Blog Posts

Plaza rally ban irks refugee group

10/10/2019

Shopping centres might be privately owned enterprises but they should also be civic spaces where people gather to discuss the issues of the day, argues Felicia Di Stefano

Refugee advocates outside the Wonthaggi Plaza in happier times.
Photo: Geoff Ellis

By Felicia Di Stefano

WE WERE kicked out of the Wonthaggi Plaza last month. For over two years a local refugee support group, South Gippsland Rural Australians for Refugees, had been meeting outside the plaza for an hour on the first Saturday of each month.

We distribute information about refugees, explaining why they need to flee their birthland, to inform people about the current treatment of refugees, films we are screening, and to have various petitions and letters signed.

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This working life

28/9/2019

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Illustration Ralph Ammer

Low pay, irregular hours, no job security … welcome to the precarious world of work for an increasing number of Australians.

By Kaz

I HAVE been in the workforce for 32 years, longer if you include the babysitting and cleaning jobs I did as a high school student. Despite two university degrees in education and the arts, most of my professional working life has been shaped by short term contracts, casual employment and small gigs such as running workshops as a sole trader.

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Here, for the long run

27/9/2019

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September 15, 2019. More than a thousand trail runners came together in races from 2km to 50km in the inaugural Phillip Island Festival of running. Photos Roland Pick, Phillip Island Nature Parks

From the relief of finishing to the joy of winning, three local runners describe their experience of the inaugural Phillip Island Festival of Running.

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It’s our future

14/9/2019

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Not happy: students and supporters at Wonthaggi's climate strike

Wonthaggi student Jessie Harrison explains why she’ll be joining next week’s global climate strike.

Post: How much do you worry about climate change?

Jessie: I worry quite often. Every day there are more reports on the news: the hottest day on record. The other day I heard a report that we have only 18 months to act to reverse climate change and become carbon neutral or else there’s no return.
Our generation will be hit the worst with climate change, with hotter summers and colder winters, bigger floods and melting ice signifying just the beginning. I want to be able to live to an old age without experiencing the worst impacts of climate change.

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Hard times

12/9/2019

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Ian Simmons describes the shock of trying to survive on
the Newstart allowance.

By Ian Simmons

WE ARRIVED in Melbourne from the UK in 1988. Within three days I was in a full-time management role and I continued in various management roles until 2016.

In 2011, with the children having finished school, we were ready for a lifestyle change. My wife left her job to supervise the completion of our new house in South Gippsland. I was working as Gippsland territory manager and my salary could support our lifestyle.

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Reflections on the nature of a climate emergency

31/8/2019

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Uncle Rob Bundle and Tucker Hayes on the Cowes jetty. Photo: Nicki Johnson

If we’re not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge, we must come together as a community, to listen to the environment and to one another.

Dr Laura Brearley

ACCORDING to the Climate Emergency website, 800 local councils around the globe have declared climate emergencies, 43 of them in Australia. Last week, Bass Coast Shire Council became one of them.

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On catastrophe

17/8/2019

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Photo: CSIRO

By Ed Thexton

A FEW weeks ago, at the Inverloch library I picked up Black Saturday – Not the End of the Story by Peg Fraser, a cultural history of a small place, Strathewen, with an extraordinary story.

In this Museum Victoria publication about the afternoon of Saturday February 9, 2009, I could hear the voices of Barry, Barbara and Bronwyn as they spoke of a day, or more precisely a few hours of a day, that changed them. Like the expanding ripples from a pebble thrown into water, it also changed me.

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Think big

20/7/2019

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Bicycle path over highway overpass, Fujian province, China

What do we want Phillip Island to be like in 50 years? Phil Wright reckons the Distinctive Areas and Landscapes project enables us to think big.

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The banana files

20/7/2019

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“Who owns the banana?”

Wonthaggi's Maddy Harford and Harry Freeman found themselves on the wrong side of the law when they crossed the border.

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A breath of fresh air

20/7/2019

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By Joan Woods

OUR mayor Brett Tessari has called for community input into plans for Wonthaggi’s activity centre, including the water-logged Apex Park. I wonder if all that is required is a few more drains?

Apparently this is all about preparing for the influx of new people to our town and to bring more people into the town centre.

However, if Apex Park is “tidied up” too much with concrete and tar (the preferred improvements for townships), the Australian character of Wonthaggi will disappear. Do we want to be a proxy suburb of a big city?

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VCAT, your bias is showing

4/7/2019

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Peter McKenzie looks over the site designated for 93 housing blocks.

By Peter McKenzie

SINCE 2016, Reed Crescent on the south side of Wonthaggi has been under threat of a totally inappropriate development of 93 new house blocks. These would be squeezed into the paddock between the cemetery and the Rifle Range wetlands, from the back of Reed Crescent properties up to and around the transfer station.

Despite very limited public information, locals found out about the project and 28 objected to it. Objections were based on a multitude of problems. The proposal was for a single access road (Dowson Drive) to the estate, leading all traffic onto Reed Crescent, a narrow road with dangerously deep drains on either side.

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Sometimes trash is just trash

20/6/2019

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The op shop can sometimes be seen as a place of palliative care for items whose time really has come

By Roderick McIvor

MANY people say Hadden House in Bass is their favourite op shop. It has very reasonable prices. Most clothes are $2 an item or all that you can stuff in a bag for $5. Sited as it is in the old teacher’s residence, it offers a lot of nooks and crannies to show off the vast range of items that an op shop has on offer. With its shed for furniture and larger items, many people find visiting can become habit-forming. That’s wonderful for the Bass Valley Community Centre, which depends on the shop’s earnings to fund its services, particularly those supporting older and more isolated people in our community.

