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Wednesday 15 December 2021
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Water safety an attention essential YAWA Aquatic Centre is the 200th Victorian aquatic centre to join Life Saving Victoria’s Watch Around Water safety campaign. The campaign aims to reinforce the message about the importance of supervising children around water: younger children should be within arm’s reach and those under 10 within sight and under active supervision. The campaign places the onus on parents and guardians and their close attention to their children is a condition of entry to the aquatic centres. Life Saving Victoria marked the occasion with a celebration at Yawa last week. Manager aquatic industry services Alek Olszewski emphasised the importance of the message. “Active supervision is essential in preventing aquatic-related death or injury by drowning,” he said. “The parent or guardian must remain in close proximity and pay continual attention to the child at all times, and free of distractions, such as answering the phone or leaving the area to go to the bathroom. “It only takes 20 seconds for a child to drown and accidents can occur even with a short lapse in supervision.” Of the 61 drownings in Victoria from July 2020-June 2021, 15 were children. This is 11 more than the fiveyear annual average and the highest number of drownings in this age group in more than 20 years. It includes eight children under four and seven aged 5-14.
ADAM Brown, second from left, with his sons Oliver, Louie and Elliott at Yawa. Picture: Gary Sissons
‘People-power’ ends quarry bid Stephen Taylor steve@mpnews.com.au SAVE Arthurs Seat supporters are cheering a decision by The Ross Trust to abandon its bid to dig a quarry on the Pioneer site at Dromana. The controversial plan, under which Hillview Quarries would extract stone from a 43 hectare site on the north face of Arthurs Seat, became a rallying point for environmentalists determined to protect one of the last pockets of natural bushland on the
Mornington Peninsula. Now, after eight years the battle – first against a tip on the site in 2013, and then the quarry – has been won. “This is a win for people power, it’s a win for the environment, it’s a win for the Victorian community as a whole,” Peninsula Preservation Group president Dr Mark Fancett said. “This was a crazy idea from the start. It was hypocritical for the trust to be the developer of a massive quarry on bushland … [while] being a charity with a mission of protecting biodiversity.”
The Ross Trust last week glossed over the back down, announcing it was planning to “explore a rehabilitation option” for the Boundary Road site “consistent with the prescriptive rehabilitation requirements mandated by the Victorian government”. It said it would “no longer seek to re-establish a fully operational quarry” there. Hillview Quarries CEO Paul Nitas said that as part of the environmental effects statement (EES) process the company would “work alongside the community, stakeholders, and the state to explore how best to rehabilitate”
the site for future uses. “The footprint … will change,” he said. “Its landscape, while picturesque, is not all undisturbed natural and native bushland. Rehabilitating it to be safe, stable, and to meet the full legislative requirements for use for generations to come will require substantial work,” Mr Nitas said. Ross Trust chair Jeremy Kirkwood criticised the “heightened negative campaign” by the Save Arthurs Seat group. “The decision … was made because the trust is increasingly concerned
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that the heightened negative campaign against the proposed quarry was threatening the good work of the trust and the organisations it funds,” he said. “Our work is being undermined by sometimes threatening, dangerous, vitriolic and misleading behaviour. We cannot allow our staff, grantees, and supporters to … be exposed to this. It’s not right and it needs to stop.” Nepean MP Chris Brayne said the decision showed the R E Ross Trust had “listened to the community”. Continued Page 5