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Wednesday 29 March 2023
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Power struggle over port use Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au
Dance time: Daen Ellis dances for the crowd at Womin Djeka Balnarring Ngargee festival on Saturday. Picture: Jarna Brown
Festival brings communities together THIS year's Womin Djeka Balnarring Ngargee on the weekend was a family festival that celebrated First Peoples cultures and joined communities together. The festival, held for the first time at the Emu Plains Reserve, Balnarring (Boon Wurrung Country), on Saturday 25 March, is in its sixth year and has continued its vision to be an event where the community can gather to
share, begin conversations and walk with First Peoples. The festival is presented by Balnarring Pre-School, joint winners of the 2021 Narragunnawali Award, which recognises outstanding reconciliation initiatives in schools and early learning centres. First Peoples cultures are shared through music, dance, language, art, conversations and first-hand experi-
ences. Organisers said the move to the larger venue had drawn more people. Performances included headline act Isaiah Firebrace who, at 23, is one of the highest streamed First Nations artists in the world. His music has reached double platinum in Australia, platinum in Norway and Sweden and gold in Denmark, and has reached more than half a billion streams. Continued Page 6
COME AND SEE THE CHICKENS ROAMING FREE IN THE PADDOCK!
THE state government’s apparent willingness to increase the use and size of the Port of Hastings has put it on a collision course with environment and community groups and Mornington Peninsula Shire Council. The main points of contention at the moment are the government’s approval of Esso using methane gas powered generators at Long Island Point, Japan’s intention to spend $2.35 billion exporting liquified hydrogen gas from Hastings and a terminal being built to assemble and ship wind generators to Bass Strait. The recent big budget proposals for the port follow years of relative peace on the docks with the defeat of AGL’s liquified gas plan for Crib Point and the moving to Bay West in Port Phillip of a container port. Shire councillors last week voted “as a matter of urgency” to seek clarification from the state government about protecting Western Port’s environment with the project involving gasification of hydrogen made from brown coal and the disposal of carbon the process produces. That decision was made in the same week that the Victorian National Parks Association launched an appeal to raise money to fight against Western Port becoming “an industrial wasteland”. An email sent by the NPA’s executive director Matt Ruchel said Western Port was “neglected and under threat”. Ruchel said the association and the community had defeated the AGL gas import terminal “but this time, it’s not
to stop a specific threat, but many”. Permanent protection was needed to keep the bay “safe, healthy … [and] remove the temptation for industry, developers and governments to exploit this world-class wetland”. In council on Tuesday 21 March Cr David Gill said it was important to ask the state government to consider the Mornington Peninsula “before they just make another decision before our community has an opportunity to have a say”. “The state government has announced it was agreeing to a hydrogen gas export program and now we’re going to be looking at what their intentions are,” he said. After the Tuesday 21 March council meeting, the mayor Cr Steve Holland told The News that the state planning minister had approved a planning scheme amendment giving the go ahead for Esso to generate electricity at its Long Island Point fractionation plant (“Esso stands by to power up” The News 5/12/22). “In recent weeks there has been renewed interest in the Port of Hastings and its future,” he said. “[The] shire would welcome the opportunity to discuss with the state government their plans for Western Port. It is crucial that our community is consulted on the future use of this strategically important and environmentally sensitive region,” Holland said. Gill said at the council meeting that the trial to export hydrogen made from brown coal in the Latrobe Valley from Hastings had failed (“Equipment blamed for fire on hydrogen ship” The News 20/2/23). Continued Page 6
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