Green wedge protected
The news that the green wedge of land between Mornington and Mt Martha is to be protected is indeed heartening (“Bipartisan commitment to protect green wedge” The News, 1/9/26).
As Melbourne expands at a furious rate such green spaces are important to have to avoid the effects of a concrete jungle and the damaging effects on our local climate and provide a healthy environment for the people of the peninsula.
That said though I have a nagging doubts when both sides of politics are in furious agreement, it all sounds just a bit too cosy.
It will be interesting to see how this green wedge fares after the election.
Ross Hudson, Mt Martha
Kangaroos before politics
It’s disappointing to read that Craig Thomson seems more interested in partisan politics than protecting the Green Wedge (“Liberal’s plan?” Letters, 1/9/26).
The reason we’re even having this discussion is because I raised the alarm about very real development risks in parliament. I’ll speak up whenever the Mornington Peninsula’s green wedge is under threat.
It’s no coincidence Labor rushed out just days later to say the green wedge was safe. Craig’s response? To criticise the person who raised the alarm. How bizarre.
Labor’s over-taxing and underinvestment on the peninsula is a very different issue, but one I raise at every opportunity.
Given Craig represents Save Kangaroos on Mornington Peninsula, I would have thought he’d put the kangaroos before the politics.
Anthony Marsh MP, Member for Nepean
Meals On Wheels
Meals On Wheels volunteers, customers and other concerned residents from all over the peninsula met this week to start a campaign designed to get council to back-down from their heartless decision to cease delivery of Commonwealth funded Aged Care Services.
These services include the much appreciated Dial-A-Bus and Outings & Excursions as well as Meals On Wheels.
We were shocked when council decided this at a confidential meeting on 9 June after a secret briefing by council officers. A date of 30 June 2027 was set.
One of the main excuses was that the Commonwealth government was changing the funding and administration model. However we have since found out there has been a back-down on 20 August and the Commonwealth Home Support Program is to continue.
Several municipalities have now reversed their decisions to cease services. We want our council to do the same.
Meals on Wheels has been delivered for over 50 years. As well as nutritious meals tailored to individuals, it provides a welfare check from neighbours who care.
We would like to remind the council that our area has one of the largest populations of older people in Victoria. Many of these have paid rates for a very long time.
They need these services to enable them to have a decent quality of life in their own homes.
Surely one of the main duties of local government is to provide appropriate services to vulnerable people and not leave them to the vagaries of the private profit-making sector.
Joan Doyle, Dromana
Services disappearing
I remember walking back from the Infant Welfare Centre, as I think it was called then, with mum pushing the latest baby in the pram and me marvelling at the little book with the baby’s name, height and weight details. We were important to someone! We belonged and someone was checking we were okay.
Belonging and wellbeing is best dispensed locally. It’s about community and community needs to be around a hub. That’s why we have a local government. But as our local council rapidly dismantles their role in community service provision we lose this crucial component of the social fabric.
I remember the youth club, grandparents getting meals delivered and my neighbour relying on “the home help lady”. There is a trend to outsource such services to unfamiliar, impersonal, disparate and often privatised alternatives. We know the consequences.
The latest in Mornington Peninsula Shire’s crosshairs appears to be the Meals on Wheels program.
Is the shire trying to do itself – and the community well-being and belonging it once embodied- out of existence?
And at a purely mercenary level- what will I be getting back for my years as a ratepayer when I do finally need services?
Maureen Donelly, Mornington
Odd comparison
Given that air pollution from coal, oil and gas is linked to millions of deaths worldwide each year, and that their emissions are driving increasingly costly climate impacts, comparing coal, oil and gas corporations with toilet-roll manufacturers seems misplaced (“Global warming” Letters, 1/9/26).
Yes, coal and gas companies provide energy, but they also profit from products whose pollution harms both people and the planet. Unlike a toilet-roll manufacturer, they have the capacity to pivot towards providing cleaner alternatives such as renewable energy.
Continuing to reap enormous profits while contributing to disasters such as floods, fires and glacier collapses makes multinational fossil fuel corporations reluctance to move towards cleaner energy difficult to defend.
Isabelle Henry, Ascot Vale
Fossil fuels being replaced
John Dusting is right. The world remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels (“Global warming” Letters, 1/9/26). That is regrettable because burning them causes roughly three-quarters of human-caused global warming.
But he is wrong to suggest getting off fossil fuels is impossible. It is already happening.
In the first half of 2025, renewables generated more global electricity than coal for the first time.
The International Energy Agency estimated that global investment in clean energy in 2025 would be about twice investment in fossil fuels.
Electric vehicles are reducing oil demand, while heat pumps are replacing gas heating.
Similarly, while oil and gas are currently important chemical feedstocks, they are not the only source of carbon. Plant oils, sugars, agricultural waste, and recycled plastics are providing alternative feedstocks, with bio-based detergents, plastics, cosmetics, paints and lubricants already being developed and commercialised.
The choice is not between modern civilisation and fossil fuels. It is between continuing to burn fossil carbon for energy and finding cleaner ways to power and manufacture the things we need.
John Godfrey, Cape Paterson
Pauline Hanson
So Pauline Hanson is accusing Labor of stirring up hatred and violence against her.
However let’s look at her record and ask if she has maybe contributed to an acceptance of hatred and violence in the community.