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As good as new

13/6/2019

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Hilary Stuchbery adjusts the tuning keys on a ukulele while Robert Mesley clamps a chair after regluing it.

By Hilary Stuchbery

YOUR favourite old chair’s developed a wobble and you fear it’s about to collapse. Your bedside lamp keeps blowing the globes. And the battery on your cordless drill won’t hold a charge.

We all have times when it seems everything is breaking down. These days you can’t just take them to be repaired. Even with major items like refrigerators and televisions, it’s much easier – and cheaper – to replace than to repair.

But what if you could learn to fix them yourself? That’s the idea behind Wonthaggi’s new Fixit Café, a joint initiative of the Wonthaggi Neighbourhood Centre at Mitchell House and The Wonthaggi Men’s Shed.

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A simple fix for disappearing beaches?

1/6/2019

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East Cowes beach. Photo: Bernie McComb

By Bernie McComb

THIS is about coastal erosion. It’s to challenge the usual solutions involving “world’s best practice” ideas, from the biggest consultancies, usually involving a huge budget and huge concrete and/or rock walls.

Recently, it’s been reported that $29 million is needed to protect properties at east Cowes from storm surge inundation. It’s said that sea level rise is the cause of the problem, either this or the level of the beach is falling.

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‘Despair is the conclusion of fools’

1/6/2019

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In shock on election night, refugee advocate Felicia Di Stefano has since joined the Labor Party and has returned to campaigning for resettlement of refugees.

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A faint glow on the hill

1/6/2019

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The despair of election night has been replaced by a cautious optimism for Marg Lynn, an advocate for greater indigenous recognition.

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‘Now it's up to us’

1/6/2019

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In despair and contemplating a move to NZ on election night, climate activist Maddy Harford has calmed down and plans to continue working for action in her local community.

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‘One for the silent majority’

1/6/2019

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For Conservative Pamela Jacka, the joy of election night has been followed by a quiet satisfaction in the new Coalition ministry, including 11 women – without the need for quotas.

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'Don't blame us for the woes of capitalism’

1/6/2019

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Down but not out after the election, Jessica Harrison vows to continue her campaign for those living in poverty on the Newstart allowance.

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A 'double whammy'

1/6/2019

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The sense of loss remains after the election but refugee advocate Anne Davie vows to fight on for the most vulnerable.

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Stories of fear and hope

31/5/2019

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The school built by Afghan refugees in Indonesia, a scene from The Staging Post

By Felicia Di Stefano

MANY of us have run away from something. I remember as a child running from a German shepherd in a market garden and the relief when I climbed back to safety through the hole in the tall cyclone fence. I also remember running from a boy in our Wroclaw street after I had kicked his leg hard when he had called me a dirty Jew. Then in 1959 my whole family ran away from Poland to land safely and gratefully in Australia.

In recent years Wonthaggi has welcomed South Sudanese and Karen refugees. The Sudanese ran from their homelands, family and friends, leaving behind all their possessions, when their government dropped bombs and destroyed all that human endeavour had created on their lands.

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Mind over matter

29/5/2019

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From psychotherapy to house building, Ron Lee was
a quiet achiever.

By Margaret Lee

PSYCHOTHERAPIST Ron Lee was writing, teaching, supervising and treating patients until six months before he died at home in The Gurdies in April, aged 89.

At the time he died, he was working on a book encapsulating his 50 years of treating patients in Australia and the US. The overarching theme of his practice was to understand pathological narcissism and how to treat it.

Ron was born in Melbourne on February 9 1930. He came to psychotherapy via a circuitous route. In his teens he worked as an instrument technician for TAA at Essendon Airport before going back to school at the age of 20 to complete his schooling and train for the Methodist ministry.

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The vision thing

15/5/2019

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By Ed Thexton

I READ a lot about vision and the fact that no party has a vision for the country. Don’t we really want to know that the things beyond the control or influence of the individual are being managed for our betterment? That amongst other things, past wrongs are righted; corporate regulation is effective and the government of the day looks beyond benefitting their partisan support groups and uses their position and our nation’s resources to enrich all our lives by addressing the needs of the marginalised. If, however you are fixated on a vision and you’re satisfied with a vision as a slogan, then Mr Morrison, the advertising man, is the one for you.

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A market with a heart

2/5/2019

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By Bert Weitering

THE Corinella Community Market is humble and unassuming, like its volunteer organisers. It cannot and will not compete with the fancy and trendy setups of other local farmers’ markets, but it is about community and spirit.

The market’s origins emerge from that spirit of community. It supports our local producers: Sweetbee honey, produce from Macca’s farm, Coronet Bay free range eggs and service with a smile.

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It's party time in Ventnor

2/5/2019

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Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak

By Tess Moore

IT’S 3am, a full moon and wildlife party time in Ventnor.

There is no breeze tonight and no clouds. It's very bright and the lack of wind accentuates the sound of animals going about their nocturnal activities.

Possum, who sleeps under the solar panels, has come to life as he runs along the roof, launches himself onto the car port and into the netted orange tree in an attempt to get at the ripe oranges.

Unbeknownst to him we picked them all earlier in the day.

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