The Malmsbury War Memorial Gates are among facilities set to benefit from state grants to upgrade fixtures honouring the service and sacrifice of Victoria’s veterans.

The state’s Minister for Veterans Natalie Suleyman in recent days announced the successful recipients of two grant programs funding local government, ex-service organisations and community groups to upgrade their facilities.

The Veterans Capital Works 2024-25 grant program is providing 26 recipients with a share in more than $780,000 to upgrade or develop facilities for veterans and their families.

Ballarat RSL Sub-Branch will use its grant to improve access, privacy and security for veterans. Works include soundproofing welfare offices for confidential consultations, installing a disability access ramp and adding CCTV at entry points to enhance safety for visitors and staff. 

Vasey RSL Care’s Geelong Veteran Renewal Initiative will revamp at least five ex-service accommodation units with its grant, ensuring fit-for-purpose homes for residents, supporting their wellbeing and independence.  

The Restoring Community War Memorials and Avenues of Honour 2024-25 grant program is delivering 16 grants of up to $30,000, providing more than $320,000 to restore, preserve, and update war memorials, honour rolls, and avenues of honour. 

The heritage-listed Malmsbury War Memorial Gates will be restored with a grant to conserve the memorial built in 1922 in tribute to the “brave men who enlisted in the Great War 1914-1918”.

The Macedon Ranges memorial will have soldier names re-guilded, old paint and rust removed and works on the memorial railings and gate. 

The Victorian College of the Arts will restore its Honour Board along St Kilda Road which commemorates students who dedicated and lost their lives during World War I.

The board, featured in the Australian National Veterans Art Museum’s Veterans Public Arts Trail, is part of the world’s only walking trail dedicated to veteran-created art.

For a complete list of grant recipients and for more information, visit vic.gov.au/veterans-capital-works or vic.gov.au/restoring-community-war-memorials.

Minister for Veterans Natalie Suleyman: “These projects are a powerful way we’re preserving the unforgettable legacy of our veterans by improving the places where their stories are honoured and remembered.”

“By investing in community projects across the state, we’re paying tribute to our veterans and creating inclusive, welcoming spaces for future generations to gather and reflect on Victoria’s history.”

Broadcast journalist Nicole Chvastek and Australia’s pre-eminent journalism  ethics expert Denis Muller seek out the media industry’s good, bad and ugly, taking you behind the headlines in their revealing podcast Truth, Lies and Media.  

New episodes are out each Wednesday. Episodes already aired, from the latest, are The Election Circus, The Judge and the Journalist, Streets of Fear, Great and Powerful and Attack Dogs.  

People can support the crowdfunding show by donating at www.buymeacoffee.com/truthliesandmedia online.

Nicole, who is well known as the former host of the ABC Statewide Drive radio  show and lives in Malmsbury, said it would be appreciated if people are enjoying the show, that they share it around, and write a quick review on their Podcast platform of  choice.  

“Every piece helps us reach a wider audience. It’s very much appreciated!”  

Denis Muller, also a resident of Malmsbury, is a former associate editor at The  Age. The pair hosted the Behind The Media segment for eight years on ABC Radio.  

Words: Donna Kelly  

With Eve Lamb

Malmsbury artist Tia Alysse discovered her natural and considerable talent for art while still a school child. From a very young age she was encouraged in her arts endeavour with praise from teachers. Her love for animals, however, would see her go on to study veterinary science at university before she ultimately resolved to dedicate herself to art. Tia has been selling her artwork commercially since late 2016 through galleries, interior design stores and her own studio, and now teaches painting classes as well. This gifted artist’s love of animals and the living world is reflected in the beautiful works she creates, some of which will soon be exhibited as part of The Little Gallery’s upcoming winter fundraising show in Trentham.

Eve: Hi Tia. Beautiful work! Your love of animals is obvious in your work. Do you think there’s any chance you might ever go back to studying vet science?

Tia: I don’t think so. I think I might be a bit too sensitive.

Eve: How far did you get with your vet studies before you switched to focussing on art?

Tia: I did one year.

Eve: Are you able to devote yourself to your art full-time now?

Tia: Yes. After so many requests for pet portraits, it led me down the path of focussing on animals. Commissions are such a big part of what I do. Also in the last two years my Country Canvases art classes have been my bread and butter. I will also be doing Spring-Summer workshops where people can choose a class by subject matter.

Eve: Why animals?

Tia: I do a bit of everything, but I feel like I have a real soft spot for animals. They’re one of my greatest loves really.

Eve: Your work is very realistic. It’s an amazing ability. Do you paint in any other styles as well?

Tia: I used to be a lot more expressive and abstract, but then I started to focus much more on figurative and realistic work. The demand for portraits has lent me more to realism.