There is her record of employing a convicted rapist, of utilising Avi Yemeny, as her key media support, a man convicted of assaulting his wife and of course the infamous interview with Tommy Robinson, a man who happily promotes violence and has been convicted of fraud and assaulting a police officer.
Pauline has claimed that schoolchildren are being subjected to “dangerous ideology”, has targeted transgender and Muslims claiming they are taking over Australia, accused Labor of trashing “Western values” and accused workers of being lazy, saying it should be easier to sack them.
Of course, Pauline should not be subjected to threats or require police security to protect her.
In a democracy we should be free to express our views as long as they do not harm others and there is never an excuse for violence and threats.
However, using the language of hate can create an atmosphere of tolerance of violence. The PM has constantly called for all MPs to tone the language down and move to a more civil discourse, however Ms Hanson appears deaf to those pleas.
Marg D’Arcy, Rye
The dog poo fairy
Along the McCrae foreshore, some dog walkers pick up their dog’s poo with a plastic bag. Well done. Thank you.
But others pick it up then drop the plastic bag beside the path or nearby. What? Why?
No-one magically comes along each night to pick up your litter.
Warwick Spinaze, Rosebud
What about the loser?
Dear MP News. You gave frontpage coverage for the premiership win of the Under-14 girls of the Mornington Junior Football Club (“Girls grab win in historic first”, The News, 1/9/26), but who were the no-doubt heartbroken last-minute losers? There was no mention of them!
David Cramond, Mornington
Editor’s note:Touché! Mornington under 14s beat the under 14 girls from Berwick Junior Football Club.
Channelling W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,
Let the conveners of the CFMEU Royal Commission come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message “The rorts are dead”,
Tell the “stop and go sign” strippers to go back to their old jobs,
Hand out the last paper bag full of cash, while the bikie standover man sobs.
It was the Suburban Rail Link, the West Gate project and the Metro Tunnel,
They looked like worksites, but were just a giant cash funnel,
It was only fifteen billion, why was it so wrong?
I thought Labor would keep this going forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out everyone;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For this Royal Commission can never come to any good.
C Jenkins, Tyabb
BarleyCharlie@90
The older one gets the crankier? Points of view, aka variations, (seemingly) rewritten every decade.
For a short spell in the early 1950’s happy with the £10 poms, but not the Greeks – the clincher around age 16; Lorraine, the secret love of my life’s new boyfriend was a new Australian – Italian! OMG, why?
Last week’s letter from Dr Sarah Russell, highlighted, and well in excess of the allowed 300 words maximum, in fact a classic on local racism. Unconnected obviously but for me, a touch of the Karl Marx, in Russell’s favour.
No fan of Alister Clarkson but harshly treated. A good coach is a good coach, age irrelevant, the necessary cattle significant.
Artificial intelligence, less choice, bigger danger. Understanding is by and large a piece of cake, the bigger danger; application?
The Asian Ladies, as in a special for ageing old men at $10 for fingernails, much appreciated, but they never speak to me, thus many imaginations – why? Not even a smile?
I leave the scooter outside, walking stick in? Maybe drive in; almost every passing stranger gives a smile, a hello, on my scooter?
More seriously Zoe McKenzie, not known? Nonsense! Zoe is our MP for goodness sakes, well, truthfully Sorrento and Portsea, stretched to Blairgowrie? To fight organised crime and illegal tobacco. We wish Zoe every success, particularly if she shuts up the self-congratulating Rudd.
Our mate Pauly (Keating) refuses to allow old age to handicap him – “Timidity (Richard Marles?) is like a virus in the bloodstream” referencing US troops deployment, nuclear-powered subs. Not forgetting the “full steam ahead” nonsense, AUKUS, from our Albo?
Fronted by a friend last week, in his 50’s or thereabout, reads my stuff, asked “Who else reads it?” “Don’t know, don’t care,” I replied. “So why do you do it?” Good question. If he’s lucky, he might understand, in 30 years.
Had the choice Friday evening, SBS News (Trump, Nepal, Vladimir Putin) or AFL, the threat of a Carlton victory, shudder. We thank the cats. Fremantle next week, a bridge too far. Either way, no Pies no stress. Stay nice.
Cliff Ellen, Rye
Shop firebombed twice in three days
It is clear that organised crime is targeting tobacco stores in Frankston as the latest firebombing in Wells Street shows.
A convenience store was rammed by a car and then set alight completely destroying the shop but nobody was injured.
This was the second time as in three days the store was targeted.
Police and firemen attended the premises with a forensic person gathering evidence at the scene.
The Coalition is now promising to cut cigarette excise by 80 per cent, if elected at the next election in two years time, to stop organised crime.
It could help save premises from being firebombed if bollards were made compulsory in front of tobacco stores to protect the premises and staff.
If the excise cut does have some effect on the amount of illegal cigarettes being sold the crime organisations could continue to intimidate and cause firebombing of cigarette legal sellers of tobacco.
American Tobacco has warned that they will pull out of Australia if the government does not cut the tobacco excise.
The coalition as part of its policy to cut tobacco excise by 80% may also be looking after legal tobacco companies for valuable election funding donations.
The government may, in putting up the excise of cigarettes, not only stop people from smoking but also may force legal tobacco companies out of Australia.
More people are smoking because of organised crime cheap tobacco products such as cigarettes and vapes.
Russell Morse, Karingal
