Stand up against wildlife slaughter
In 2019 the Victorian government introduced the kangaroo harvest program a cruel industry that allows the bludgeoning of joeys in the National code of practise for harvesting kangaroos commercially.
With the support of the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council, SKOMP was able to see the end of the peninsula being included in the harvest program at the beginning 2025 with nine other outer metropolitan councils.
In the last month the Minister for Environment announced that the Yarra Valley Shire Ranges would also be excluded from the kangaroo harvest program at the start of 2027.
Both the Animal Justice Party and the Victorian Greens already oppose commercial kangaroo killing. Meetings held on 25 August at Victoria’s Parliament House to provide evidence as to why this industry must stop in Victoria, saw both Labor and Liberal representatives show genuine openness and compassion to the plight of our national icon that must be revered.
Please let our candidates know that you are supportive ending the commercial kangaroo harvest in Victoria.
Craig Thomson, President –Save Kangaroos on Mornington Peninsula
Is this a joke?
We have major issues from McCrae to Rye at the moment with potholes, the delamination of the top surface of tarmac as well as incredibly uncomfortable bumpy road conditions.
This section here is of a repair job on a notoriously deep crater in the road at Anthony’s Nose as you exit Dromana into McCrae.
Is this meant to be a joke?
Does this represent the budget allocated towards roads in Victoria in 2026? Disgusting.
Adam Richmond, Dromana
Briars expansion
I’m delighted to read that the Briars Wildlife Sanctuary has been expanded (“Expanded Briars Wildlife Sanctuary opens to public”, The News, 3/11/26).
A rare haven for indigenous wildlife species from echidnas to native ducks to powerful owls, it’s one of my favourite places to visit.
The visitor centre, nursery, walks, bird hides and picnic areas offer an inviting and informative experience.
It’s a great place to connect with nature. I look forward to enjoying the new grasslands walk and watching the area regenerate over time.
Amy Hiller, Kew
Electric dreams
Although Larni stated in her letter last week (“Plug in EVs, Letters, 3/11/26) that about one in four car sales are now electric, and hence it was good to see investment in public chargers, I thought it may be useful to review the current online stats.
Per my web search there are 22m standard vehicles in Australia, 1.24m sold in 2025 and of those 157k were EV or Plug In Hybrid.
Therefore only 13% of new sales were EV and those 2025 EVs represent 0.7% of the vehicles on our roads or 1 in 143, bringing the total to 454k or 2.0% or 1 in 50.
Even if we continue to buy at the current rate, it would take another 15 years before the level reached 13% or 1 in 7.
I must conclude that currently EVs remain a tiny part of on road traffic.
Grant Snowden, Mt Eliza
Crime fact check
Marshy the MP’s October 13 2026 newsletter wrote “Recorded crime on the Mornington Peninsula is up 31% since 2022 and only a Liberal Government can fix it, with a plan to strengthen policing, reform our justice system and restore community safety”.
Crime is up 31% since 2022 is true but fails to mention that the decrease is 11.4% June 25 to June 26.
Maybe he could find a period to mention that gives an increase of 2,500% to make his point of cherry-picking, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, framing bias, intellectual dishonesty, circular reasoning, biased reasoning, assumption-driven answering.
Education or incarceration – what does it cost Victorians? Which cuts off the head of the snake?
Educating children costs taxpayers substantially less than imprisoning adults. Victorian government-school expenditure was approximately $19,628 per full-time-equivalent student per year in 2022–23, including the estimated user cost of capital.
By comparison, the Productivity Commission reported that the full recurrent cost of adult imprisonment in Victoria was approximately $635 per prisoner per day in 2024–25, including operating and capital costs. That equates to approximately $231,775 per prisoner per year.
These figures come from different financial years, so they are indicative rather than a strict like-for-like comparison. Nevertheless, they illustrate the scale of public expenditure involved in imprisonment compared with school education.
Investing in education, early intervention and effective support for at-risk young people deserves serious consideration. Preventing offending where possible can benefit individuals, families and the wider community, while potentially reducing future justice-system costs.
We deserve better from our politicians! So we all claim, but seldom do fact checks.
Guessing I will soon hear from the Magistrates Court and police with another AVO.
