[box]We encourage readers to write a letter to Bluestone Magazine if you have something to say, or a special event to promote. Write to us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au. 

This edition, Margaret Donehue writes about an annual walk coming up in Koroit on May 2 in memory of a man who championed the working class and Alison Aplin has feedback on her open garden, Timandra.[/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] D [/dropcap]ear Readers,

Among the old graves in the Tower Hill cemetery is the grave of a Koroit-born shearer, William McLean who was born in 1870. He died a penniless criminal released from jail early so that he could die at home.

McLean’s grave, paid for by donations from working class families at the height of the Great Depression is an impressive polished red granite column with the top incomplete to symbolise an unfinished life. The epitaph is attributed to poet and writer Henry Lawson.

For many years after his death, locals walked each Sunday to McLeans grave and, in 1932, five hundred people attended a memorial there.

A small group still gather each year on the Saturday of the Koroit Irish Festival and after a five-minute history lesson, the energetic participants walk the scenic route around Tower Hill to Mickey Bourke’s pub in Koroit. The less energetic gather at the coffee shop or pub to get a head start on the refreshments before going to the festival. This is family friendly and everyone is welcome at this year’s event on May 2.

Like many shearers of his time, McLean followed the seasonal work to the large shearing sheds in central and Western NSW. Under a forced agreement of the times, shed hands were paid five shillings – less than 50 cents – per week and any worker who left before all the work was complete would not be paid.

The living standards for these workers were abysmal and they had no legal rights. In an attempt to gain some rights, 8000 rural workers joined the Australian Workers Union and many lived in strike camps, supported with food and necessities from the local community while they tried to find sustainable work. A number of men received six months jail for belonging to a union and those associated with strike camps received two years hard labour on an automatic charge of riot.

On August 26 1894, unionists, including William McLean, went to Grassmere station to talk to non-unionists. On entering the shearers hut, McLean was shot in the lung and John Murphy, who accompanied him, was shot in the back.

Six men – John Jones, John Virgin, Hughe Graham, Hector Osborne, Albert Kerr and Alfred Montgomery – attempted to carry McLean and Murphy back to the camp. They were stopped by police and all eight were arrested and charged with riot. All defendants, including McLean and Murphy, who were carried into court on stretchers, were given two years hard labour. After suffering harsh prison conditions both men died from their wounds.

Over a century after his death, the column on McLean’s grave continues to immortalise a local hero.

You may wish to access the “ McLean Walk” Facebook Page for more details on the walk as they come to hand.

Margaret Donehue

* * * *

Open garden success…despite the weather!

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]hank you to Bluestone Magazine for the promotion of Timandra’s Open Garden. Other than the shockingly cold and miserable weather, the open was a success, with $1200 donated to Portland District Health.

Because of the constant unreliability of the weather (which is obviously a figment of my imagination!) we will need to put a lot more thought into our opening days. The weather has a profound effect on visitor turn-out.

I feel that people would be more inclined to visit our garden in high heat than the cold, especially since the garden is at least 6 to 7 degrees cooler during summer from the canopy of trees.

But the response from the visitors was very positive. It is a very different garden in every respect, and people enjoy this difference immensely. People leave wondering how they can incorporate a little bit of what we do in Timandra in their own garden.

Sustainability will one day become the norm with private gardens, but it is a long and slow process bringing about change, even if it is for the better.

– Alison Aplin, Timandra, Narrawong.

[box]You can write to us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au Please include a full name, address and contact number. Letters are published at our discretion and may be edited for clarity only.[/box]

Older letters here…

Milk processing plant location needs forward thinking

Words and photos by Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] O [/dropcap]ne of the many beautiful things to come out of the inaugural South-West International Women’s Day Art Prize was the opportunity for people to see works by artists who don’t receive – or necessarily seek – a lot of exposure.

One such artist is the softly spoken, warm-smiled Anne Fleming, a painter and ceramicist who works from her home studio in the main street of Dunkeld and who operates a small gallery in the same location called The Waiting Room.

Like many artists, Anne is not particularly keen on spending precious creative time learning how to master Facebook, or worrying about how to run a website, so apart from a presence on the South West ArtsAtlas , most people find Anne’s studio by happy accident.

It is a delightful discovery.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] D [/dropcap]elicate, finely glazed ceramics are displayed alongside Anne’s often-dramatic oil paintings inspired by the landscape: not just that of her immediate surroundings, but those of her extensive travels in remote Australia. She and her husband Doug, a GP, love to head out in their Toyota troop carrier to “camp rough” – there is no caravan attached.