Eve: Any recent career highlights?

Tia: I have just completed a mural for Nellie’s Shed, the garden and retail store, in Woodend. It was amazing to work on that scale.

Eve: That sounds like a lot of fun, to work large-scale in such a public space. What is the size of the mural? Is it outdoors?

Tia: Yes it’s outdoors. There were four exterior panels and each piece was 1.2 by 2.1 metres. I used a sort of notion of leading you down the garden path. It is a bit whimsical. I’d definitely like to do more murals into the future.

Eve: What is your work process, Tia? Do your work from photos or do you tend to sketch animals in the field or habitat?

Tia: I mostly work from photographs. When I first started painting pet portraits I’d get asked to take pictures of people’s pets for them, but I’ve since started making it a strict rule to supply the photo of the pet you want painted. But I do take a lot of reference images for things like bees and lady bugs. I take photos quite avidly, and I do painstaking pre-sketch work.

Eve: What media do you work with?

Tia: Acrylics mostly. But I do use other media as well including charcoal.

Eve: What are some of the portrait subjects you have had so far?

Tia: Mostly cats and dogs, but there’s also been horses, the odd lizard. There have been alpacas, rabbits, husbands.

Eve: (laughs) Ah! You paint humans as well?

Tia: Yes. Occasionally people. I do like to enter the Archibald just for the fun of it.

Eve: That’s great. Did you enter this year?

Tia: No not this year, but a couple of times in previous years.

Eve: Who have your chosen subjects been?

Tia: There was Manfred Zabinskas of Five Freedoms Animal Rescue one year, and also my partner’s parents who have been acknowledged with an OAM for fostering over 100 children.

Eve: What are you planning to exhibit as part of the upcoming Little Gallery’s winter fundraising show, Tia?

Tia: One larger piece and six smaller pieces. For the larger piece I kind of wanted something that has a cosiness to it with the English animals that I love to paint. Owls, pig, hare, deer. And for the smaller pieces, some little bees.

Eve: What do you enjoy most about your arts practice?

 Tia: It’s very therapeutic. Very calming. One of the reasons I work a lot at night is that it is my quiet, alone time. Working at night allows me to engage at a deeper level with the work. #

Macedon Ranges Crime Investigation Unit detectives have charged two people following a fire at the Malmsbury Railway Station on 31 January.

Emergency services had been called to Daylesford-Malmsbury Road about 5.45pm after reports the station master’s residence was on fire.

Crews extinguished the blaze and the fire was deemed to be suspicious.

On Sunday, February 4, detectives charged a 17-year-old Bendigo girl and 16-year-old Bendigo boy with burglary and criminal damage by fire.

Both have since been bailed to appear at a children’s court at a later date.

By Journalist Kevin Childs: Image: Kyle Barnes

If Tony Kelly didn’t exist, someone possibly would invent him.

From being a park ranger in the Northern Territory, he has worked with young people at risk (including at the notorious Malmsbury centre), retrained as a lawyer, and is a CEO, writer and author.

All this sounds remarkable, but considering his background it may have been almost expected. He is the grandson of opera singer Count Ercole Tonti Filippini. Born in Argentina in 1885 to Italian parents, Filippini was signed to the renowned La Scala opera house in Milan but when theatres shut in Europe during WWI he joined an opera company to tour India, China and the Philippines, and then for 14 months in Australia and New Zealand.

Filippini stayed in Australia, opening a school of opera in Sydney in 1918. One of his students was a young music graduate, Anne McParland (later known as Nancy). They married. He performed on stage while she produced and directed, becoming Australia’s first female conductor of symphony orchestras. Ercole Filippini died at the age of 48 in 1934, while Nancy went on singing, broadcasting, and leading choirs and orchestras, until her death in 1987 at 91.

Little wonder, then, as Tony says, there has been a lot of talk regarding a film about his grandparents. The musical tradition is being carried on by his brother, Australian rock singer/songwriter and guitarist Paul Kelly.

Tony was in his mid-40s when he decided to study law. His father, who died when Tony was young, was a lawyer, so when Tony saw that he could do a two-year degree at Melbourne University he and his wife Rebecca Lister moved to the city with their two daughters.

“I had been involved with the Greens and came to realise the importance of law in all aspects of society and how change can be effected through law.” Once in Melbourne they stayed for 15 years, returning to Daylesford when Covid hit.

Now his focus is on native title as head of the First Nations Legal and Research Services. To an outsider, native title seems complex, and Tony does say that identifying the right people for country is difficult, but once that has been established, it is easy to bring on a claim.

Lawyers methodically work through the claims. “The preference is to do it all by mediation, leading to a good result, eliminating conflicts and building strength,” he says. Some matters, however, can be drawn out. The claim by the Eastern Maar people of Warrnambool, for instance, took 10 years to settle and includes the coastline of the Great Ocean Road up to Ararat.

