WEDNESDAY, 4 MARCH, 2026
Pooches turn pages A cute and meaningful program is looking for dogs and their owners to help children learn to read. Story Dogs is a therapeutic program that helps children feel at ease and confident while learning to read. The successful initiative has now expanded to Wyndham. Local co-ordinator Wendy Jenner said seeing the impact the pooches have on youngsters is heart-warming. “I love to see the children gain confidence and start to view reading as something they enjoy rather than being a challenge for them,” she said. “The dogs have a very calming effect on the children, too.” The canines and their keen owners don’t have to be experts either, just cool customers. “The dogs don’t have to be super well trained either, they just have to be quiet, of average obedience, have basic skills and not be aggressive,“ Ms Jenner said. “You just need to love kids enough to want to be involved with them.“ It turns out that some dogs have the right disposition to help kids hit their stride. Volunteers only have to give a minimum of two hours of their time a week. Details: https://www.storydogs.org.au/ how-to-volunteer
Wendy Jenner and Bella. (Damjan Janevski)
Gilligan sidelined By Jaidyn Kennedy Josh Gilligan has been suspended from Wyndham council for one month and forced to apologise for a Facebook outburst in which he called a former colleague a “raging lunatic.” An independent arbiter’s ruling, tabled at the Tuesday 24 February council meeting, found that a Facebook post made by Mr Gilligan on 18 September, 2025 – directed at former mayor Kim McAliney – constituted misconduct. In response to a Star Weekly article in which Ms McAliney called on Local
Government Minister Nick Staikos to install a municipal monitor at Wyndham, Mr Gilligan wrote: “The raging lunatic recently proclaimed she won’t pay her council rates (which is illegal) sprouting anti-government propaganda you usually see from the sovereign citizen movement”. Mr Gilligan also said he believed Ms McAliney resigned from council in 2020 “because of the shame she brought up on herself,” and that he intended to raise a notice of motion at the October council meeting to release confidential minutes to “reveal one of the suspected contributory factors.“ Cr Robert Szatkowski brought
about the internal arbitration process against Mr Gilligan, alleging that the post breached the behaviour and integrity aspects of the councillor code of conduct. Arbiter Simon Heath said he accepted that the post had caused Ms McAliney considerable distress and that being linked to the sovereign citizen movement was upsetting. He mentioned that she is the widow of a deceased police officer and the post was just three weeks after a claimed member of that movement had allegedly killed two police officers and seriously injured a third. Mr Gilligan claimed the post was
justifiable in the context of Ms McAliney being a “political activist” with “factional alignments” who had shown “obsessive behaviour“ toward him. He also claimed she belonged to a group of people who had attacked him personally and reputationally for several years. Mr Heath did not accept this and also threw out Mr Gilligan’s claim that his post was personal opinion and not made on behalf of council. It was also concluded that no evidence was provided to indicate that Ms McAliney resignation was for inappropriate reasons. Continued: Page 3
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