“I have never been interested in painting pretty, chocolate-box type images. I love exploring the contrasts and the drama and to say something about what this landscape means to me,” Anne explains.

There is a similar drama and movement in Anne’s sculptural work but these, unlike most of her paintings, are influenced by observing people rather than places.

Anne picks up one such work, “Catching up”, a beautifully white-glazed piece which at first appears to be two young women sitting having coffee, until you look more closely.

“One is talking on her mobile and the other is checking her mobile, which is how many young people catch up these days,” Anne says, laughing.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] A [/dropcap]nne chose one of her sculptural works to enter in the South-West IWD Art prize – ‘Dancer’, inspired by the Bangarra Dance Theatre – and it is this piece, and others like it, that hint at her first career as a physiotherapist.

This is a work by someone that clearly knows how bodies move and what they look like when they do.

It is the same with another piece, a bent-backed shearer, who again reflects another stage in Anne’s life when she and Doug decided to move from the Mornington Peninsula to the south-west.

“We decided we wanted to live on a few acres, so Doug started looking around for a practice in the country and there was one at Penshurst,” Anne explains.

“The only problem is that it is very hard to just buy a few acres in this part of the world, so we ended up with 500!”

The pair had never farmed in their life, but were thrown in the deep end when about 1000 sheep were delivered “to the front door” of their property and needed to be mustered into a back paddock.

“They had to go through this tiny gate. We had no sheep dogs, but we had kids on bikes, and it took forever,” Anne laughs at the memory.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] W [/dropcap]hile still working as a physiotherapist – and a farmer – Anne returned to study art at Deakin University in Warrnambool in the 1990s and picked up a thread that had lain dormant while she raised her family.

Growing up in Adelaide, Anne would watch the work of her mother, Dorothy Potter, who was part of Val Morgan Advertising and responsible for designing ads shown at cinemas and drive-ins.

“My mother was very artistic…and I had always loved art, but I hated art at school because that was all very formal, about colour wheels and that sort of thing,” Anne says.

Anne took a series of small classes and workshops, but it was only once she enrolled at Deakin and studied under the guidance of lecturers like Graeme Birt and Ross Gray that she began to find her “voice”.

“You are always learning,” she says, “and it’s never what you might call easy.

“A lot of people say, ‘oh, it must be so relaxing to just paint’, but it is often agony and very frustrating but then, at some point, the painting takes over and it works…and you realise you have created something that nobody has done before.”

[box]The Waiting Room gallery can be found at 107B Parker St, Dunkeld. Open “haphazard” hours, but mostly weekends. Contact Anne on 0438 361 761. See more of her work on South West ArtsAtlas here.[/box]

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CLOSED (winners Karen Walsh and Victoria Araldi)

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]he next 10 yearly subscribers will be in the draw for a fantastic hamper from Lana’s Garden featuring all of Lana’s wonderful rhubarb products including a coulis, rhubarb and raspberry jam, a chilli salsa and Lana’s famous rhubarb vinegar.

PLUS there is the chance to win a $50 voucher from Piccolo Restaurant Warrnambool, to enjoy a fabulous dinner from their autumn menu.

Thankyou so much to Lana and Piccolo for keeping the wind in our sails!

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By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]he Warrnambool Greyhound Racing club is in line for a $1.6 million upgrade that will still go ahead – at this stage – despite the fallout from the greyhound live-baiting scandal, Bluestone Magazine can reveal.

Bluestone has learned that Greyhound Racing Victoria (GRV) had agreed to fund a $1.6 million upgrade of the Wannon Park facility, based at the Warrnambool showgrounds, well before the live-baiting scandal was exposed by the ABC’s Four Corners program on February 16 and which led to widespread calls for the industry to be banned.

The shocking revelations of some Victorian greyhound trainers using live animals such as rabbits, possums and piglets to train their dogs also prompted the resignation of the entire Greyhound Racing Victoria board and the loss of several major sponsors, including Bendigo Bank, Schweppes and Macro Meats.

Warrnambool Greyhound Racing club manager Mike Cottee did not respond to several requests for comment on whether the financial fallout for Greyhound Racing Victoria would impact on the upgrade plans, or if the Warrnambool club had lost any direct sponsorship.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A [/dropcap] spokesman for Greyhound Racing Victoria, however, said the upgrade was still going ahead “at this stage”.

“The redevelopment is continuing as planned,” he said.

“There has been no impact at this stage.”

The spokesman could offer no further information on the timing of the redevelopment, but it is understood to have been scheduled for mid-2016, pending the outcome of lease negotiations over the site.

The entire Warrnambool showgrounds site, including Wannon Park, is owned by the State Government and leased back to various groups for a nominal fee.

