Review BlueScope’s rates freeze
The BlueScope steelworks site at Hastings has an interesting history (BlueScope’s ‘land bank’ value one reason for takeover rejection, The News 14/1/26).
Originally orchards and farms, the land at Long Island Point in Hastings was chosen by John Lysaght Australia Ltd in a joint venture with BHP and Guest, Keens and Nettlefolds Ltd to build a new steelworks.
In 1967, Lysaghts used a dummy company called Mellon Nominees to buy 1700 acres at Hastings for $2,000 per acre – total $3.4m.
In 1969, Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte approved 184 acres of coastal foreshore, 963 acres of Western Port seabed and 3200 metres of water frontage to the project while Lysaghts had to surrender 193 acres of land where Devilbend Golf Club now stands.
In 1972, Premier Bolte signed the Western Port (Steel Works Rating) Act 1972 to set the land rates for the steelworks site at $190,000 rising annually to $840,000 in 1983 – Hastings Shire Council had opposed rate concessions for Lysaghts and sought annual land rates up to $3m.
In 1979, Lysaghts became a subsidiary of BHP and in 2003 BHP Steel was renamed BlueScope Steel.
Today, the BlueScope land at Hastings has an implied value of $1b yet the land rates remain at $840,000 per annum in perpetuity – no increase since 1983.
Mornington Peninsula Shire seems hesitant to write to the Victorian government to amend the Act to allow BlueScope to contribute higher land rates in the future.
How many residents on the Mornington Peninsula have paid the same annual land rates for over 40 years?
Mornington Peninsula Shire is currently conducting a Rating Strategy Review to determine how our rates are calculated.
Public feedback closes on Sunday 15 February 2026 for anybody wishing to submit their suggestions – e.g. ensure all commercial and industrial property owners are paying their fair share.
There will be a public hearing held on Thursday 19 February 2026 for residents who make written submissions.
shape.mornpen.vic.gov.au/rating-strategy-review
Dale Stohr, Crib Point
Monitors arrive
State-appointed monitors will oversee council operations for the next 12 months – a clear signal that all is not running smoothly. Their presence is a not-so-subtle nudge that the council isn’t exactly winning any efficiency awards.
The move follows ongoing concerns about council operations and very public disagreements among councillors. While Victorian councils usually run their own show, these monitors now have a front-row seat, keeping an eye on day-to-day decisions and ensuring nothing is quietly swept under the carpet.
Residents are already watching closely. Many want a council that runs efficiently — not one marked by confusion, letters to the editor, and simmering frustration on local Facebook pages. Something is clearly amiss. The monitors’ role is to review procedures, offer guidance, and report back to the Minister.
Officials stress this is not about punishment, but about restoring confidence in local governance. Even so, the message is unmistakable: the council has work to do, and how it responds from here will matter.
Anne Kruger, Rye
Road pavement subsiding
On the Esplanade in Mornington, about 200 metres north of Bentons Rd, there is a very noticeable and dangerous safety concern developing. The pavement at this location has been subsiding for three months or more to where it now upsets the travelling vehicle suddenly and violently.
Shire employees, pavement inspector together with councillors who travel on this road must be aware of this situation, so why has this not been attended to?
I do understand this is not a shire road but a state road, therefore the responsibility rest with VicRoads, but I would have expected that through the shire they have by now been alerted to this situation.
Questions that need to be answered is what is happening?
It would appear that the sub grade and the pavement base layers are being affected by some thing/things that is causing the ground to settle. Are there service conduits (ie water mains, service cables and or drainage culverts) in this location?
We do not want an other McCrae landslide, where apparently concerns where ignored or discounted.
Gerard van de Ven, Mount Martha
Homeless demands
Your last week’s headline is intriguing (Community leaders demand homeless action, The News 13/1/26).
Apparently our shire leaders demand action, but only by somebody else (i.e. the state gov’t), not by themselves. It doesn’t take much effort to make a demand.
When the shire council was proposing the 2025-2026 budget, I searched the available documents for the word “homeless” – couldn’t find it. That may be an indication of the shire’s own efforts.
In the same vein, I have several good chairs that I really want to give to homeless people when and if they need them. I have contacted more than one local charity and always received the response “no thanks”. Does anybody know how to donate the chairs to needy recipients?
Lee Seldon, Somers
Clean up rubbish
It was disappointing to read about the litter problem at Safety Beach (Beach rubbish, Letters 20/1/26). Keep Australia Beautiful works hard each year to address the problem, but clearly the message falls on many deaf ears. Perhaps it is time to revive the “Do the Right Thing” campaign of the 1970s, updated for modern audiences and platforms, with the simple message: leave nothing but footprints.
Ultimately, we must value our natural heritage more. If Mornington Peninsula beaches achieved international Blue Flag status, they would be Australia’s first, joining more than 5000 sites worldwide recognised for water quality, environmental management, education and safety. Has the Shire Council considered this?
Protecting our marine environment — especially from ourselves — must be a priority.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn
Action on antisemitism
Your correspondent M.G. Free (Labor inaction, Letters 14/1/26) refers to me as a “failed” Labor candidate. Yep, in 2016 I stood as a Labor candidate in Kooyong, then one of the Blue Ribbon Liberal seats, against then Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and again in 2022 in Kew against Tim Smith.
I stood in both knowing I had a snowflake’s chance in hell of being elected but given my belief in democracy stood to give Labor supporters someone to vote for.