Joe Lenzo, Safety Beach
Make Nepean count
We shouldn’t have to sell sausages to help fund essential care at Rosebud Hospital. Or accept that local people have nowhere safe to sleep.
Our community deserves better. This election is our chance to demand it.
As your independent representative, I would answer to you. No party boss would tell me how to vote. No donor would buy a say in my decisions.
My job would be to fight for the Southern Peninsula, every day.
That means pushing for the housing and support our homelessness crisis demands. It means fighting for a properly funded Rosebud Hospital, so local people can get the care they need close to home.
Our volunteers and fundraisers do extraordinary work. Their generosity should add to our health services, rather than fill gaps governments should fund.
When a party believes it can count on our votes, it has less reason to compete for them. And when the other side thinks it cannot win us, we risk being overlooked by both.
We can change that.
Electing an independent sends every party a clear message: our support must be earned. Bring us serious plans. Fund the services we need. Follow through on your promises.
I won’t promise that one person can fix decades of neglect overnight. I will work with whoever forms government, press our case and report back to you on what’s being done.
When no party can take Nepean for granted, every local stands to gain.
Kim Robbins, Independent candidate for Nepean
Greens bank tax
I read with interest that the Greens will, inter alia, increase taxes on Australian banks and gambling institutions to fund their Victorian initiatives; such as to lessen homelessness. As taxation of corporations is a federal matter, how do the Victorian Greens intend their proposed additional imposts/levies on certain corporations will flow to cover the cost of their Victorian-related issues?
It is also a misnomer to say that Australian banks are “mega profitable”; they are, at best, just “middle-of-the-road performers” when compared to financial institutions worldwide.
The CBA is usually held out to make outrageously high profits, so I will focus upon its performance.
As at 30 June 2026, the bank’s after tax profit was recorded at $10.911b, having paid taxation of $4.669b. Yes, a huge number on its face, but actually quite small when you consider this amount in respect of the bank’s total assets of $1.452t; or, in a more simplistic measurement, it produces a return on asset of 0.75% per annum.
So, how many of us would be happy if our superannuation fund produced a year-on-year annual return on our investment of around 0.75%, with inflation currently running at around 4% per annum? Not many, I suspect.
$680b of the CBA’s total assets are in the form of Australian home loans. So, for the bank to become more profitable – maybe to achieve a 1% net return on assets – interest rates on its loan portfolio would have to increase substantially greater than any periodic changes in the Reserve Bank’s benchmark cash rate.
Australian banks are quite solid, with generally strong, risk-based balance sheets. However, they are not the great financial performers from a profit perspective that many in the community would have us believe.
Stuart Allen, Dromana
Power move
Brian Mitchelson is right to be concerned about the cost blowout of Snowy 2.0 (“Power problems”, Letters, 3/11/26), but he overlooks the resilience it will bring to the grid.
Snowy 2.0 is designed to store surplus electricity, particularly from solar and wind, and return it when demand is high or renewable generation is low. Naturally, pumping water uphill consumes more electricity than is subsequently recovered. That is the physics of pumped hydro, not an accountant’s trick.
This is hardly experimental technology. Pumped hydro is used worldwide and is the largest form of long-duration electricity storage. More than 200 GW of capacity was installed globally by the end of 2025, with a further 243 GW under construction. Countries are expanding it precisely because increasingly renewable electricity grids need reliable, long-duration storage. The ANU’s Professor Andrew Blakers recently noted that pumped hydro is far cheaper than batteries and typically lasts five to ten times longer.
What Mr Mitchelson overlooks is the value of having up to 350 GWh of stored energy and 2.2 GW of dispatchable capacity available to the grid. That is equivalent to about 160 hours of generation at full capacity – a substantial contribution to energy security.
His suggestion that nuclear reactors could be installed underground instead is fanciful. An underground location does nothing to overcome nuclear power’s enormous construction costs, long lead times, cooling requirements and radioactive waste challenges. The CSIRO repeatedly finds that nuclear power would be Australia’s most expensive option.
As Professor Blakers concludes, “Snowy 2.0 is no longer a bargain. But it’s still a very good long-term investment.”
Ray Peck, Hawthorn
Bloody numbers
You may recall in the mid 70’s, BankCard hit the market in Australia.
One clever part of its design, was the 16 digit number broken into 4 parts. e.g.5499 6321 5883 9207.
