Author: Mike Hast

THE owner of Tully’s Corner Produce Store on the Moorooduc Highway, Moorooduc, was not a happy man when he left the council chamber in Rosebud on Monday last week. Frank Brancatisano wanted the council to approve his application to sell in his store bottled wine produced by three nearby wineries – Barmah Park Vineyard and Stumpy Gully Vineyard in Moorooduc, and Massoni Vineyard in Mt Eliza. He’d spent a motza on reports from town planner Ratio Consultants and was confident that green wedge zone changes made by Coalition planning minister Matthew Guy, before the Napthine government was rolled by Labor,…

MONEY left over when Rye Senior Citizens Club disbanded 10 years ago will likely go to Rye Beach Community Centre. The existence of a big pot of money, about $60,000, was revealed in late 2012 when Nepean Ward councillor Tim Rodgers was showing his newly elected colleague Hugh Fraser around their patch. The pair inspected the former senior citizens hall in Napier St, Rye, and heard that money left in the bank when the seniors’ club disbanded in 2005 was never redistributed. The seniors’ club was formed in the 1960s and disbanded a decade ago, possibly because Rye RSL expanded…

SOUTH East Water has finished its southern peninsula sewage system 12 months ahead of schedule and $100 million under budget. The state government authority says it is a win for the environment and its customers, who will pay one-third less to connect than originally estimated. The Peninsula ECO sewerage project was announced by the state government in July 2013 (ECO stands for early connection option). Then water minister Peter Walsh said the $357 million project would replace “outdated and often unhygienic septic tank systems” and connect one of the last unsewered areas in Melbourne’s southeast 16 years earlier than had…

MELBOURNE needs two new ports – one at Hastings and one on the western side of Port Phillip – Captain Richard Cox told the Port of Melbourne Select Committee hearing in Hastings last week. The committee is gathering information about the Labor government’s proposed long-term lease of the Port of Melbourne to commercial interests, and came to the peninsula for the first time to hear submissions from individuals, councils including Mornington Peninsula Shire and Frankston, and conservation groups. Captain Cox, a Tyabb resident and former Port of Hastings harbourmaster, told the committee that bulk trade required waterfront space for silos…

SOUTH East Water says sewage that leaked from its pumping station in Pentecost Rd, Mornington, in August did not enter Tanti Creek. The government authority’s general manager of network services, Mark McCormack, refuted a report in The News (“Delays to sewage station repairs”, 27/1015) and said the leak was contained before it entered the waterway. “The leak at the Pentecost Rd pumping station … was due to infiltration of stormwater and groundwater into the old abandoned sewer rising main [pipe] at the lowest point adjacent to the pumping station,” he said. He said fixing this problem cost about $30,000, not…

FIVE fire brigades, Sorrento SES and Ambulance Victoria paramedics combined for the complex rescue of a stranded paraglider at Flinders on Sunday last week. Rescue services were called to the cliff face at Flinders Golf Course about 5.20pm after a man in his early 50s became entangled in a dead tree. He was initially supported by other paragliders near the popular jumping-off point before Flinders CFA members arrived. They were followed by fireys from Shoreham, Rosebud and Dandenong brigades, including the latter’s “high angle rescue team”, and the SES and paramedics. It took almost three hours to stabilise the man…

FORGET the Chinese Year of the Sheep or Goat, in terms of snakes in the Mornington Peninsula, Frankston and southeast region, it’s the year of the copperhead snake. Peninsula licensed wildlife controller Barry Goldsmith says the copperhead is the dominant type of snake appearing as the weather warms, displacing last year’s “year of the tiger snake”. “I’ve been removing on average two a day since the warm weather kicked in,” he said. Mr Goldsmith scotched the myth that there are more snakes around this year as animal hospitals and vets report a sharp increase in pets being bitten by snakes…

MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire could earn up to $10 million a year if it charged tourists to park their cars during the summer season. The suggestion comes from a member of a peninsula ratepayer group as councils around Victoria face the prospect of lower rate income under a state government plan to cap rate rises. The government announced earlier this year that councils would have to show “special circumstances” if they wanted to increase rates by more than the cost of inflation. So-called rate capping will be introduced for the 2016-17 financial year, and the shire will have to find new…

THE peace at Arthurs Seat was disturbed by the sounds of tree lopping and bush clearing last week as Wangaratta-based contractors working for Arthurs Seat Skylift removed vegetation at the sites of the proposed bottom and top gondola stations. It was the first major work by Skylift on the $16 million ride, which it is hoped will be open before Christmas next year. On Friday morning, Skylift’s Simon McKeon and Hans Brugman inspected the two sites with representatives of Doppelmayr of Austria, which will be fabricating the ride, and Parks Victoria officers including district manager Libby Jude. The clearing Monday…

SOUTH East Water has been forced to spend more money to repair a sewage leak at its Pentecost Rd, Mornington, sewage pumping station after the first attempt failed. Problems with the system were first revealed in August when contractors pumped out sewage from the station beside Tanti Creek near Nepean Highway over two nights prior to repair work. This required the partial closure of Pentecost Rd. The News understands the EPA had tested water in the creek on 10 August and ordered SEW to carry out repairs. A small amount of polluted water had entered the creek, which runs into…

