Southern Peninsula
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LETTERS
Rotary awards for volunteers MARK Daw, of the State Emergency Services Sorrento unit, and Rosebud-Rye Rotary Club member Pat Sansonetti, have been presented with Paul Harris Fellowship awards. The awards were made at a Rotary dinner on Wednesday 29 June. Daw has been a member of Sorrento SES since May 2012, undertaking such roles as incident controller responding to and managing storm and flood events, road crash rescues and leading teams to assist fire agencies. He was incident agency commander for the Victorian SES during the 2019/20 East Gippsland fires in charge of groups of volunteers and making decisions on response and safety in the field. When presenting the award Rotary club president Philip Hedley
More deaths are likely as targeted emergency medical response times are not met in the more remote rural areas of the Mornington Peninsula such as Red Hill, Main Ridge, Shoreham, Flinders and Cape Schanck. A paramedic with a vehicle stationed at Main Ridge CFA has been moved away despite there being more than 2600 incidents in just three months at the end of 2021. The initially temporary service has been acknowledged to have saved lives and without it emergency response times will go back to about 30 minutes. This is well above the targeted emergency response time of less than 15 minutes, assessed as giving patients the best chance of survival after heart attacks and other serious incidents. There is some good news, with increased services at Sorrento and Somerville for busy times of the day, but these are stop gap measures that may still leave parts of the peninsula vulnerable. It comes back to cost-driven decisions by politicians. Ambulance Victoria and our first responders support increased services to our 42 separate peninsula communities and nearly eight million yearly visitors, including those in Western Port and the hinterland where the extra travel rescue time is the main issue. The peninsula must have ambulances and paramedics available 24 hours a day meeting Southern Peninsula News
acknowledged Daw’s leadership and commitment to the Rosebud community, including events at schools, fetes and for supporting the local Teenagers Road Accident Group (TRAG) and speaking to secondary school students about road safety. Past president of Rotary International Ian Riseley OAM presented
Sansonetti with a Ruby Paul Harris Fellowship in recognition of his service over the past 40 years to Rotary, the Italian community, his church and other organisations. Sansonetti is also known for the “Italian-ised” sausages in bread sold on Saturday mornings outside Woolworths, Rye.
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
Failure to meet response time targets will be fatal
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AT the Rotary awards night are, top, Ian Riseley, Libby Wilson, Pat Sansonetti and Philip Hedley. Left: Mark Daw and Philip Hedley. Pictures: Barry Irving
20 July 2022
response times up to community expectations. David Gill, councillor Red Hill Ward, Mornington Perninsula Shire
That’s service Just recently, not being well and somewhat incapacitated, I desperately wanted to have the inside of my car cleaned. I went to the place where I have my car serviced and asked if they knew a good cleaner who could do it for me. Lisa, in the office, recommended someone and at a later date I took it to them, and they did a very good job. On my way home I stopped to let Lisa know and mentioned that I was going to a place nearby to get some new covers for the front seats, as previously she had told me that if I decided to get some, she would put them on for me. Unfortunately, when I got back we discovered that the covers I bought were not the right ones. Straight away, Lisa said to me, “Give me your keys” and drove my car back to the shop. Within 10 minutes she had returned with the right covers, handed me a new receipt with some change because these had been a bit cheaper, then proceeded to fit them to my car. I told her how grateful I was for her help, and she said as I walked out of the door: “If there is anything more I can do for you, please ring me.” Connie Gilchrist, Capel Sound
Universal offsets Even if carbon offsets aren’t 100 per cent effective, one feels the responsibility of Mornington Peninsula Shire Council would be to have an alternative policy or plan in place before simply abandoning its obligation under its climate emergency plan (“Offsets ‘conscience soothing, paper shuffling exercise’” Letters 28/6/22. The argument that the carbon offsets were for overseas projects [and] therefore insufficient overlooks the fact that we all share the same atmosphere - reducing carbon emissions in Timbuktu is effectively the same as reducing carbon emissions on the peninsula. Luke McCartney, Mount Eliza
Angry over outcome With the federal election done and dusted, although not entirely surprised, I am nevertheless angrily disappointed with the final results in Flinders (“Vote returns for poll losers, and winner” The News 12/7/22). As a long-term resident a former candidate for Flinders and avid political observer, why the hell did the Liberal Party obtain an increase in its vote? Flinders had the chance to dump the Liberal Party, who I strongly believe has shown contempt for the voters of Flinders. They endorsed someone with a family holiday home in Portsea or Sorrento who didn’t campaign on mainstream issues. Instead, we got mostly state and local government issues and a saturation of our letterboxes with glossy, expensive brochures, with motherhood statements. The now federal MP chose not to front up to community meeting, as most other candidates did, to discuss issues relating to this electorate and other important issues.
The demographics of Flinders have, I believe, a large population of older persons which have fared badly under a long period by the previous regime. One of the Independents was, in my humble opinion, outstanding. Dr Sarah Russell, who has been a tireless campaigner on aged-care matters, including full accountability on how the huge amount of public money aged care providers receive and spend supposedly on the welfare of their residents. Dr Russell also campaigned strongly on the climate emergency we are now living [through] and the urgent need for a federal ICAC. Realistically, starting late in the campaign was a hindrance to the outcome, I guess. Time will tell if the voters of Flinders truly believe we have the best person to represent us. Accountability is everything. Denise Hassett, Mount Martha
‘Barbaric’ jumps The decision by the South Australian government to ban jumps racing leaves Victoria out on its own as the only state or territory to still allow this barbaric event in which horses are forced to clear metre-high obstacles while travelling at breakneck speed. Horses are injured and die at something like 20 times the rate of flat racing, which itself is a dangerous and cruel industry. No animal should be made to suffer for the sake of profit and entertainment. Please call or write to your local MP or the racing minister and ask them to put a stop to jumps racing immediately or sign the petition on the PETA Australia website. Desmond Bellamy, special projects coordinator, PETA Australia