‘Respect what we have, take your rubbish home’
The residents of Blairgowrie recognise that we occupy a very special place sitting between Port Phillip and Mornington Peninsula National Park.
Our neighbourhood character is greatly enhanced by considerable roadside native vegetation and a number of bushland reserves and beautiful beaches. This character is under attack by excessive clearing for residential development, graffiti on public infrastructure and rubbish dumped or left on our beaches.
I wish to acknowledge the efforts of Mornington Peninsula Shire Council, the Whitecliffs foreshore management and Parks Victoria to address these problems.
We would like to appeal to all our residents and visitors to respect what we have, take your rubbish home or to the recycling centre in Rye, join one of our volunteer groups and help us all enjoy why we live and come to Blairgowrie.
Richard Doery, chair Blairgowrie Community Action Group
Show a winner
Congratulations to all concerned for the success of the 2023 Red Hill Show. Worrying numbers of children with no apparent sun protection, and a clueless woman letting her dog run free adjacent to the farm animals aside, it was a great day with much to enjoy. Local produce, dog trials (discipline, not criminal), woodcutters, and the very droll and visual presentation of shearing by local hero Peter, what’s not to love.
David Martin, Mount Martha
Group winds down
This is to advise that Rye Beach Community Action is being wound up. This group was formed more than 20 years ago by Rye residents and business owners, to help promote and improve the Rye township.
The group was involved in many projects, such as the sandcastle competition that ran for several years; the Octopuses Garden pier walk; Rye business awards and dinner, publishing a Rye business directory; Clean-Up Australia days; an inter-faith festival; re-vegetating the foreshore with thousands of indigenous plants; and participating in many council community consultations. However, by far the largest enterprise it was involved in was the creation 10 years ago of a new and larger community-built children’s playground on the foreshore near the pier.
More than $300,000 was donated by the community, Mornington Peninsula Shire Council and businesses from Rye and across the peninsula. After three years of negotiating with the council and authorities, it was built in five days purely by volunteers.
To allow the action group to do things such as this, a public liability insurance policy was essential, and this was mainly paid by the business members’ annual membership fee of a $100.
When the council encouraged businesses to form a separate Rye chamber of commerce, the days of the action group were thus numbered.
The remaining action group funds will be disbursed as follows: $12,000 to artist Simon Normand for a sea-themed mosaic at the entrance to the playground, and $8900 to Rye Primary School to help upgrade its computer lab.
Thank you everyone who supported the action group and its projects over the years.”
David Trunfull, treasurer Rye Beach Community Action
Late take-off
Tyabb “airport” did not come first (“Airport came first” Letters 15/3/23). For those recent arrivals unacquainted with the history of Tyabb here is a short summary:
1858: Tyabb first surveyed for 100 acre “selections”.
1891: Tyabb Primary School (Top Tyabb) opened.
1899: Tyabb Hall, built by residents, opened.
1907: Tyabb Railway Primary School opened.
1920: Tyabb Cenotaph unveiled.
1958: New Tyabb Hall replaces original which become Tyabb Youth Hall.
1963: More than 100 years after the establishment of Tyabb, the first flight was made from a paddock which eventually became Tyabb airfield.
David Chalke, Tyabb
Wrighting wrongs
Yep, two of Tyabb’s six schools were built after the Wright Bros and my mum flew and airfield was established, my apologies (“Schools came first”, “New-found respect” Letters 21/3/23).
Motives? Mine was to advocate a safe future for the airport with its many community benefits (“Airport came first” Letters 14/3/23). I wonder about someone who was an aircraft owner and former [Peninsula Aero Club] board member and someone’s “post truth world” that would be inhabited by those continuing to push [Mornington Peninsula Shire] council into closing the airfield for lucrative development opportunities, when the only decision lies with Air Services Australia, a federal body.
Fran Henke, Hastings
Two-pot talk
Old age arrives, bringing lesser activities, thankfully not the two pots daily at my RSL. The consensus is loud and clear, Mornington Peninsula Shire Council has abandoned us (cleaning, handyman, graffiti) in favour of high-rise buildings, money, and increased power.
Some of us can recall the times when our local councillor would visit, listen, and take action. They were the days, for some. Others have given up, adopting an “it is what it is” point of view, reverting to who will win the football match, or the mystery of this new-fangled iPhone, or the latest on eye cataracts, hip replacements. Life. One day at a time. A shrug of the various shoulders, men and women.
Cliff Ellen, Rye
Voice misconstrued
What a gross case of scaremongering and exaggeration! (“‘No Voice’ explained” Letters 21/3/23).
