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Wednesday 11 August 2021
5974 9000 or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au Time travellers: Teacher Shae Haney celebrates 100 days of learning with students Chance, Suzannah, Kira, Liam, Skylah and Blake at Eastbourne Primary School, Rosebud. Picture: Yanni
Reminders of ‘old school’ day TO celebrate their 100 days of learning, foundation students at Eastbourne Primary School, Rosebud dressed up as if they were 100 years old. The milestone day was one for the memory books as students brought in collections of “100’things”, including buttons, Lego pieces, marbles and stickers. The played games which were popular a century ago along with making necklaces with 100 Cheerios. “The celebration was an important day for children to reflect on their achievements and growth over the past 100 days,” foundation teacher Shae Haney said. “Together, the students reflected back on their first day, making comparisons to their 100th day. Photos and memories from their first day of school, to their 100th allowed them to reflect and marvel at what they are able to do now. Many children took pride in how many words they could now read, write and spell compared to day one as well as their ability to count forwards and backwards.”
Beach box owners lose waste case Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au IN WHAT is regarded as a landmark finding, the Victorian Supreme Court has ruled that beach box owners on the Mornington Peninsula must pay waste disposal charges. The decision handed down by the court last week after two years’ deliberation is likely to affect various other charges levied by municipalities throughout Victoria. The Mornington Peninsula Beach
Owners Association launched legal action against Mornington Peninsula Shire Council three years ago in a bid to avoid paying the annual waste charge. Unlike households, the beach boxes do not have bins that are left to be emptied weekly at the kerbside but, following the court's decision, they will now have to pay the $338 waste disposal charge included in this year's shire budget. The charge was $242 in 2018 when the beach box owners started their challenge. The mayor Cr Despi O’Connor said
the judge was “highly critical of the case put forward by the [beach box] association and found that it failed at every point”. “This was a significant case for council and a successful claim would have had negative consequences for all Victorian councils and seriously impacted their ability to deliver services to the community,” Cr O’Connor said. “Our waste levy allows us to deal with waste across the shire, including public places. It’s not just about household bins.” Beach box association president Mark
Davis said its committee was “naturally disappointed with this outcome and will be considering our next steps”. In an email to association members Mr Davis said the waste service charge had been challenged “on the basis that we could not and did not receive council waste collection”. “The judgement found that a ‘work around’ to the [state government imposed] rates cap applied by [the shire] was valid,” he said. “This decision has important implications not only for us as beach box owners, but for all rateable land in Victoria.”
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The association’s legal representatives Kellehers Australia described the 87-page decision by Justice Anthony Lewis Cavanough as being “a robust, comprehensive judgement”. “He accepted that the beach box occupiers, as a class, stood to gain some direct or indirect benefit from each of four waste-related ‘services’ council provided [such as] beach cleaning, foreshore litter bins, drain clearing and waste disposal vouchers,” Kellehers stated in a summary of the “key fundamental and highly significant findings”. Continued Page 10