LAST week’s federal budget held little comfort for those sleeping rough on the Mornington Peninsula. Homelessness Australia said social housing stock as a proportion of all housing had dropped to the lowest level on record, with just 4.7 per cent of all Australian houses being community and public housing, down from 5.3 per cent in 2005-06. The peak body has warned that without more investment in social housing, the number of people accessing homelessness services will hit close to 350,000 each year by 2022. It says failure of successive governments to build enough social housing to keep up with population…
Author: Stephen Taylor
FOND memories of 47 dachshunds gleefully running amok at her swimming pool for dogs a few years back still makes Somerville woman Jo Woolley laugh. “They came to us via a Facebook group booking for a pool party and had an absolute ball in and out of the water,” she said. “They were hilarious.” That’s easy to imagine as the pool at Aquapaws Canine Rehabilitation Centre is a favourite destination for its regular four-legged visitors. Ms Woolley says she can hear her customers panting and squealing as they literally drag their owners across the car park to get there. “They…
SCIENTISTS and health experts have joined forces in the battle to stop the spread of the debilitating Buruli ulcer. The federal government last week announced a $1.5 million two-year research study into ways of eradicating the fast spreading disease – which is especially prevalent on the Mornington Peninsula. Of the 275 infections recorded across Victoria last year, and the 35 reported so far this year, more than 80 per cent have occurred on the peninsula, according to study leader Professor Tim Stinear, from the University of Melbourne. Mosquitoes are suspected as being the key factor in the spread of the…
AN exhibition giving an insight into the powers of harnessing wartime public perception through advertising, graphics and information – whether true or false – is at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery until early July. Propaganda: A selection of posters from the Australian War Memorial, displays many of the key posters designed to inflame public opinion and fashion public thinking during the war and, in some cases, generate a wave of recruits. The artworks have come from the Australian War Memorial which has one of the world’s largest collections of historic propaganda posters. The exhibition also includes commissions from three contemporary…
NUDE bathers in undesignated areas at Moondah beach, Mt Eliza, risk being fined under the Summary Offence Act. The issue came to a head when a Mt Eliza resident contacted the council to complain about the “blatant” behaviour of some clothes-optional swimmers at Sunnyside North beach (“Cover up or clear out, parent’s call to nudists” The Times 23/4/2018). He complained they were venturing onto the southern end of Moondah beach which is outside the designated area. The shire’s environment protection manager John Rankine said Sunnyside North was declared clothing optional under the Nudity (Prescribed Areas) Act 1983, allowing bathers to…