I like to think I helped pave the way for Monique Ryan. I enjoyed a very convivial relationship with Josh Frydenberg, even meeting him for coffee after the election. I don’t know why that should preclude me from expressing opinions through The News.
However just to remind Mr Free of some of what the Labor government has done for Australian Jews just in the last year – they have provided:
- Over $100m to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) to enhance security at Jewish schools, synagogues, and community sites
- $50m “from the Securing Faith-Based Places” grant program.
- $8.5m to the Sydney Jewish Museum to boost education on antisemitism
- $250,00 for the replacement of Torah Scrolls at the Adass Israel Synagogue.
In addition, the government has moved to criminalise doxing and established the Special Envoy position with a budget of $1m. Given estimates of number of Jews in Australia are around 110,000 that is a fairly substantive amount of money for a small group.
Marg D’Arcy, Rye
Jewish writers
I appreciate Marg D’Arcy’s letter (Community voice, Letters 13/1/26) and her wish that we should have balanced and nuanced conversations (referring to the cancelled Adelaide Writers Festival). This is a wonderful sentiment which I wish had been applied.
In the Australian Financial Review recently (16/1/26) author Lee Kofman wrote, “Considering that Abdel-Fattah- known for her hateful rhetoric towards Zionists and for her part in the doxxing of Jews – will appear in the 2027 Adelaide Writer’ Week, this must include programming Jewish voices in fair rather than tokenistic ways… even to be removed from a program is actually a privilege. It is a privilege most Jewish writers in Australia don’t even possess, simply because we are not invited in the first place”.
Perhaps Ms D’Arcy would consider purchasing the book Lee has edited: “Ruptured: Jewish Women In Australia Reflect on Life Post-October 7”. It was a publication that was not accepted by any festivals, except for one small one.
Then she can talk about nuance.
Tania Kaye, Balnarring Beach
Rooming houses
There are plenty of new rooming houses being built in Frankston which shows that there is a rooming house boom taking place.
This will mean better quality rooming houses are being built to give tenants better quality housing.
Rooming houses are very profitable and are exempt from land tax.
There needs to be seen if rents will go down to make rooms more affordable as more rooming houses mean more competition and the market price for rooms should be lower.
The government should faze out the old suburban houses which are converted to 9 rooms which do not come under the Frankston Council’s planning scheme which are of poor quality and the government should encourage free enterprise to build more new rooming houses which come under the Frankston Council’s planning scheme.
Russell Morse, Karingal
Tragedy not preventable
In the aftermath of the Bondi attack, the immediate political response was predictable: “this should never have happened.” The fact is that some acts of violence cannot be prevented in advance. Bondi was one of them.
Bondi is an open public space, not a fortress. Preventing such an attack would require permanent security screening, armed guards at every entrance, and constant monitoring of intent, measures more suited to an airport or a prison. Even then, prevention would not be guaranteed.
Australia already has some of the strictest weapons laws in the democratic world. There was no legislative gap that could have flagged this attack beforehand. Like most lone-actor incidents globally, it relied on surprise, proximity, and speed, which prevented preemptive intervention.
Those claiming the attack was preventable should consider the limits of even the highest levels of security. Donald Trump, when campaigning for the Presidency, was protected by layers of intelligence, advance teams, secure perimeters, and armed close protection. Despite this, serious threats still emerged and One attacker actually took a shot and got him allegedly in the ear. If the state cannot guarantee the safety of one known individual under constant protection, it cannot guarantee absolute safety in an open public place.
History tells the same story. John F. Kennedy was the most powerful man in the world, surrounded by security, and assassinated in public, in daylight. Decades of reforms followed. The risk was reduced, not eliminated.
What matters is not perfect prevention, but rapid response. At Bondi, the threat was stopped quickly and lives were saved. That is the realistic benchmark for public safety in a free society.
Pretending every tragedy is preventable creates false expectations. Bondi was a human tragedy, not a policy failure to be politicised.
Joe Lenzo, Safety Beach
Barley-Charlie@almost 90
February 1st. Fifty days to go, deleting the @Almost, assuming still breathing.
This writing caper began way back, 2007. Moved here 2000, ex East Malvern, at that point enjoying a professional career as a part time actor.
Wife’s request, cancer, to Rye, no choice, darling departed forever, 2004. My star, my number one supporter, and motivator. Sadly missed.
Two years of emptiness, deciding on writing; too far to Melbourne after two or three theatre tries. The loss of the necessity to be in the stream of opportunities, previously picking and choosing according to preferences, never ambitious in the sense of the majority others, the satisfaction, the joy, of working, the dream of playing another role, same face, different conclusions.
Often not turning up for the audition, and if I did arrive, and those concluded/deciding, not to my liking, particularly speaking down rather than person to person, deliberately, a bad audition. Who cares, not I?
The same in almost all workplaces. In fact, all a game, littered with people, some the need to feel important, others (the majority, thankfully) beautiful people.
Typed a preferences list aka “The Big Day”, in fact the final day, in the breathing context, partly filled in, mostly ignored. Life was never a Cabaret as such, here in Australia it beats Gaza. And I complain about the fireworks at midnight New Year’s Eve, bloody invaders from Sin City Melbourne?
Ambitious, greedy politicians, under instructions from the invisible super rich, but walking tall, guaranteeing at least one lie every day.
Hey Albo, housing, rent and power costs, as was the problem three years ago. No problem in finding an extra billion for Mister America?
Leonard Cohen – “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.” Not wrong Leonard, and so it goes.
Hope springs eternal, or else?
Cliff Ellen, Rye