Day: September 29, 2015

ANTI-coal activists have rallied outside the Hastings office of local MP and environment minister Greg Hunt for the third time this month. Last Wednesday morning, members of national lobby group GetUp held a “friendly tug-of-war between ‘Team Coal’ dressed in black and ‘Team Coral’ in tropical colours” as part of a campaign to “protect the Great Barrier Reef” and protest about Mr Hunt and the Coalition government allowing more coal projects in the Galilee Basin in Queensland. Sam Regester of GetUp said the playful tug-of-war game “highlighted the serious decision the minister had to make between greater action to protect…

A HASTINGS market day will help raise funds for Impact for Women, an organisation that aims to make a difference for women in crisis. Organiser Jenny Scott said around 30 stallholders would add to the event, which will have face painting for the kids and raffles throughout the day. “International fashion designer Henry Roth will assist on the afternoon, Tyabb Scouts will be cooking, plus we will be running a live auction to help raise money for the cause,” Ms Scott said. The market will be opened by Impact for Women founder Kathy Kaplan OAM. She launched the idea in…

SOMERS Primary School will be transformed into a magical arena of children’s activities, music, food and market stalls for the Somers Arts Fair, Sunday 25 October. A dedicated exhibition space will be filled with artworks by collectable and emerging artists who, each year, create art exclusively for the fair’s art auction. Organisers say the fair is the only event of its kind on the peninsula to combine the festivity of a fair with an exhibition and auction of rich and diverse art. It will run 10am-5pm with the art auction 2pm, at Somers Primary School, 87 Camp Hill Rd, Somers.…

A CORONER’S inquest into the death of Tyabb boy Luke Batty – and the circumstances leading up to the tragedy – has found that it could not have been predicted. Judge Ian Gray said in a 111-page finding released on Monday that the 11-year-old’s death “was not reasonably foreseeable by anyone – including his mother, Rosie Batty”. But Mr Gray noted that circumstances leading up to the event were exacerbated by “a failure to engage [his father Greg] Anderson in the family violence system and make him accountable for his actions”. He also stated: “Luke’s death, from the practicable point…

A MAN’S cry for help broke the early morning stillness of a fishing trip on Western Port Bay early Sunday morning. Standing at the back of his boat, Cranbourne man Howard Fisher strained to pin-point the muffled sound in the dark, every nerve on edge. “I had been asleep in my boat but I woke up and went out and I thought I heard a voice in the water,” he said Monday. “I yelled out: ‘Is someone there?’ and the voice came back again. “Suddenly I could see a couple of men in the water as they drifted down past…