The writer warns of an apparently terrifying prospect: a “Trojan Horse for democracy in Australia”. A Trojan Horse is defined as something which undermines or overthrows the enemy, so what is this fearful change which will undermine and overthrow us, will place “undue influence on government decisions” and will “end in ownership” (presumably the writer believes of the entire country)? Apparently, the culprit is an enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament. This, according to the writer, is what will threaten to destroy our democracy and our “system of government and laws”. I thought the Indigenous Voice was simply an advisory body to parliament giving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a say on matters that affect them. Doesn’t sound like a Trojan Horse.
The letter also misconstrues the role of First Nations MPs as being representatives of their community when they are representatives of their electorate and their political party. The author completely fails to mention that the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the request in 2017 to all Australians to “walk with” First Nations people, was supported by the overwhelming majority of First Nations representatives, in a call for voice, truth and treaty.
Finally, we read that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are all supposed to hold the same view on matters such as the Voice. Is individual expression a democratic right for non-Indigenous people only?
This kind of exaggerated and misleading messaging confuses genuine people wanting to decide how to vote responsibly in a referendum that is critically important for the nation. Spare a thought too, for the effect the letter would have on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people living in the area.
Maureen Donelly, Mornington
Voice ‘anti-apartheid’
Let us look at the word apartheid: a policy of segregation and political, social, and economic discrimination against the non-white majority (“‘Apartheid’ ahead” Letters 14/3/23).
The only country I know that is apartheid today I cannot mention as I would immediately be labeled anti-Semitic.
I would suggest that the Voice is actually anti-apartheid being as the antonyms for apartheid are: anti-racism, anti-discrimination, assimilationism, anti-segregation. There are many others that clearly lay waste to the Voice being apartheid.
The Liberal government did not have a problem with the distinction when they were issuing cashless welfare cards.
The USA has solved the problem by simply saying that anyone who has 1/16 American Indian heritage can claim American Indian legal status.
Please do not mention this apartheid theory to [federal opposition leader] Peter Dutton, it will just add to the continued subterfuge (deceit used in order to achieve one’s goal) of the Voice by the Liberal Party. He has already started with his latest subterfuge “What/who is an Aboriginal?”
Australia, of course, has a clear understanding of apartheid – consider: in 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act (white Australia policy was enacted. However the Indigenous locals, who were considered a “dying race”, were also targeted. Which caused the native population to be dispossessed and faded into society’s periphery, both literally and figuratively. It also was the precursor of “assimilation” and the stolen generation.
In 1973, after 72 years, it was struck down by the newly elected Labor government.
Joe Lenzo, Safety Beach
‘One-eyed’ Sybils
These people oppose anything that will benefit Australia or the community of Hastings, work and progression wise, into alternative forms of energy production or delivery (“Sybils tread the (pier) boards” The News 14/3/23). They have their one-eyed view of what it should be, and any [energy] forms other than wind and solar are opposed.
Those Sybils pictured are people, age wise, who have lived, used and I would still bet, use fossil fuel vehicles and appliances.
I’m for the expansion of Western Port Long Island industrial [area] as long as it’s done in a proper way environmental wise.
Alex Angelico, Parkdale
On the level
A female activist from the UK (Kellie-Jay Keen) was invited to speak on women’s rights, particularly the rights of females in sport. However, in the media this gathering of speakers has been branded as anti-trans. That is far more “woke” and trendy than being pro-women. But being pro-women doesn’t mean being anti-trans. They are not mutually exclusive.
It is simply a case of the long-standing natural rights of one group conflicting with the perceived rights of a different group, albeit a minority group.
The thrust of Ms Keen’s argument is that female athletes should not have to race against persons who grew up as males, and thus have male attributes of speed and strength.
Mothers have been voicing their concerns that if they speak up their daughters will be dropped from teams. Only swimming has come out with a clear statement on transgender participants. Furthermore, women have the right to feel safe in changing rooms and should not have to share with trans-gender persons who still have their male “bits”.
Transgender people should compete against other trans-gender athletes, so they have a level playing field, much as people with disabilities compete in separate events at the Olympics.
Of course [Victorian premier] Dan Andrews has to have his two-bobs worth, claiming it’s all about inclusivity while ignoring the fact that an ex-male who beats a female is depriving that girl or woman of what would otherwise be her hard won spot on the team. His only interest in the matter is to try to gain political points.
I fear it is not possible to have a rational debate about matters such as this in the current climate.
Jack Wheeler, Mornington
Letters – 300 words maximum and including full name, address and contact number – can be sent to The News, PO Box 588, Hastings 3915 or emailed to: team@mpnews.com.au
First published in the Mornington News – 28 March 2023
