanding of mental illness or the cause of such a deep, dark, illness. It is an illness that you cannot see. No scars, no marks, no rash, no visible crutches. Nothing that someone can recognise and say “How sad, that person has depression.”

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Cheers to the local vintage

1/10/2018

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Exhibitors taste wines at the 2018 Gippsland Wine Awards.
All photos by George Pappas

By Dick Wettenhall

LAST month’s annual Gippsland Wine Awards held at Lardner Park served as a reminder of the fine quality of Gippsland wines. Once again, Bass Coast wineries excelled, winning seven out of ten of the best-in-class awards (Purple Hen, Dirty Three, Bass River and The Gurdies Wineries), as well as the major awards for the most successful exhibitor and best red wine (Dirty Three and its 2017 Pinot Noir), and best white wine and best wine of show (The Gurdies Winery’s Orchid Label Chardonnay).

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Get out of our way

16/8/2018

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The 39kw solar system on the Wonthaggi Union Theatre.

Tired of waiting for federal action on climate change, councils and communities - including Bass Coast - are leading the way.

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All at sea

16/8/2018

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Attempts to protect the Inverloch beach lookout with sandbags proved ineffectual. Photo: Susan Hall

As the Coles plastic bag debate raged, Susan Hall watched another plastic disaster unfold on Inverloch beach.

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The waste lands

1/8/2018

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The former St Paul's Boys Home, Newhaven. Photos: Sam Brady

By Pete Granger

RECENTLY I visited the abandoned St Paul’s Boys’ Home at Newhaven. I was amazed at the beauty of the Romanesque buildings and chapel. No problem gaining open access. Doors and windows smashed wide open, graffiti, filth, beautiful timber fittings pilfered. Just appalling. I had to keep reminding myself these openly accessible buildings are listed by the National Trust and on the Victorian Heritage Database.

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A cut too far

1/8/2018

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Councillors have to make some tough choices, but shaving 30 local jobs would diminish our community, argues Neil Rankine.

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Coal-fired hydrogen plan ‘takes prize for stupidity’

19/7/2018

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Part of the 400-strong crowd that protested earlier this month against plans to export liquid hydrogen from the Port of Hastings

By Caroline Giles

THE Westernport Peninsula Protection Council’s award for the stupidest idea of 2018 goes to Daniel Andrew and Malcolm Turnbull for their plan to turn brown coal into hydrogen and export it out of Hastings.

Kawasaki, J Power and Iwatani propose to export hydrogen gas from Hastings made from Loy Yang’s brown coal. This involves partially burning brown coal at Loy Yang.

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They named it Monash

22/6/2018

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John Monash is honoured by a university, a freeway, a scholarship, a $100 million war memorial in France, a bank note and now our federal electorate.

With Monash trumping Bunjileene-Purrine as the new name for our federal electorate, we must find other ways to honour indigenous culture and people, writes Marg Lynn.

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The great unknown

22/6/2018

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By Janice Orchard

LAST week my partner was in hospital in Melbourne and I was staying in an apartment within five minutes’ walk so I could be with him through the day.

At night after visiting hours ended at 8pm I would walk back to my digs. It was on these walks that I found how very long five minutes could be. Very much aware of my surroundings, I held my umbrella and keys in my hands ready to defend myself. Every man on the street made me uneasy. They may have simply been on their way home from work to their own families but I still saw them as a threat.

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Day of reckoning

9/3/2018

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‘Baroness’ Raymonde de Laroche: the first woman to earn a pilot’s licence, in 1910

On International Women's Day, Pamela Rothfield looks forward to the day when no one will be surprised to see a woman driving a petrol tanker.

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The last resort

23/2/2018

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You probably wouldn’t be staying in the Miners Rest Caravan Park or Motel if you had somewhere else to go. With a major redevelopment planned for the landmark Wonthaggi site, Tom McNish finds residents face an uncertain future.

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Island farewells Cherry McFee

12/2/2018

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A young Cherry McFee

By John Eddy

Long-time resident and much-loved Island identity Cherry McFee was farewelled by the Phillip Island community recently at a large funeral at St Philips Anglican Church, Cowes. She was approaching 94.

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Under the boardwalk

1/2/2018

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It’s not for the faint-hearted but diver David Haintz discovers a gorgeous new world beneath the San Remo Pier.

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Don’t miss this boat

31/1/2018

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A car ferry would see Phillip Island evolve from a “dead-end destination” into the new gateway to Bass Coast and beyond, writes Rob Easton.

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Oasis on a crowded planet

15/12/2017

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Photo Linda Cuttriss

The strategies are in place to protect Phillip island for future generations, writes Phil Wright. The question now is whether we have the will.

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Wonthaggi à la mode

15/12/2017

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Fashion collector Ann Dixon pictured at a family wedding. Her daughter Marny says she would have picked up the outfit at an op shop.

An exhibition of vintage couture in Wonthaggi originated in one woman’s passion for fashion.

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A diamond is forever

15/12/2017

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Long-time information centre volunteer Jill Muir with Ursula Theinert (Artspace Wonthaggi president), left, and Marny Javornik (Artspace volunteer).

Born and bred in Wonthaggi, Jill Muir loved to share her knowledge and passion for the area with visitors and newcomers to the town.

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Island ride review

15/12/2017

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Keen city cyclist Paris Pollock and his partner sample the Phillip Island coastal bike trail and find plenty to like and a few niggles.

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Not the retiring kind

28/11/2017

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Sarah Roycroft looks back in wonder on her pre-retirement dreams.

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Out of the shadows

17/11/2017

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Wayne Moloney, left, has been with his partner Keith Ritchie for 48 years.

Bass Coasters reflect on Wednesday’s momentous events when it became clear that the last bastion of official discrimination against LGBTI people was about to fall.

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