The $1.6 million upgrade is understood to include significant improvements to the Wannon function room and will be the first major redevelopment at the site since the track was reconfigured in 2008.

Wannon Park has operated at the site since 1978, when it replaced the former Botanic Park, where St Joseph’s Primary School now stands opposite the Botanic Gardens.

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ANALYSIS – Carol Altmann

The attempted shaming of three Warrnambool City councillors for speaking to a journalist is yet another step toward shutting off information to the public.

And if you care about freedom of speech and freedom of the media, then the events of the past few days should be very troubling.

First, some background.

Late last week, the agenda for this Tuesday’s council meeting was released and contained a report given to chief executive officer Bruce Anson from the Local Government Investigations and Compliance Inspectorate following its investigation into the leaking of confidential council documents to The Age early last year.

The inspectorate concluded that it could not determine who leaked the documents.

But it did conclude that three councillors – Brian Kelson, Peter Hulin and Peter Sycopoulis – met with a journalist from The Age the night before it ran the first of several stories about links between then-Premier Denis Napthine and Midfield Meats owner, Colin McKenna.

It was not hard to reach this conclusion, because the councillors told the inspectorate about this meeting.

After all, it has never been an offence for an elected official to speak to a journalist and it happens every day.

The assumption, of course, is that the three councillors used this meeting to hand over secret documents, but this is wrong.

The Age journalists, Royce Miller and Ben Schneiders, have issued a statement to say that they were already in possession of the documents before this meeting.

How did they get the documents? Who knows, but in a world dominated by public relations officers and media managers, leaks and whistleblowing are often the only ways that information in the public interest can come to light.

The inspectorate knew the three councillors had done nothing illegal, and it prepared a confidential report naming the three councillors that could only be released with the approval of the CEO, Mr Anson.

Ironically, Mr Anson decided to make this confidential report public, and included it in the agenda. In other words, what is and isn’t kept confidential by council is entirely at Mr Anson’s discretion.

A front page headline by The Standard followed but, in what I believe is unprecedented for a newspaper, it didn’t defend the profession of journalism that relies on research, well-placed sources, whistleblowers and leaks, but instead leapt on the “revelation” that three councillors had met with a journalist, as if this was a crime.

Its sycophantic editorial went even further and defended the former Premier against such “damaging” behaviour, saying that he must “be itching” to ask what was discussed between the councillors and The Age journalists.

This is coming from an organisation that knows the trust between a journalist and a source is fundamental to flushing out what those in power don’t want you to know, but is in the public interest: like the fact – as reported by The Age – Dr Napthine (and our Federal MP Dan Tehan) held shares in a racehorse with Mr McKenna.

A compliant newspaper and a media-managed council is a powerful combination in a regional city, and it could soon get even worse.

Lost within the story is a recommendation by the inspectorate that the Warrnambool City Council put its boot even harder on the neck of elected members.

It has suggested – and the council will now consider – changing its media policy so that councillors MUST tell the council’s communications manager, Nick Higgins, when they speak to a journalist, about anything.

What right has a government inspectorate got to try and gag elected councillors?

It is an outrageous recommendation and one designed purely to ensure that the only information released to the media (and therefore, to you, the public) is that which suits the council’s chief executive or the mayor of the day, whoever they may be.

This closing down of voices in local government is a growing trend across Australia, and comes as newsrooms are shrinking.

Indeed academic papers* have been written on this increasing secrecy and the restraining of elected members by tightening a council’s media policy.

We need to ask ourselves, who does such secrecy benefit? It is certainly not intended to benefit you, the humble ratepayer.

No, it is designed for councils to move more and more information behind closed doors so that decisions can be discussed – and made – by those with power without any “distractions” from the public.

This means decisions, when they are made public, are virtually a fait accompli, such as the nine-storey apartment block proposed for 1A Liebig St, or the sale of land to Midfield for an enormous milk processing plant.

And it is designed to keep all of the potential “hot spots” under wraps, such as the true state of affairs of the Fun4Kids festival finances, or the declining patronage at Flagstaff Hill, or the actual salary package paid to the chief executive, or who was invited into the May Races marquee...

We here at Bluestone Magazine have already been cut off by the council’s media unit: our questions now go unanswered and our requests for interviews with certain council staff are denied.

This is what happens when you don’t play by the rules or you refuse to stick to “the message” – but Bluestone will keep investigating nonetheless.

Warrnambool should not be distracted by the public shaming of three councillors for talking to the media – this is not the problem. The much more worrying issue is the move to stop councillors talking to journalists at all.