More effort on cleaning up
As a resident of many years here on the Mornington Peninsula, seeing the lack of care from the local shire in maintaining the suburb of Dromana has been really disappointing.
We’ve been inundated with thousands of visitors this summer and the main pavement thoroughfare is incredibly dirty. It has been in need of cleaning for well over 12 months now.
Residents submit requests for maintenance and things take months to be addressed.
The urination from dogs, mashed in food and graffiti covering many surfaces of the sidewalk and side streets definitely isn’t the welcome I’d be expecting over summer.
A lack of bins and clean up personnel has only added to the degrading of the area.
Many locals have spent the early hours of the mornings cleaning up after others.
We can’t keep repeating this year on year.
Adam Richmond, Dromana
Beach rubbish
Sadly Safety Beach has become a refuse tip particularly on days of high visitation.
The rubbish left on the beach, and approaches thereto is disgraceful. Broken gazebos, chairs, plastic, used tissues, bottles, cans, fruit peel, leftover take-way food, despite the beach being a designated no smoking area, lots of cigarette butts.
There is no hope for the planet while this continues.
Last year I collected a bucket full of broken glass from bottles smashed and thrown overboard by people in boats who fail to realise it washes up. Some of it is dangerously sharp.
As for council’s beach cleaners they haven’t been seen for four weeks.
I see in The News there is a boosted police presence on the peninsula (Police boost presence amid summer safety operations, The News 13/1/25). I’ve seen them but they just ignore the jet skis along the shore in the no boating zone near Balmoral Avenue and the boats moored and passing through the no boating zone. Even the water police do nothing about them. Why not?
Thus the ratepayers pick up the cost of clearing the beach bins because council decided not to charge a fee to non residents for beach parking whereas Port Phillip, Bayside and Kingston Councils all do have a beach parking charge for non-residents.
Lee Chapman, Safety Beach
Accurate framing
I am writing in response to comments by Mornington Peninsula Shire mayor Cr Anthony Marsh regarding Sam Groth’s decision to step away from politics.
In his post, the mayor framed Groth’s resignation primarily as a reflection of broader political pressures, including a decline in the quality of debate and the impact of public scrutiny on families.
While these are important considerations, Sam Groth himself made clear that a key factor in his decision related to internal party dynamics. In his public statement, he noted that some of the pressure on his family came from within his own party and that having to “fight against your own team” made it difficult to put the interests of his constituents first.
This distinction matters.
Presenting the decision only as a response to general political conditions risks obscuring the specific internal pressures that influenced Mr Groth’s choice, which in turn can make accountability and institutional learning more difficult.
The issue is particularly relevant at the local level. The Mornington Peninsula Shire Council has faced challenges related to governance and internal culture.
Recent council events, including procedural restrictions on debate and motions reported in the media as targeting colleagues rather than improving governance, underline the importance of accuracy, transparency, and factual framing by public leaders.
Leaders have a responsibility to reflect on the reasons people give for stepping away, even when those reasons are uncomfortable. If accurate and transparent framing cannot be applied in public commentary about others, it raises questions about whether the same standards are upheld closer to home.
Healthy democratic institutions depend not only on respectful debate, but also on honesty, accountability, and careful communication about the underlying issues.
Anja Ottensmeyer, Mount Martha
Sam Groth
I find it very sad that a man of the calibre of Sam Groth has been forced to resign from parliament due to petty back biting of some of his fellow members in the Liberal Party.
After a moderately successful career as a professional tennis player, Sam presented himself as a likely candidate for party leadership which, no doubt, made some of the old brigade feel uneasy or threatened.
This behaviour is, I believe, typical of the born to rule attitude of far too many Liberals in the higher echelons of the party and is a key element to their lack of success in recent elections. Just look at the collection of failures who now lead the party from behind the scenes.
Sam made a good impression from the time he was elected to parliament. He has conducted himself with decorum and good manners at all times and his leadership potential is obvious form the fact that he was able to advance so quickly in the party hierarchy.
Regardless of one’s party preference, he had all the hallmarks of being a valuable representative and his departure is a sad loss to us all on the Peninsula.
Barry Rumpf, McCrae
Homelessness inaction
For the past two years Southern Women’s Action Network (SWAN) has been advocating to all levels of government to secure attention and increased funding to address the housing and homelessness crisis on the Mornington Peninsula.
Without question we urgently need crisis accommodation. We need more affordable permanent housing. We need more far more funding for our local community support centres.
We have met with state Ministers including Minister for Housing Harriet Shing, and Federal Representatives, including Minister for Housing Claire O’Neill, Special Envoy for Social Housing and Homelessness Josh Burns and most local politicians including Zoe McKenzie, Jodie Beleya, Tom McIntosh, Chris Crewther, Paul Mercurio, as well as the Mornington Peninsula Shire CEO, mayor and many councillors.
We have held two Round Table forums bringing together politicians with community groups and service organisations who work across the housing and homelessness support sector to discuss both short- and long-term solutions.
But sadly, little progress has been made, while the issue has become even more critical.
In the last two months two more rough sleepers have died on Rosebud foreshore, making a total of five homeless people who have passed away on our beaches, in just over 12 months.
With the glory days of summer here and many people spending their holidays at our beautiful towns, villages and beaches, our local government area is currently at position one for the number of rough sleepers in the state.
