UNEMPLOYED young people from Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula will soon be able to apply to join the Coalition government’s Green Army environmental training scheme but they will be paid well below the minimum wage and won’t be covered by national health and safety laws or be eligible for workers compensation. Legislation for $300 million Green Army scheme recently tabled in federal parliament by Environment Minister and member for Flinders Greg Hunt has drawn fierce criticism from unions, environmental groups and legal experts. Under the Green Army legislation, 250 projects involving approximately 2500 “volunteer trainees” will begin around Australia this…
Author: Chris Brennan
KINGSTON’S crime rate dropped significantly during 2013 and remains well below the state average, latest Victoria Police statistics for the 12 months to December 31 released last week reveal. But while the total number offences and crime rates per 100,000 people were well down in almost all categories of crime for Kingston, the number of drug offences detected shot up more than 18 per cent, sparking alarm among senior police. The most significant improvement in the fight against crime was recorded in the ‘crime against property category’, which fell 10.3 per cent, led by a 11.5 per cent decline in…
A FRANKSTON South teenager is being hailed a hero after keeping a 17-year-old girl afloat for more than an hour as she slipped in and out of consciousness about 250 metres off Frankston beach last Saturday night. Fifteen-year-old Jackson Smith-Hillier battled to keep the girl conscious and afloat in choppy conditions and complete darkness while awaiting assistance after he swam out to rescue her about 9.30pm. Help finally arrived about 10.30pm when a Frankston police officer swam out and dragged the girl back to shore. On the way back in to the beach, the constable noticed the girl had stopped…
POLICE have slammed the “disgraceful” behaviour of rogue motorists on Peninsula Link after more than 10,000 speeding drivers were detected in just one month, including one man clocked at well over double the 100km/h speed limit. Cameras detected more than 300 speeding offences a day between 17 December and 18 January, including 114 drivers who had their licences immediately cancelled after being caught driving more the 30km/h above the speed limit, eight of whom were clocked at speeds of more the 45km/h over the limit. Among them was a male driver clocked at 238km/h and later at 121km/h in a…
A NEW wave of micro-sized plastic pollutant is finding its way into Port Phillip in ever-increasing volumes, sparking growing concern among environmental watchdogs who warn urgent monitoring and research into the problem is required. Thousands of pre-production plastic pellets known colloquially as nurdles have been found throughout the waterway and on beaches as far south as Mornington, Dromana and Sorrento. The tiny pellets – usually between 3-5 millimetres in diameter – are petrochemical products that are poured into moulds and melted down at factories across the planet to form virtually everything made from plastic. But increasing numbers of the pellets…