‘China crisis’ forces rise RATEPAYERS across Kingston face a rise in charges for recycling after China banned almost all recycling materials previously sold to China from Australia. Any items with a plastics or paper component of just 0.5 per cent can no longer be sent to China as part of that country’s push to stop “foreign rubbish” imports. Kingston councillors voted at a special meeting held on Monday 13 May to discuss council’s draft budget and decided to pass on a $25 increase annually for each household in the municipality. Council CEO John Nevins said the draft budget had originally…
Author: Neil Walker
A PLEDGE to spend $225 million to electrify rail tracks from Frankston to Baxter was the big ticket item for the region in last week’s federal budget. Federal Liberal Treasurer Scott Morrison confirmed the federal government’s commitment to the project as part of a $7.8 billion package for new roads and rail lines across Victoria. But it seems construction works to extend the metropolitan line to Baxter are still some way down the track. The project is not yet fully funded and a business case has not been completed before the federal and state governments can agree on a funding…
FEDERAL Liberal MP Chris Crewther is lobbying the Australian Electoral Commission to prevent boundary changes to his electorate of Dunkley. Mr Crewther, who won the seat at the 2016 federal election with a slim majority, would face a tight fight to hold the seat if proposed AEC electorate boundary changes are made later this year. The Dunkley electorate will lose Mornington and the northern part of Baxter in its south to the seat of Flinders, held by Liberal MP Greg Hunt, and gain Carrum Downs, Sandhurst and Skye to the north from the Isaacs electorate, held by Labor MP Mark…
THERE were cheers all around about a tax cut for craft beer brewers after last week’s federal budget but price drops are unlikely to trickle down to drinkers. Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison has decided smaller brewing businesses will no longer be slugged a higher excise rate on smaller kegs under 48 litres in volume. Mr Morrison and Coalition finance minister Mattias Corman visited a brewery in Canberra to toast the craft beer tax drop ahead of the 2018-19 federal budget released on Tuesday 8 May. Dunkley Liberal MP Chris Crewther hailed the tax relief measure as “giving local brewers a…
A VICTORIAN budget dubbed “a budget for the ‘burbs” has seen the Labor state government splash taxpayers’ cash across Mordialloc, Carrum and ultra-marginal sandbelt seats along the Frankston line ahead of November’s state election. Mordialloc Labor MP Tim Richardson hailed the budget, announced last Tuesday (1 May) by Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas, as “getting things done for Kingston”. Millions of dollars for classroom upgrades at several Kingston area schools have been allocated in the 2018-19 state budget. Pupils at Chelsea Heights Primary School, Edithvale Primary School and Mentone Park Primary School will benefit from improvements to classrooms. “This budget invests in the…