Sometimes many groups are involved in arguments over boundaries. In the Eastern Maar case most were resolved by agreement, with only one going to trial, with a judge to make a call next year.

Out all of this, millions of dollars flow to the successful claimants to set up a corporation. For example, the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation employs 200 people and, Tony says, is one of the biggest forces in the Bendigo economy. The money received is mainly spent on land management, economic development and language and cultural recovery.

After 13 years involved in native title work, he has just signed on for another three years. Curiously enough, it was swimming that brought him to writing. He began with articles on swimming for The Big Issue magazine, focusing on how it keeps you healthy.

His writing took on another focus when he and Rebecca moved to Mt Isa for two years to care for Rebecca’s witty, crossword-loving 92-year-old mother. Out of this came Growing Pineapples in the Outback, Tony and Rebecca’s book reflecting, from two perspectives, on the town’s isolation and heat, and the richness of caring for someone at life’s end.

Next he (perhaps again with Rebecca) plans to write an anthology on swimming, researching it by plunging in at different places across the country and chatting to locals about why they swim. One chapter will be on the “ice mile”, which international rules say must be done in 5 degrees Celsius or less, wearing a standard costume, googles and one cap (“You have to be alive half an hour later to qualify,” quips 62-year-old Tony).

The Macedon Ranges Shire Council is inviting community feedback on a planning scheme amendment that proposes rezoning land near Malmsbury’s eastern entrance help preserve the township’s character.

Amendment C157macr, which has been requested by the current landowners, applies to 9-25 (part of), 31, 33 and 35 Mollison Street, and will result in land being rezoned from commercial use to low-density residential.

The area was previously recommended for rezoning in the Macedon Ranges Small Towns Study 2006, which identified that commercial development of the land would not reflect the rural village setting of Malmsbury.

The area currently surrounding the site is characterised by single-story residential buildings of modest site coverage, with generous front setbacks and well-established gardens.

The council’s Director Planning and Environment, Rebecca Stockfeld, said the proposed changes were important to help preserve the area’s specific neighbourhood, heritage, environmental and landscape character values.

“Under the amendment, any new development taking place on the land identified will need to reflect the local residential character surrounding the site and of Malmsbury more broadly,” she said.

“It would include specifications around minimum lot sizes, maximum building heights, minimum street setbacks and site coverage.”

Community members can view the proposed amendment and supporting documents on the council’s website, or at the council’s Kyneton administration centre,

The closing date for submissions is Wednesday 13 December 2023 and the council says it will consider all submissions received and appoint an independent Planning Panel if necessary, with a final decision regarding the amendment to be made by the Minister for Planning.

To prepare for the upcoming fire season, Malmsbury and Taradale Fire Brigade members recently met with Coliban Water to better understand the water supply in their region.

Brigade members were made aware of different water sources to help fight fires.

Coliban Water’s Network Services Manager Nathalie Lopez and Water and Sewer Planning Coordinator Paul Vickery presented to the eager volunteers in recent weeks.

Throughout the recent informative training session, Malmsbury brigade volunteer Philip Flanagan said they learned about the Coliban Water supply systems and how they function across Taradale, Elphinstone, Malmsbury, and Kyneton.

“We were shown maps of the various water sources, including dams such as the Upper Coliban and Malmsbury, and the pipeline and aqueduct networks for all those areas,” Philip said.

“We went through where the systems were boosted and the location of additional water holdings in tanks and towers.

“We identified areas that had particularly higher and lower pressures, and what we could expect in certain circumstances when required out on the fireground.”

Drawing on their experiences from previous fire incidents, members took the opportunity to ask key questions about the systems.

“It was fantastic to understand how the Upper Coliban dam syphons to much of Kyneton, but also has a branch line down to Malmsbury,” he said.

“With the majority of the area siphoning off dams, we were also made aware of additional pumping facilities.

“Having this knowledge greatly increases our ability to source water supply to efficiently fight fires.”

Nathalie and Paul highlighted some of the improvements that are planned for the systems over the next few years, particularly around Elphinstone, to improve water pressure.

Following the success of the session, members suggested the training be repeated every two years to refresh members’ knowledge, inform new members and ensure all are aware of system developments.

Malmsbury Fire Brigade Captain Linda Krive thanked Coliban Water for the enlightening presentation and for the recent $5000 grant provided to the brigade as part of its Community Rebate scheme.

The money will be used to buy lightweight, battery-operated chainsaws, a high intensity light and batteries, and eight e-flares for roadside incident visibility and safety.

