Author: David Harrison

THE state government will be asked urgently to pay for safety measures at Tassells Cove, Safety Beach, where cliff erosion is endangering children who ignore a restricted area to play in “caves” formed at the foot of the unstable clay. The problem was highlighted by Cr Graham Pittock as an item of urgent business at Mornington Peninsula Shire’s 14 October meeting. Councillors voted to “immediately” seek “redress from the Crown due to sea processes causing this emergency in order for rectifying the situation”; to get legal advice; to investigate the danger as a priority; and to ensure the safety of…

FIVE Western Australian councils are keen to see results of trials of an alternative waste treatment plant that includes an incinerator that generates electricity. The plant is designed to handle 33,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste a year for the five member councils, plus waste from the City of Stirling. Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors voted on 14 September to send all shire waste off the peninsula to landfill but to continue a commitment to alternative waste technology, which is generally understood to include incineration of some domestic waste. The shire was forecast to send just more than 23,000 tonnes of…

THE 80km/h speed restrictions on Peninsula Link freeway near the Baxter twin freeway service centres will revert to 100km/h when the northbound servo is opened, says a Peninsula Link spokeswoman. The southbound servo opened in late July but the speed limit on the freeway remains at 80. In July, a spokesman for service centre owner AA Holdings said it was hoped the northbound centre would be “ready by December”. The two centres are costing AA Holdings about $30 million including two new lanes on a freeway bridge as well as on and off ramps. The final task at the northbound…

COMMENT “ROLL out the rate cap,” one hears muttered across the peninsula as people prepare to fork out for their 2015-16 rates and charges to Mornington Peninsula Shire – bills averaging nearly 6 per cent more than last year. After a decade of steep hikes, up nearly 120 per cent in that time and invariably by more than the shire-announced figure, rate relief is in sight. It will be imposed on councils by the state government from 2016-17. It will bring genuine, substantial relief. The rate rise is proposed to be 3.05 per cent, unless the shire succeeds in arguing…

GREAT sheets of silent lightning flashed over the Rip as Council Watch headed for the Rosebud meeting, listening in the car to excited radio speculation on who would be prime minister after this night. CW wondered what the Boon Wurrung (or indeed the Bunurong) made of dramatic celestial pyrotechnics back in the Dreamtime. They had not heard of Canberra. The restless sky portended rain. The restless radio appeared to be hoping for a warm change in Canberra, where the boxer and the banker were contesting Round 2 in their drawn-out bout for supremacy. CW recalled Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer:…

COUNCILLORS have taken a decisive step towards closing Mornington Peninsula Shire’s last rubbish tip, at Rye, after a long campaign to send all kerbside waste out of the municipality. At their 14 September meeting, councillors resolved not to extend Rye landfill but to close the controversial Truemans Rd site from 30 June, 2018, conditional on what appears to be an easily met condition. This condition is that the shire seeks expressions of interest by 14 December for kerbside waste disposal at a site “other than at the Rye landfill”. A site in Hallam Rd, Hampton Park, some half-hour from the…

WORK on the Arthurs Seat Skylift is set to begin on 5 October, according to Parks Victoria. The sites of the upper and lower stations will be fenced off to allow for tree removal and excavation. Parks Victoria’s Libby Jude has said the public will be notified of the works, and of alternative picnic areas, in through newspaper advertisements in coming weeks. Ms Jude, district manager for south-east Melbourne, says school bus pick-ups and drop-offs will be relocated at Seawinds Gardens car park near the public lavatories for the construction period of up to 18 months. This is more than…

COMPLAINTS about delays and cost increases may lead to a postponement of the implementation of new rules for building in flood prone areas of the Mornington Peninsula. Councillors were told in June that new flood maps were an improvement and that 20,000 properties were no longer designated as flood-prone and more could be removed from that designation as work proceeded. However, an “experienced builder on the southern peninsula” has now told council officers that the new flood map system “instantly stopped $2 million worth of my work, frustrated me and my customers and had a net result of costing my…

MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors are being urged to pressure the federal government into giving East Timor the chance to earn billions of dollars from undersea gas fields. “It is disgusting for a wealthy advanced country like Australia to literally steal part of a rich gas field from one of the poorest, least developed and needy nations on earth, Cr Tim Rodgers said. On Monday Cr Rodgers was set to tell council colleagues that it was time Australia entered into a more equitable agreement so that East Timor (Timor-Leste) received a greater share of profits from the rich offshore gas fields.…

MP News Group journalist David Harrison is in Thailand supporting his mate Alan Morison and his wife Chutima Sidasathian, who were charged in late 2013 with criminal defamation and computer crime over a story they published on their online website Phuketwan about abuses against Rohingya migrants in Thailand. The charges centred on a paragraph in Phuketwan on 17 July 2013 citing an investigative report by Reuters alleging that some navy officials were involved with trafficking Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar (Burma). The trial generated widespread condemnation from human rights groups and the United Nations. Morison and Sidasathian faced up to seven…