ANOTHER step in the long journey to reduce the national scourge of family violence was taken at Peninsula Community Theatre in Mornington last Thursday night when about 450 people packed the hall and its foyer to hear Rosie Batty. The Australian of the Year and Tyabb resident was given a hero’s welcome at the event, the last of an initial Australia-wide tour to promote her book, Rosie Batty: A Mother’s Story, which went on sale late last month. Ms Batty explored now-familiar themes during an interview with ABC radio presenter Jon Faine and, after the formal part of the evening,…

IF all goes well, American and European audiences will hear what an audience in Mornington will witness later this month – a new Australian show, Edith and Marlene, which will premiere at historic Beleura House. The cabaret show is the work of acclaimed Melbourne pianist and world Chopin expert Alan Kogosowski and his friend and recent performance partner, Melbourne mezzo-soprano Galit Klas. And it was “The Little Sparrow”, Edith Piaf, who brought them together and also brought them to Beleura, which has now become one of their favourite venues after they first played and sang there for a National Trust…

THE shire’s former CEO Michael Kennedy has been appointed interim CEO of the Port of Hastings Development Authority following the resignation of Mike Lean last week. Mr Lean has taken a job in the transport industry in Geelong near where he lives. He was appointed head of the revamped port authority in February 2013 when the Baillieu Coalition government decided to begin long-term planning for an expanded container port at Hastings, which was due to open as early as 2025. In April 2013, the former ports minister (and new premier) Denis Napthine announced $110 million over four years for logistics,…

THE state government is considering options to stop the ongoing destruction of Portsea’s iconic front beach after it received the findings of a $300,000 wave monitoring and seabed modelling study commissioned mid-2014. The study by Worley Parsons was recently handed to the government and environment department bureaucrats. They must quickly decide how to save the 1000-sandbag protection wall and stop the destructive swell now spreading both east and west. The sandbag wall may only last another 18 months and it will be expensive to replace. Storms in May removed thousands of tonnes of sand and foredune from the eastern end…

A CHANGE in the way the National Trust manages its four historic properties in the region has triggered the resignation of McCrae Homestead’s part-time manager and nine of its 10 volunteers. The homestead in Beverley Rd, McCrae, is Victoria’s oldest original timber house, built in 1844 on Arthur’s Seat Run, the largest lease in the fledgling Port Phillip colony. It is one of few original pioneer property on the peninsula open to the public. Its historical value is enhanced by the diaries, journals, music books and paintings left by the homestead’s designer and original resident, Georgiana McCrae. Manager Sharon Bowen…

THE peninsula’s first weekly produce market starts at The Briars Park in Mt Martha on Tuesday 20 October. It is the idea of Rachael Koch, who grew up in Frankston, and Matt Taylor, of Mt Eliza – business and life partners who met at Woodleigh School – and will be the culmination of planning that started last summer when the couple first started talking to peninsula suppliers. Discussions with the shire, which owns and runs The Briars, started in April and the lease was signed last week. Ms Koch said Briars head ranger Jarrod Ruch had “been amazing as the…

THERE is “movement at the station” of Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery with the shire last week advertising for a “concept design and landscape precinct plan for the redevelopment and expansion” of the peninsula’s premier art centre. The shire’s advertisement in the tender section of The Age stated: “The design should facilitate a good public environment for the community users and visitors, through the application of best design practises [sic]. “Consultants will also develop a business case and project delivery plan for the redevelopment and providing [sic] a detailed and well-supported case for investment in the project by government and potential…

ALMOST three years after opening in January 2013, Peninsula Link freeway will get directional and tourism signs that were omitted from the original brief for the $850 million road. The signs come courtesy of intense lobbying by federal Dunkley MP Bruce Billson and peninsula tourism officials, and will be installed in time for this “year’s peak summer holiday period”, Mr Billson said. About $175,000 of the cost will come from a federal Coalition government grant organised by Mr Billson in what some people will see as an unfair cost burden as the freeway is a private public partnership between the…

ANTI-coal activists have rallied outside the Hastings office of local MP and environment minister Greg Hunt for the third time this month. Last Wednesday morning, members of national lobby group GetUp held a “friendly tug-of-war between ‘Team Coal’ dressed in black and ‘Team Coral’ in tropical colours” as part of a campaign to “protect the Great Barrier Reef” and protest about Mr Hunt and the Coalition government allowing more coal projects in the Galilee Basin in Queensland. Sam Regester of GetUp said the playful tug-of-war game “highlighted the serious decision the minister had to make between greater action to protect…

PARKS Victoria is increasing ranger patrols on peninsula surf beaches in an attempt to help protect the endangered hooded plover during its breeding season from September to March. Parks Victoria’s peninsula chief ranger Kris Rowe said residents and visitors must abide by dog restrictions. The tougher regime is due to the disappointing breeding season in 2014-15. Just four chicks survived to fledgling (flying) stage out of 34 chicks hatched. There are fewer than 600 hooded plovers left in Victoria. Mr Rowe said the hooded plover population in Mornington Peninsula National Park was one of the largest in Victoria. “However it…

