Tuesday, 16 December, 2025
Community mourns Warburton church
Animal rescue launches initiative
Healesville legend Eric Duff dies aged 83
See Real Estate liftout inside
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A Star News Group Publication
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What a year! By Oliver Winn Yarra Valley ECOSS marked the completion of two major upgrades to its farm with a sausage sizzle and certificate presentation on 9 December. The upgrades were new asphalted pathways to improve accessibility and five business incubator hubs to host local sustainable and ethical businesses. Yarra Valley ECOSS executive officer Chelsea McNab said the program’s participants (made up of people living with disabilities and their support workers) helped seal the farm’s pathways so they could be accessible to all. “Now that’s here, we’re really excited to welcome more people with not only wheelchairs, but also prams and walking aides and for all ages and abilities. It feels really good to be able to be more accessible,” Ms McNab said. The volunteers had their hard work recognised with a certificate presentation. Each and every recipient beamed with pride as they received their awards. Turn to page 17 to read more
The volunteers celebrated with glee as they received their certificates. (Oliver Winn: 524302)
Banned or not? With the Federal Government’s social media ban officially in place as of 10 December, local youth are quickly adapting their platform usage, albeit not in ways that were expected. With the purpose of shielding Australia’s youth from social harm and promoting real world experience, the ban was enacted under the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 and officially came into force on 10 December. The new legislation maintains that all age-
restricted social media platforms must “take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account.” Platforms that were required to take action to ban users under the age of 16 from their services included Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Youtube, Facebook and Reddit, among other platforms. Since its recent implementation, the strength of the social media ban itself has been inconsistent, with many youth under the age of 16 retaining access to some or all of the above listed plat-
forms, while others have lost access. Healesville High School student Paige, 14, is yet to be kicked off any of the social media platforms she uses. “Most people have found a way around the ban,” Paige said. “I still have access to all of my social media platforms,” she said. Despite retaining her access to social media, Paige confirmed that her screentime habits have changed since the ban. “My social media use is probably the same, ex-
cept some of my friends have been kicked off so I am not doing as much on social media because I can’t interact with them on there,” Paige said. “I am only talking to a couple of friends on Snapchat now,” she said. Hills High School Student Eliza, 15, has been able to navigate around the ban in a similar fashion. “When I first heard about the ban, I thought it wouldn’t actually happen,” Eliza said “I thought it wasn’t real,” she said. To keep reading, head to page 7
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By Gabriella Vukman
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