THE state planning tribunal did not make an “accidental slip” in its Arthurs Seat gondola permit conditions, as claimed by the Save Our Seat protest group, and no correction will be made, the tribunal has decided. SOS queried what appeared to be a contradiction in one condition the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal placed on the contentious cable car project. In  condition 39, VCAT stated an emergency plan must be approved “prior to the commencement of the use” of the ride, that is, after construction was completed. Elsewhere it stated that the plan should be approved “before the development commences…

WAS it a Ghillie Dhu* or a Shellycoat* who, at the 24 August council meeting, spirited a packet of family assorted biscuits on to the hospitality table in the council offices foyer? Council Watch, noting a previous column that complained of a quality drop-off in the biscuits available at council meetings, felt he had overstepped the mark. He felt reproved. Here was a cornucopia of creams, a plethora of pastries suddenly arrived beside the glass jar of cookies provided for council-watching aesthetes. CW took a humble shortbread from the aesthetes’ jar as atonement for his previous curmudgeonly presumption. It turned…

ANALYSIS THE north face of Arthurs Seat has extremely unstable soil vulnerable to landslip and erosion, a 1990 planning tribunal hearing was told in an appeal against the then Shire of Flinders’ refusal to allow a house to be built on the precipitous slope. The locality had been given the top rating of 5 – “severe risk of adverse effects to land and/or water is always present” – as an area of erosion hazard by Victoria’s Soil Conservation Authority (SCA) in 1983, the tribunal stated in its decision. This was “because of the extreme gradients (20-65 per cent), shallow soils…

AN historic view at Sullivan Bay in Sorrento has been preserved after a VCAT decision that ensures a “view cone” from a public lookout will not be impeded by buildings or vegetation on an adjoining property. The site of Victoria’s first settlement in 1803 is bounded by headlands known as the Eastern Sister and the Western Sister. The lookout on the Eastern Sister provides a view across the bay to the Western Sister through the so-called view cone, which “protects” the view. Mornington Peninsula Shire imposed stringent conditions to protect the view when it approved a multi-million five-lot subdivision of…

THE Arthurs Seat gondola may return to the state planning tribunal – and shire councillors – over a query about whether VCAT made an “accidental slip” in its decision on the project’s emergency plan. A separate VCAT hearing is already pending, on Skylift’s chosen gondola colour. This matter will be heard on 11 September. Now anti-gondola lobby group Save Our Seat has asked the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to clarify when the emergency plan should be approved by Mornington Peninsula Shire – before work begins on the $18 million project or before the ride starts operating? The tribunal’s decision contains…

THE shire council could close the Rye tip by late 2018 as it seeks to become carbon neutral. The goal of becoming carbon neutral advanced another step at the council’s meeting on Monday last week when councillors voted to develop a policy that includes the vital step of closing the tip or landfill. The tip emits nearly half the shire’s carbon dioxide. If it remains open following the opening of a new “cell” for waste, emissions will rise by nearly half by 2050 instead of falling by about three-quarters, the meeting was told. Shire waste could be sent to the…

FOR council watchers, the shire’s austerity drive is plain to see. It’s the biscuits. Now only a small jar accompanies the pre-meeting tea and coffee, a small jar bereft of cream treats. The gallery arrives at an hour where dinner merely beckons from the distant other side of the meeting closure, to find entry barred. And, once inside, not a cream bikkie to sustain oneself. One shivers in the cold, dark and rain, beating futilely with whitened knuckles on the locked armoured glass door (CW tends to gaudy prose when hypothermic), callously ignored by those inside luxuriating in the warmth,…

MISSION accomplished. Dedicated readers of this journal may recall Cr Graham Pittock being invited to visit Dromana House, Ireland, to help celebrate the 800th anniversary of the FitzGerald family’s occupation of the land on which the latest dwelling (circa 1780s) stands. Cr Pittock, whose ward includes Dromana, flew to Ireland with his wife, Prue, to the celebrations. They are now returned safely to their slightly younger parcel of land, with a tale or two to tell. The stories involve several bottles of Dromana wine and a rather nice green bowl, a gift from Dromana to Dromana House. And a cherry…

BLASTING may be required on Arthurs Seat to build foundations for the towers and cables that will carry Skylift’s gondolas. Helicopters will lift the towers into position, according to a Mornington Peninsula Shire report. “Parts of Arthurs Seat Rd will need to be closed temporarily (five minutes at a time) during these works,” says a report in the 10 August council agenda. “It is proposed to use helicopters to install [three towers]. This is required due to the steep terrain surrounding these locations, which is not accessible with convention [sic] vehicles and equipment,” the officers’ report states. “The helicopters will…

THE sound you can perhaps hear on the shire’s recording of its 27 July meeting is not what you might suspect. The ceiling of the Besgrove St council chamber was not about to collapse, nor was there a wee beastie in the room calling to its mate. And Council Watch hastens to assure readers that it was not a natural human sound – in fact, it was a creaking chair. A councillor who shall remain nameless was gently rocking as proceedings proceeded, probably accustomed to a rocking chair by the fireside, causing the rather fancy council seat’s torque spring to…

MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors have agreed to sell off another piece of surplus property – this time a “laneway” off Myers Rd, Balnarring that, technically, it does not yet own – for $22,000. A report to council stated that the 12.67 metres wide by 713.7 metres long strip of land was designated as a road in the early 1900s subdivision. The proposal resulted from a request by the owner of 7 Turners Rd, Balnarring, to buy the land. The “laneway” runs north from Myers Rd, between properties at 234 and 238 Myers Rd. It abuts the eastern boundary of the…

OPPONENTS of the planned Arthurs Seat Skylift gondola plan a last-ditch appeal to the state planning tribunal to minimise the impact it will have on the precinct’s heritage landscape. They will ask the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to clarify when the project’s emergency management and bushfire plans must be released – before construction starts or before the ride begins operating. A second matter the opponents, members of Save Our Seat (SOS), will raise with VCAT is the gondola colour that shire councillors approved at their meeting on 22 June. SOS spokeswoman Alison Laird described the bright blue permitted for…

A DOZEN or so Mornington Peninsula Shire projects are complete, under way or about to start in the Western Port area. Infrastructure director Alison Leighton told the council meeting held at Hastings Hub on 22 June that the works include major upgrades to Hastings and important environmental and sporting works. In Hastings itself, the High St streetscape design is anticipated to go on public exhibition in August after being reviewed by the shire’s design advisory panel and Western Port Chamber of Commerce in April. The aim is to enhance the township’s identity and assert High St as its “spine and…

MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors last week agreed to the Skylift gondolas at Arthurs Seat being painted a bright blue. Cr Tim Wood, a retired County Court judge, argued that councillors had “no jurisdiction” to deal with the matter because they had not been provided with the colour and texture schedule as directed by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Other councillors at the 22 June meeting said the colour depicted in illustrations that Skylift supplied was not named and that it did not, as VCAT required, “complement the natural landscape”. Councillors favouring the colour said it would blend with or…

Venue: Hastings Hub, 22 June 2015. Fine buffet, but spartan for the discerning vegetarian, with carnivores far more generously catered for. A restrained dessert; sugar addicts could fall back on soft drink. A dearth of orange juice. THIS being Cerberus ward’s turn to host what is now its sole annual community meeting, parish news was to the fore. There was a big footpath scheme for Somers, good news on the Stony Point rail line’s level crossings, bad news on hoon motorbikes in Hastings (they’re getting worse) and more good news on the Warringine boardwalk. The popular boardwalk, destroyed in last…

RYE’S shopping strip will soon be equipped with closed-circuit TV cameras after years of trader campaigning for increased security measures in the township, which intensified after the death of a young man punched in a brawl on 31 December 2012. The $48,000, two-year deal will see traders installing CCTV cameras in and outside their premises for both street and shop security. Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors voted for the scheme at their 9 June meeting after an effort by some councillors to delay the initiative. The shire will provide a maximum 50 per cent rebate to traders who install cameras, which…

THE Barkers Rd closure saga may have come to an end but such is the nature of epic tales that it may well have a stanza or two to run. The story so far: a vacant block at 2 Barkers Rd, Main Ridge, was bought by Ms Antoinette Noronho for $425,000 at a mortgagee’s auction in early 2013 after the previous owner had failed to get permission for an access road to his “landlocked” 16-hectare property. Previous sale price: nearly $1 million. Ms Noronho seeks access to her land via a track through a Parks Victoria reserve, the Main Ridge…

Besgrove St bunker, 7pm Tuesday 9 June. Stalwarts cooled (literally) their heels until doors were unlocked. Initial absence of biscuits remedied personally by C Cowie CEO. THIS was a meeting as action-packed as Audie Murphy’s war, or the Westerns he made later in his safer role as an actor. And, as action-packed events are usually accompanied by the munching of sweets, the meeting was marked by the rhythmic movement of syncopated jaws masticating mints. First up was five footpath proposals, ranging from Mornington to Sorrento through Mt Martha, Dromana and McCrae. Total cost of the proposals: $1.22 million, dealt with in about…

ABOUT 20,000 peninsula properties are no longer designated flood-prone and more could be removed from the list as a result of “state of the art” mapping and weather modelling still under way across the shire, shire councillors have been told. But while councillors voted to endorse the amended maps already completed, municipal building surveyor David Kotsiakos faced a torrent of questions from councillors dissatisfied with aspects of the maps, presented at the 9 June council meeting. The maps’ aim is to set floor heights for new building works, which will keep them above floodwater. The mapping program is separate from…

THE worked-out Pioneer quarry in Dromana could be used as a waste “bulk haul station” for consolidation of rubbish before it is transported in larger trucks to tips in Hampton Park or Werribee. This is despite Mornington Peninsula Shire’s new Waste and Resource Recovery draft report nominating a site in Dromana’s industrial estate for such a facility. In manoeuvring highly reminiscent of that in a 2009 shire waste management report, the focus of the latest document is on expanding the shire tip, or landfill, at Rye, but with alternative waste technology (AWT) as the preferred  acoption. The shire uses the…