MORE than 70 kangaroos have been hit and killed by vehicles on Mornington Peninsula roads this year, says animal activist Craig Thomson. Mr Thomson, secretary of Animalia Wildlife Shelter, said roos were being forced on to road reserves by property owners building “9-foot [3-metre] kangaroo-proof fences, especially in the Tuerong to Cape Schanck area”. “The fences limit their ability to move across the land,” he said. “Kangaroos on the peninsula are an isolated population and we could loose them forever if we don’t protect them.” He said most roos killed were eastern greys, the dominant species in the region. “This…

COMMENT IT’S concerning to see the amount of boneseed growing beside peninsula roads this spring. After a couple of weeks out of the area, was driving back to the southern peninsula via the Mornington Peninsula Freeway in early September. Coming into the Arthurs Seat cutting that’s spanned by La Trobe Pde, there on the inland side of the VicRoads freeway were dozens of boneseed bushes, some several years old, their bright yellow flowers gleaming in the sun. South African boneseed (Chrysanthemoides monilifera) is one of the state’s worst pest plants, according to botanists and the state government’s own experts. It…

MORNINGTON’S iconic cliff walking track between Beleura Hill and Mills Beach would cost $12 million to build nowadays, say members of a steering committee. The committee was formed by residents with the approval of the shire after a public meeting in December 2013 that followed the closure of the track the month before due to another landslip caused by stormwater from nearby properties undermined the track. The committee continues to lobby for the track to be fixed and reopened. The shire council has applied for state money for the project and an announcement is expected soon, shire coastal planner Neil…

THE new section of Rosebud pier, officially opened two weeks ago with little fanfare by Parks Victoria, complements nearby beach renourishment completed at about the same time by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. Parks has spent about $3.5 million on the 329-metre long pier in two tranches between 2009 and this year, while the state environment department has spent about $500,000 in two lots to replenish the beach. The first attempt was in mid-2009 when contractors built a sandbag wall on the eroded shoreline and placed imported sand between it and the water. The sand disappeared in…

DROMANA Football and Netball Club wants in on a plan to develop a section of Crown land on Boundary Rd, Dromana, into an adventure park. The senior and junior sections of the club have been seeking more ovals for several years as its ground off Pier St – Dromana Recreation Reserve – is at capacity. Next season the club will have 15 teams playing at the reserve – 11 junior teams (including two girls’ sides) and four senior teams, including a proposed women’s team. Thirteen teams played there this year. A second girls’ team and the women’s team will be…

RACV head office moved quickly to stop the culling of kangaroos at its Cape Schanck resort last week after complaints from neighbours. A couple who live in the adjacent estate were walking two dogs on leads on a concrete path just before 7am last Thursday when they saw a spooked kangaroo hopping rapidly beside the third fairway then across the fourth and into bush bordering Cape Schanck Rd near the fifth hole. Seconds later John Henshaw and his wife saw two men emerge from bushes where the third and fourth holes blend. “One had a large rifle with telescopic sights,…

THE Rosie and Luke Batty story was launched yesterday in Melbourne and Australians will again be forced to confront the reality of family violence. Rosie Batty: A Mother’s Story tells the harrowing story of the events of Wednesday 12 February 2014 at Tyabb Central Recreation Reserve and the 18 months since. Peninsula resident Ms Batty rose to unwanted prominence following the killing of her son Luke by his father at cricket practice in Tyabb on that day. Greg Anderson was shot dead by one of four police officers from Mornington police station soon after when he confronted them with a…

IN January after the murders in Paris at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Mornington Peninsula publisher, author and artist Fran Henke dispelled her dismay and anger by creating a collage on the theme of the slogan that swept the world – “Je Suis Charlie” (I Am Charlie), including Aussie references. “I’ve worked with cartoonists and satiric portraitists over more than 50 years of journalism and the tragedy hit me hard,” she said. She donated her work, Je Suis Ahmed, to Bald Archy Prize organiser Peter Batey, who created the prize in 1994 to take the mickey out of pretentious portrait…

ANALYSIS RUMOURS of BlueScope Steel closing its Port Kembla blast furnace in Wollongong and reorganising its Australian flat steel production could benefit the company’s plant at Hastings. BlueScope announced a full-year profit of $136.3 million on 24 August – an improvement on last year’s loss of $83 million and even larger losses in recent years – and its share price went up but these are worrying times for the nation’s biggest steel producer, its workers and other stakeholders. The financial result came out on the day the Australian share market suffered its worst fall since the global financial crisis but…

THE shire has charged the owner of a bush block in Main Ridge with illegal clearing under the Environment and Planning Act. The matter will come before Frankston Magistrates’ Court next week. The owner faces a maximum penalty of $180,000 per offence but any fine is likely to be much lower. If the prosecution is successful, the fine would likely be in the range of $5000 to $50,000. The matter of remediation will be pursued separately. About a third of the 16-hectare block was cleared in January by a contractor. A shire spokesman told The News the owner had been…