There has been a lot of talk, a lot of promises – when are we finally going to see some action? We need our fair share of housing funding and support now.
Diane McDonald, Southern Women’s Action Network facilitator
Climate and fires
Lawrence Marshall raises the issue of firebreaks (Longwood fires, Letters 13/1/26). But climate change has reduced the safe window for such burns. Between 2023 and 2025, the CFA responded to several hundred incidents each year caused by escaped burn-offs. And under extreme fire conditions, embers readily jump firebreaks.
Regrettably, changes to the Australian landscape since settlement have increased fire risk. The shift from less flammable, moist forests to drier, shrub-dominated vegetation, particularly after logging or land clearing, has created more dangerous conditions, especially when combined with a warming, drying climate across southern Australia driven by climate change. Why are we still approving new fossil fuel projects?
New thinking is required. “Green firebreaks”, promoted by Greening Australia, use strategically placed, low-flammability native vegetation to increase moisture, reduce wind speeds and slow the rate of fire spread. They also deliver co-benefits by enhancing biodiversity and sequestering carbon.
Greater investment is needed in early detection and rapid suppression. Satellite imaging, drones with infrared cameras and AI-driven predictive analytics can improve the speed and accuracy of detecting fires at earliest stages. German startup OroraTech, for example, uses mini satellites in low orbit to capture thermal images day or night. Incompatible radios during the recent Walwa fire show we still have a very long way to go.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn
Bushfire sentiments
It’s both heartwarming and heartbreaking to see your front‑cover image of CFA members from the peninsula heading off to support their fellow Victorians fighting fires.
Heartwarming, because there are people in our communities willing to risk their own safety to support and help others.
Heartbreaking, because these bushfires and other extreme weather events are being supercharged by climate pollution from burning coal, oil and gas.
While fires were burning, the Albanese government approved another coal‑mine extension. In this disappointing context, we need to thank all those willing to fight fires, and we need to turn off the coal and gas tap if we want safe summers for our kids in the future.
Amy Hiller, Kew
Bondi response
Bondi was a crime. The response to it was a disgrace.
Within hours, the Liberals did what they do best: they exploited the dead.
Before the blood was dry, Liberal politicians and commentators rushed to frame Bondi in ways that advanced their preferred causes, often without evidence, sometimes in direct contradiction of emerging facts.
Words like antisemitic and Islamophobic were deployed not to describe motive, but to prevent serious inquiry and escalate fear, shut down debate, polarise communities, and convert tragedy into attempted political capital.
The same Liberals vigorously opposed an Aboriginal Voice to Parliament denouncing it as divisive, unconstitutional, and morally improper now openly entertain the idea of special legislated actions for the Jewish community. Collective representation is unacceptable when sought by Australia’s first peoples, but suddenly reasonable when it aligns with populist political convenience.
Either a nation believes in equal civic citizenship, or it does not. Selective endorsement of communal voices is not principle; it is opportunism. It corrodes social cohesion while pretending to defend it.
What was absent throughout was the language we already possess and understand: murder, racism, hate crime, criminal responsibility. These terms are legally grounded, morally clear, and socially unifying.
The real damage we suffer is the partisan attacks rather than a cohesive response, which become more and more Trumpistic every day.
Joe Lenzo, Safety Beach
Sanity returns
Last Monday I didn’t have to run the gauntlet,as happened since Christmas, when going to our local shops at Balnarring.
Sanity and courtesy are slowly returning to our little piece of heaven here on Western Port Bay. It’s safe again to stand and chat with the locals and not being rushed off your feet.
I know, the tourist boom is great for local businesses, but it’s nice to fall back into sleepy hollow mode.
Cheers and happy New Year to all.
Rupert Steiner, Balnarring Beach
Barley-Charlie@almost 90
On acting: One can only do one’s best; not to be compared with other interpretations, be it critics, fellow actors or stray dogs. Others, though unlikely, may do as well, some (perish the thought) even better?
Get this right and watch your feet, firmly implanted square on the ground. But when? 60, 70, 80? The answer, eventually the reality, is a nonsense, as in comparisons are odious.
I use acting (self connection) which bye the bye, I rarely got right in over 1600 attempts (stage) and yet, it applies to all walks in our lifetime; one a wizard with a screw driver complete with a nasty cut on his hand, right or left, the other wondering as to the screwdriver’s purpose?
The best example surely, the skills (or otherwise) of car drivers. Unimportant? Possibly, according to female members of my family, better than Cliffie (?) but sometimes healthy to think outside of the current three power mad circle of leaders; Putin, Trump and that Chinese chap with the smiling face, not forgetting Netanyahu and Ukraine’s little fellow up for re-election, and our bloke (Albo) scurrying for his peace flag.
Also our female federal leader perhaps (no offence) considering her true spot in life, an Anti cancer official, a female hive of activity, not to exclude a small number of insignificant males, possibly AFL Melbourne followers?
What’s that old saying “You wouldn’t be dead for quids.” OR was it from Timothy?
“The time will come when people will follow their own desires, and follow leaders who will tell them what they are itching to hear.”
PS: Still in hiding, let me know when they head back to Sin City. Happy 2026.
Cliff Ellen, Rye