NEWS DESK
Greek myth in modern mind games LITTLE did she know as she grew up, but it was probably inevitable that Alexandra Dellaportas’s artistic eye would see creative possibilities when learning about her wider family’s history. Talking with her grandfather while visiting Greece and learning about Greek mythology have led directly to her third dance production, Ariadne. Unlike the easy familial linking of the Mornington Peninsula-based director and choreographer to Greece, the story of the mythical Ariadne involves corrosive family relationships and her eventual escape from these bonds through a labyrinth built to hold the half man half bull Minotaur for her father King Minos. Dellaportas’s version of the slaying of the Minotaur on Crete by the Athenian Theseus and the pair’s escape through the labyrinth by following a thread is an opportunity to “open up discussions about mental health and how the Minotaur is a representation of our innermost self, the part we hide from the world”. “Ariadne learns that while she can escape an island, she cannot escape from herself,” she says. “I think it is important to talk about mental health and open up discussions with kids and adults as well all can relate to these issues.” Having started Spark Youth Dance Company three years ago, Dellaportas’s Ariadne follows The Nutcracker (2016) a war propaganda tale “where I decided to combine my history knowledge with love of dance” and Shatter, which brought the Suffragettes and women’s rights to the stage. Spark Youth Dance Company will perform Ariadne on 27 and 28 September at Frankston Arts Centre. Bookings: www.sparkyouthdance.com. au. The dance company is also on YouTube and Instagram @sparkyouthdance. Keith Platt
Ready to ride: Rhys Buzza, Hayden Fenn, Gregory Pratt and Scott Lovegreen are aiming to raise $5000 for rod safety programs by cycling 1200 kilometres in Western Australia. Picture: Supplied
On the road for student safety FOUR Mornington Peninsula cyclists will ride 1200km in Western Australia next month to raise $5000 for road safety programs for peninsula school children. Hayden Fenn, 35, of Frankston South, Scott Lovegreen, 43, of Mt Martha, Rhys Buzza, 42, of Mt Martha and Gregory Pratt, 48, of Mornington, plan to take 90 hours to complete the Perth-Albany-Perth ride, 1-4 October, organised by Audax Australia Cycling Club. The men are using the ride to prepare for the world-famous ParisBrest-Paris epic next year. Fifteen peninsula students from 13 schools met up with The White Bike
LETTERS Shelter off the plan
It is exciting news that the Premier Daniel Andrews has promised, if re-elected, that the state Labor government would spend $562 million extending Frankston Hospital (“Labor pledge for hospital” The News 18/9/18). As taxpayers we need to question: How does the government know that it is getting value for money? The $13 million spent on the new bus hub at Frankston station could not possibly be value for money. It has many failings. The bus shelters (mis-named?) are too small, seating just four people at the busy Bay D, thus not providing shelter from blazing sun or pouring rain. The new road is, in places, too narrow for buses to pass. Mornington MP David Morris has raised the question about the inadequacy of the shelters in Parliament and I regard Transport Minister Jacinta Allan’s reply as completely erroneous when she stated that it was “a safer environment for pedestrians”. Just the opposite is occurring as people take shelter under the shop awnings opposite and have to run across the road when they see their bus approaching. The opportunity was there for a state-of-theart covered bus station leading off from the new train station. The inadequacy of this bus station needs to be admitted to and improvements and alterations made. We live in hope. Brenda Rowlands, Mt Eliza
Centre-focussed Liberals With the 24 November state election fast approaching, I must express my disappointment with the Liberal Party campaign for the seat of Frankston. There seems to be an inordinate fixation on the Frankston CBD at the expense of other areas in the Frankston electorate. What about Frankston North? What about Karingal? Both areas have major crime and live-
Foundation founder Chris Savage last week to wish them luck. The foundation honours Mt Martha teenager Joel Hawkins who died after being knocked off his bike on Nepean Highway, Dromana, in June 2015. Its members deliver bike education to students at Peninsula Grammar and are designing a similar program for Boneo Primary School. “As a daily commuter and a father of teenagers on the Mornington Peninsula I have a keen interest in promoting that cause,” Gregory Pratt said. Donations can be made at whitebikefoundation.org.au/fundraisers
