Mount Evelyn
Tuesday, 28 May, 2024
Volunteers in desperate need, analysis
The man behind Allan’s Bakery
50 years of legal service for community
See Real Estate liftout inside
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Scones for a cause It’s that time of the year with Biggest Morning Teas popping up everywhere to support the Cancer Council’s research and programs. Japara Community Hub in Kilsyth and Mooroolbark Library continued their tradition of hosting a morning tea, bringing together community members to share in conversation and some sweet treats. With nearly 25,000 Biggest Morning Tea events happening across the country this year, it shows sheer the impact cancer has in people’s lives, with one in two Australians diagnosed in their life time. The dollars and cents raised at the morning teas make every difference to improving treatments and preventative measures each day. To read more, turn to page 12
Trish Fernley, Vera Baddeley and Sandy McDonald (Mooroolbark CWA) with Emma Jahn (Team Leader Mooroolbark library) for the Biggest Morning Tea event. 409164 Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS
Plea to fund SES By Mikayla van Loon Decades of underfunding for Victoria’s State Emergency Service has come to a head with a volunteer-led campaign urging for a revised but sustainable funding model. The Fund VICSES campaign saw a group from Lilydale’s unit take part in the campaign launch on Monday 20 May with an awareness convoy flooding the Bolte Bridge. Lilydale SES unit controller Shaun Caulfield said this was something that had been “brewing for decades” across “successive govern-
ments” on both sides of the political spectrum. “Relative to the number of resources and the risks and the amount of jobs we do, SES has been drastically underfunded pretty much since its inception in 1975,” he said. SES units were originally funded by local government, with one unit per municipality, bar the case of the Yarra Ranges, which has the three units plus additional support from Emerald SES. Mr Caulfield said 10 years ago the funding model changed to an in-kind arrangement where local governments would give an an-
nual amount which would be matched by the State Government. “We’re talking $5,000. At one point, that did eventually go up to just over $10,000 before that scheme was wound up. “So if your local government gave you $10,000, you got $10,000 from the State Government and all the other money we needed was by fundraising. Some units had the power and petrol and water bills and all of those things paid for by the local government, and others did not.” At Lilydale, Mr Caulfield said at the time,
the unit was receiving around $27,000 per year but had to self-fund all of the bills including the “$4,000 a year for insurance on our vehicles [and] all our fuel bills”. “We’re in the same boat now. We get our annual unit subsidy and then we have to buy everything other than PPE. “So we pay for our insurance bill, obviously it’s up, our fuel bill is up and the more jobs we do, the more fuel we use. So that all compounds.” Continued page 3
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