Tuesday, 20 August, 2024
Yarra Valley ECOSS facing financial concerns
Jack Howie winner of Casey Apprentice and Trainee Awards
Book Week across Yarra Ranges
See Real Estate liftout inside
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A Star News Group Publication
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Juniors fly the flags By Dongyun Kwon Healesville Junior Football Club (HJFC) lifted two trophies at the end of the 2024 season. HJFC U14 Girls is the only team who has won the premiership consecutively out of the three teams from HJFC who won the premiership last year. “The girls were enthusiastic all year, the love and the care they show for each other was a major contributor to our successful season,” HJFC U14 Girls coach Newsome said. HJFC U13 Boys finally won the premiership for the first time after the frustrations of the last two years. “This season was very enjoyable, and the boys put a lot of effort in,” HJFC U13 Boys coach D’Alterio said. “It was good for their hard work to pay off.” Turn to page 35 for more
The invincible, HJFC U14 Girls. (BH Photography)
Funding lacking Findings from an extensive inquiry into the flood event of 2022 has confirmed the need for sustainable funding of the state’s emergency response service. This along with the uncovering of messy procedures, failures in emergency warnings and poor handling of claims post event helped establish the 73 findings and 90 recommendations made by the parliamentary committee. The October 2022 flood event impacted 63 municipalities, representing 81 per cent of all lo-
cal government areas in Victoria. While much of the intense flooding occurred in Shepparton, Echuca and Rochester, the outer east was heavily burdened by the flash flooding, seeing excessive water in Lilydale, Yarra Junction, Yarra Glen and across the Hills, with close to 75mm of rain falling in around an hour and a half. The inquiry, made up of a cross-section of parliamentarians, handed down its final report at the end of July. And despite October 2022 being the wettest month ever in Victoria since records began in 1900, inquiry chair and Labor MP Ryan Batchelor
said man made solutions actually went a long way in causing more problems. “Not all the damage done in the October 2022 flood event was caused by nature alone,” he said. “The impact of the volume of rain that fell was exacerbated by decisions made, often years prior, on the shape of the built environment, new physical infrastructure, and by our planning system.” But for local SES units, the final report came as a sigh of relief, backing up their calls as part of the Fund VICSES campaign. “It was good to see those recommendations reflect what we’ve been saying for a long time,
which is that SES in Victoria has been grossly underfunded for decades, and we’ve been essentially over performing, if you like, compared to the level of financial input we’ve had from government,” Lilydale SES unit controller Shaun Caulfield said. “So it’s fairly reassuring to see that recognised, that there’s both a gap in the funding for equipment, also the funding for training volunteers, but also in terms of being able to attract and retain new volunteers, as we need to over the course of time.” Continued page 5
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By Mikayla van Loon