Letters - 300 words maximum and including full name, address and contact number - can be sent to The News, PO Box 588, Hastings 3915 or emailed to: team@mpnews.com.au ability challenges and yet neither has received the level of funding that the Liberal Party has proposed for the Frankston CBD. Frankston North and Karingal are major clusters for a significant proportion of the Frankston electorate that will actually exercise their vote in the upcoming state election. Yet I see little committed along the lines of what has been proposed for the Frankston CBD (such as the Liberal Party committing $30 million dollars for a multi-deck car park in the Frankston CBD which, while needed, is an enormous allocation of money that would do wonders in the likes of Karingal and Frankston North). I encourage [Liberal candidate] Michael Lamb and his party to focus on the parts of Frankston that actually contain voters; new infrastructure and new services are important, but if they are not in areas that people live and shop - such initiatives won’t really achieve much in the long-term. Kris Bolam, councillor North-West Ward
Fairness for refugees I wholeheartedly agree with Ann Renkin (“Bring refugees” Letters 18/9/18). These people have done nothing wrong other than trying to escape oppression from war-torn countries only to find oppression and incarceration at the hands of a so-called Christian Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison federal governments. Yes, the refugees can return to their country of origin at the Australian taxpayers’ expense, but would the Michael Longs (“Sensible policies” Letters 18/9/18) of this world return their family into the possibility of having their families killed? I don’t think so. The disastrous and chaotic situation regarding refugees in Europe is purely in the minds of the racist extreme right. Most people throughout the world have empathy towards the plight of these pitiful victims of tyranny and terror. When I spoke out against racism some time back, I received an inane uninformed suggestion
that I should leave the country of my birth of 76 years ago and go elsewhere if didn’t like racism. To these unfeeling people in Australia, I quote a couple of lines from our national anthem: Our land abounds in nature’s gifts of beauty rich and fair/ For those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share. I for one prefer my grandkids be open and accepting, not narrow-minded insular individuals. May we never be put in the same position as a refugee. John Cain, McCrae
First responders With recent disclosure of the trauma emergency service workers (paramedics, police, protective service officers, fire-fighters, SES workers magistrates, in fact any profession dealing with human frailty) perhaps they could after a limited time, say a year, take regular breaks and do other duties within their chosen profession. This work would be done without loss of seniority and pay. Also, when annual leave or long service leave is due it should be taken as soon as possible, so they have a real break from what must be sometimes shocking and inhumane behaviour they witness and deal with in the course of their professional duties. Both the state government and the opposition have announced sweeping reforms to workplace mental health claims and grants of up to $10,000 to Victoria’s first responders dealing with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) are positive responses to the ongoing problems faced by these dedicated professionals. Denise Hassett, Mt Martha
Political amnesia I saw Flinders MP Greg Hunt on TV commenting on the royal commission into aged care (announced by the Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday 16 September). Like, the federal government is on the ball and initiated this for
the good of the people. I am sure these politicians cannot recollect the thousands of complaints they have received on this problem and the numerous newspaper articles on it and the petitions they have received. It took the good old ABC to get something done so is it any wonder why they want to shut down the ABC or sell it to News Corp? I wonder if they would be as willing to sell ABC to The Guardian? Joe Lenzo, Safety Beach Editor: Mr Hunt, who is also Health Minister, issued a news release last Thursday (20 September) saying the royal commission followed “intensified policing and inspections of the aged sector over the past year [and] information has come to light through the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner, the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency and the Department of Health that makes the case for a royal commission into the sector compelling”.
Ageing disastrously The ABC TV program Four Corners revealed how disastrously our old are treated in many of our aged care facilities. The fact that our federal government, with a face full of egg, called a royal commission even before the program went to air, shows us all how badly the controls of this once mostly community run, but now mostly privatised sector, are. It seems profit is the main aim of this often rogue corporatised section of our care for the old. This whole sad affair confirms my suspicions that any privatising of public service can only lead to a deterioration of the service and lead to ever greater cost to the taxpayer, as we have seen with so many other public institutions. Contrary to the mantra of the free marketeers, every time our governments flog another of our institutions and infrastructure we, the people, pay more, and get less service. Rupert Steiner, Balnarring Beach Frankston Times 24 September 2018
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