Words: Donna Kelly | Image: Contributed

ABC Statewide Drive broadcaster Nicole Chvastek remains missing from the airwaves after two months with no explanation from the national broadcaster.
The show was also replaced for some weeks by Melbourne Drive but has returned with former Country Hour host Warwick Long.
An ABC media spokesperson said the matter was now before the Fair Work Commission and he could not comment.
Ms Chvastek’s lawyer, Mark Comito of Stal Employment Lawyers, said the matter was adjourned for a further conference at the Fair Work Commission on June 15.
“Discussions are continuing about Nicole’s application seeking orders to stop bullying,” he said.
On April 13, the ABC media spokesperson told The Local that Statewide Drive had been temporarily replaced with Melbourne Drive “due to operational reasons outside our control” but the show and Ms Chvastek would return.
On May 4 the spokesperson said Ms Chvastek was on leave and would return when refurbishments at the ABC Ballarat office were finished.
Ms Chvastek, a Malmsbury resident who has presented Statewide Drive from ABC’s Ballarat studios since 2012, was unable to be contacted for comment.
On a petition at change.org one person wrote: “I miss hearing Nicole on my radio every afternoon. Nicole lives in regional Victoria and she knows the issues which are important to us. She is such a compassionate person who is able to discuss very emotional and emotive issues so respectfully and with a focused and balanced approach. I miss her sense of humour and banter with guests, people who call in and colleagues. Please bring her back.”

ABC Statewide Drive presenter Nicole Chvastek is on leave but will return in six weeks, ABC
spokesperson John Woodward has told The Local.
Mr Woodward said the ABC Ballarat studios were being refurbished so the show was now coming out of
ABC’s Shepparton studios, hosted by Warwick Long.
“That arrangement will continue until the refurbishment work is complete, which is expected at the
end of June.”
On April 13, Mr Woodward told The Local the show had been temporarily replaced with Melbourne Drive
“due to operational reasons outside our control” but it would return with Ms Chvastek.
Mr Long, who hosted the ABC’s Victorian Country Hour, started in the Drive chair on Monday, May 1.
A change.org petition asking for the popular Malmsbury presenter’s return has more than 500
signatures, and a Facebook page, Fight for Nicole, is also up and running.
The petition says: “Nicole has been on our air waves for many years bringing relevant issues and topics to the forefront of public discussion.
“She tackles these issues with a passionate and balanced approach and has become a trusted
spokesperson for us all. She is irreplaceable.
“This axing is another example of regional Victoria not being adequately represented in the state arena.”
Words: Donna Kelly

If you’ve ever thought about ditching your climate-change fueling petrol guzzler for an electric vehicle then now might be the time to make it happen with an EV Bulk Buy scheme set to launch in Malmsbury at the Malmsbury EV Expo on 15 April.
Climate action focussed social enterprises, the Good Car Company and Hepburn Energy are
joining forces to bring the 2023 Community EV Bulk Buy to Hepburn Shire and the broader region
of Central Victoria.

In addition to offering affordable second-hand and new EVs a $1000 discount
Voucher will apply to listed EV prices.
If 50 locals join in by buying an electric vehicle through the Bulk Buy, over five years the central
Victorian community will have accumulated to $440,000 in EV benefits and reduced carbon
emissions by 650 tonnes.
Transport is the largest source of carbon emissions in Australian households. Changing your
internal combustion engine car to an electric one saves at least 2.6 tonnes of carbon emissions
every year (assuming the car is charged from the grid).

Australia’s third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and cars are responsible for roughly half of these emissions.
“Hundreds of Australians are now driving 100% electric cars because of our bulk-buy campaigns”
according to company co-founder Anthony Broese van Groenou.
“The EV Bulk Buy will offer more affordable prices for quality used Nissan Leafs, the Peugeot
e2008 SUV, electric vans as well as access to straightforward Novated Leases on new Polestar 2
and Tesla Models 3 and Y,” he said.
Taryn Lane of Hepburn Energy said they had teamed up with the Good Car Company a second
time alongside local climate groups to help people wanting electric cars to get them at a more
reasonable price.
“Buying an EV is a key piece of the climate action puzzle for Australian households, but it’s often
seen as being too expensive for most people. As an affordable pathway, we are pleased to be
running the second EV bulk buy for the region with the Good Car Company and local partners
BREAZE, Macedon Ranges Sustainability Group, Moorabool Environment Group, Trentham
Sustainability Group and Transition Creswick ” said Taryn.
Residents in the region are being invited to join the Hepburn Energy 2023 EV Bulk Buy by signing up online at https://www.goodcar.co/hepburn23.

The campaign runs from 15 April to 15 May and anyone can register to learn more about EVs, receive all event invitations, take a test drive, ask questions, learn about the available models and/or purchase an EV.