GRAHAM Patterson’s ambition to walk the entire coastline of Victoria including Port Phillip had an inauspicious start. In the early 1970s he decided to walk from Port Fairy to Portland but part-way along the route ended up struggling out to the road and hitch-hiking into Portland to catch the train back to Melbourne. “It was only about two inches on the map and looked easy,” he said. “But I was under-prepared, young and not very smart: I carried too much in my backpack but not enough water and had to give up.” Some time later, the avid bushwalker decided to…
Author: Mike Hast
THE state government has removed habitat corridors from its plans to protect the iconic southern brown bandicoot in the southeast. Conservationists were told about the backflip two weeks ago at a meeting with Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI) officers. It is understood a proposal to create two habitat corridors, or biolinks, centred on the Royal Botanic Gardens at Cranbourne has been dumped from the final version of the Sub-Regional Species Strategy for the Southern Brown Bandicoot, issued as a draft for public comment in late 2011. One biolink was meant to run from the botanic gardens south to…
FRANKSTON’S mayor Darrel Taylor will not surrender the mayoralty if he wins Liberal Party preselection for the state seat of Frankston. A move to force Cr Taylor to step down was narrowly defeated at the most recent council meeting, with councillors voting 4-3 against a motion put up by Colin Hampton and Glenn Aitken, and supported by James Dooley. Supporting the mayor’s stance were Michael O’Reilly, Rebekah Spelman, Suzette Tayler and the mayor himself, who voted on his own fate. Cr Sandra Mayer did not vote and Cr Brian Cunial was on leave. Last month, Cr Hampton called on the…
THE McClelland Gallery faces a funding crisis following the end of a $400,000 annual grant from its major patron Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. Dame Elisabeth’s support ended when she died 14 months ago but the shortfall has only just been revealed by the gallery’s management committee. The grant was about 40 per cent of the gallery’s annual operational costs of $1 million. McClelland has sufficient reserves for the short term but will face a major funding crisis in the next two years and is seeking alternative sources of funds. Director Robert Lindsay told The Times that McClelland, known formally as the…
FRANKSTON’S mayor Cr Darrel Taylor is aiming to be the Liberal Party’s candidate for Frankston electorate at the November state election. Cr Taylor nominated for preselection last week and if chosen will take on rebel MP Geoff Shaw, who won the seat as a Liberal in 2010 but quit the parliamentary Liberal Party last March and is facing expulsion from the party. But not all Frankston councillors are happy about Cr Taylor’s nomination. Cr Colin Hampton told The Times Cr Taylor’s move takes the council back to the days of a politicised council, a reference to the so-called “moccasin wars”…