fernlea fundraiser - 17 june

Fernlea House are organising a fundraiser with a difference. A range of local artists will

be on the stage together performing on stage round robin style.

It's a great opportunity to hear local artists, Tracey Roberts, Owen Hardridge, Michelle Chandler, Christina Green, Phil Smith, Stax & Zoltan Almady.

All monies go to Fernlea House respite day centre for palliative care.

Where: The GEM Community Arts Centre, 19 Kilvington Drive, Emerald
When: Friday 17 June, Doors open 7pm, music starts 7.30 sharp.
Cost: $15 tickets at door.

Great door prizes. Food & drink available too.

Fernlea House offers a very special palliative care service for our community. It is not a clinical model of service but a social respite model that cares for people diagnosed with a life limiting illness.

Since opening in 2005, their service has flourished and offers social respite as a free service. They also offer bereavement support, home visits, assisted memoir writing, community education and extensive training programs for volunteers.

What I find significant about Fernlea is their dedicated pool of volunteers, numbering in excess of fifty at any given point in time.

One of the stand out things for me about Fernlea is its ability to make guests comfortable and at ease, many guests enjoy a meal together and will happily eat, a rare experience for those with a life limiting illness.

I have no doubt that Fernlea House fills a critical need in our community for those with life limiting illness and I will continue to be a strong advocate for Fernlea House and the social respite model they practice.

celebrating 6 years of hard work

It was great to join the John’s Hill Landcare Group to celebrate the finalisation of six years of planting along a tract of land straddling the Shire of Yarra Ranges and the Cardinia Shire.

Me pictured with John's Hill Landcare group president, Karen Alexander. Behind us is the very first planting of the Landcare group 6 years ago and it is thriving.

The success of the planting is overwhelming, from years of planting and weed work along the unmade section of Ridge Road, Kallista and Ridge Road East, Emerald there is a now a mini forest thriving and full of wildlife.

It was terrific to see the group take the time out to recognise and celebrate their achievements and acknowledge the efforts of all of their volunteers.

landcare plants up emerald

Today I dropped in on the John’s Hill Landcare group who were celebrating 7 years of work in the local region. The festivities including planting up behind the scout hall in Emerald, ably assisted by the first Selby Scouts, a walk Hogans Park to see the wildflowers and a talk by John Hick from Trust for Nature about the Trust and about their work on addressing climate change by capturing carbon in new plantings.

The John’s Hill Landcare group are a well oiled machine, after digging holes, a spoon of water crystals go in, then the plant goes in with a weed mat fitted over the top. Here I am on water crystal duties. This planting included grasses, understorey plants and a few canopy trees too.

kevin comes to town

Tonight the Federal Government held a Community Cabinet at Emerald Secondary School. Many familiar faces were there, some successful in gaining a one on one meeting with a minister after the public forum, others not so lucky.

Before the public forum I joined with a small but vocal group made up of the Sherbrooke Community School and others to protest about the government's fundamentally flawed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Sherbrooke Community School is very committed to environmental issues and passionate about raising the profile of these in the community. Students and teachers joined to highlight the government's lack of action in addressing the issue of carbon emissions, the proposed road through Tasmania's Tarkine got a mention too.

The public forum started with a speech by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who categorically stated the greatest challenge for his government was the global recession. Although I do not deny the seriousness of the global recession, I am disappointed to know that global warming was not on the radar as this government's greatest challenge. We will recover from the recession, but the continuing impact of climate change won’t stay on hold whilst we deal with an economic crisis.

There are many opportunities to respond to global warming and global recession in one hit, a greater emphasis on renewable energy, green jobs and transitioning our economy to a sustainable future would provide a better way forward and also provide the economic stimulus to respond to the global recession. And whilst building infrastructure is a good investment in our future and provides many job opportunities, building with a sustainable future in mind is a far better longer term investment in this country.

There were many questions from the floor covering topics as diverse as bank regulation, vocational education, troops in Afghanistan, solar feed in tariffs, Australia as a republic, project finance from Australian banks, foster care support but most interesting to me was a question asked by a young person about Peter Garrett's (Environment Minister) commitment to fund weed removal in the Dandenong Ranges prior to the election.

Minister Garrett responded by talking about the need for a national approach, the EPBC Act and the identification of key weeds causing problems across Australia. This approach does nothing for the Dandenong Ranges, most of our weeds are environmental weeds (as opposed to noxious), are not listed, yet cause untold damage to our natural environment and in some cases put people at risk (ivy destabilising trees).
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It is important that the Federal and State government understand that their criteria simply do not fit when considering environmental weeds in the Dandenongs.

After the public forum I was joined by the Shire's Director of Community and Economic Development to meet with Minister Joe Ludwig (Human Services) to highlight issues about families and young people in the Shire.

As an interface council (located on the perimeter of Melbourne) the Shire faces unique challenges in delivering human services to the area. The fact that our municipality is both urban and rural, that there are distinctly dispersed populations in isolated townships with poor public transport, we have a high number of families with young children makes service delivery very challenging.

Our region experiences significantly poorer health and wellbeing than our counterparts in metropolitan Melbourne, particularly noticeable with lower rates of school completion, lower Tertiary Entrance Ranking scores and a lower percentage of young people attending post secondary education.

There is a higher likelihood of young people disengaging from school and work in Yarra Ranges, with a greater prevalence of 'at risk' behaviors and higher use of alcohol and tobacco.

It is important that the Shire continues to highlight the significant issues we (and other interface councils) experience to ensure that governments of all levels continue to be aware of the very specific issues for families living in our region.