This feature made it easier to read and recite and type and write. That continues today. Smart.
But for numbers for tickets, orders, members, tracking, invoices, accounts, etc, the dumb programmers make l-o-n-g, l-o-n-g numbers with no breaks.
Thus must make the rate of user mistakes much higher than it need be. I guess logic is scarce.
Warwick Spinaze, Rosebud
Prime Minister
While our Prime Minister is busy in the Caribbean at the CHOGM meeting, I do hope that the main reason he went there was to seek advice and guidance from some of the attendees on how to run a banana republic.
Brian A. Mitchelson, Mornington
Interest rates
Inflation is running hot and out of control and the Reserve Bank of Australia is using what is called the “blunt instrument” in increasing interest rates to slow up the economy.
In the past, governments used to have the Reserve Bank call in “Statutory Reserves” of banks.
This meant that banks would not be able to issue new loans and this would slow up the economy.
Banks in Australia are the most profitable in the world and you can see why as the banks are creaming it off when interest rates are increased.
Increasing interest rate cause families stress and have to deal with high interest rates as well as inflation which is not coming under control although interest rates are increasing.
Economists are saying the Jim Chalmers is to blame because they are spending too much are causing too much money going into the economy causing a demand crisis which it is said is causing the inflation.
It seems that a good economy is a bad economy.
But if you go into your supermarket, hardware store or clothing store you will see that the shelves are full of goods.
Where is the shortage ?
You may wish to investigate if interest rate increases to control inflation are good for those who have loans or are they good for banks. You may also wish to investigate if calling in “statutory reserves” of banks are good for you or is it good for the banks.
I have asked the Reserve Bank questions on this issue but have not received a response and this will show you who the losers are and who the winners are in fighting inflation.
Russell Morse, Karingal
Barley Charley @ 90+
Penultimate? Wedding anni, 65 years, November 16, but is she (Madam?) listening, after 22 years?
Twice mentioned, N. Miller and A. Kruger, previous letters, Barley unable to fit his hat on, swelled noggin?
The thing is – nothing stays “as is” or “as was”, a moveable feast, hopefully not famine. Enthusiasm: 3 points; energetic interest YES; intense excitement (at almost 91?) NO; eager desire; difficulty in imagining; 1950 rings a faint memory bell, snogging, front stalls, Westgarth theatre? Mystery, dominant thought,
Cost Of Living, stressful, all television shows, frightening the public; political or real?
Barley, pensioner $618.85 per week. Adults $1579.20 a week or $1004.90 absolute baseline, conclusion POLITICAL, brainwashing.
Trying (again with difficulty) NOT to mention, Christian name Jess? On the other hand we recall the work of Sir Henry Bolte’s 17 years as Premier, did well, indeed, in my time I paid him out as a winner, at Flemington racetrack.
And Sir Henry’s lovely wife, Mrs Bolte, always came to MY payout window. Oops, it comes back, as in Sir Henry demanded a young payout clerk be sacked, a payout error; sackable, but sad.
History, my POV, twice, theatre, every line, as in mine, a big laugh, different shows, different lines, scripts, and ladies. Occasionally a balanced ledger, a comedy, not the skerrick of noise; WHY?
Sound reasoning, the stupidity of jumping to conclusions, the difficulty of being fed nonsense, thus clouding real truth? Retire, again, but a replacement?
Television, Foxtel, thieves of wheels? Nah, erratic is, always has been, a permanent (though well hidden) state of mind, almost ALL of us. Who has NOT hidden a secret? Own up, no chance?
The fear, a rest home for old old people, Barley, OMG. Still, to Officeworks, the third book Grain Of Salt 1, 2 and 3. All up over 1000 A4 pages. 2007 – 2026. Enough?
Better alive listening to old dears (females?) in my rest home or dropping in on Godot as in waiting?
Nah, Collingwood 2027 and Book 4.
Algorithms to decide my future, public servants; shoot them if under 50, literally?
And the right wing overseas mobs, United States and Israel, not looking flash – for Iran; a forceful response? Indeed, not forgetting WE, Aussielanders, relying on USA, & China.
Be careful out there, after 7PM, last Melbourne Cup bonanza Evening Peal, 1956.
Cliff Ellen, Rye
