50 years ago

The Express, August 11, 1976

Stone the…!

 

YALLOURN North’s formerly haunted house is still being plagued – this time by stone throwers.

Police believe small boys may be responsible.

The house, owned by Mr and Mrs Bill Stallion, was “cleared” recently of a trapped spirit, the Latrobe Valley Spiritualist Church claimed.

Terrifying knockings or bangings confounded police and newspapermen. The spiritualist church leaders prayed and meditated at the house and claimed they had released the spirit of the Stallions’ son, who was killed by a car while standing on a nature strip at Dandenong.

The knockings stopped after the visit and haven’t been heard since.

However, stones on the roof and through the window have. The Stallions said they were beset by stones during the same period as the knockings and bangings.

Two weeks ago a stone smashed a window. It wasn’t repaired and last Thursday another brick was thrown through it.

“We could see small boys running away but couldn’t identify them,” Mr Stallion said. The Stallions have lived at the house for over two years.

A visitor to the Stallions house last Thursday, Mrs Joyce Stelline, said a stone broke her lounge window that night.

 

30 years ago

The Express, August 12, 1996

Call for halt to childcare cuts

 

THE Moe/Trafalgar and Morwell branches of the Australian Labor Party have called for a moratorium on proposed changes to childcare funding.

“The proposals as they stand would have a devastating effect on childcare places in Moe and district,” Moe/Trafalgar branch president Brendan Jenkins claimed.

He said he believed the concept currently under investigation by the federal government would mean a cut in total funding as well as a redistribution away from areas of highest need.

Mr Jenkins claimed that the Latrobe Valley, and Moe in particular, were high need areas and as such relied heavily on government support for childcare.

“The cuts, as they presently proposed, would cause the closure of public childcare centres in the region.”

He challenged the federal government to cease their “attacks on community services” and focus on their “responsibilities to the youngest and weakest in our community”.

 

10 years ago

The Express, August 11, 2016

Latrobe backs McMillan renaming

 

LATROBE City Council has flagged its support for the renaming of the federal seat of McMillan.

However it has acknowledged that a renaming cannot occur outside of a federal redistribution process, which is not due to take place until December 2017.

The motion came in response to a letter from South Gippsland Shire Council requesting support from fellow Gippsland councils in its advocacy for a name change.

The seat’s namesake, Angus McMillan, has been connected with the mass murder of Gippsland’s Indigenous people.

South Gippsland Shire views a name change as a “practical step towards reconciliation with the traditional owners of the land”.

McMillan takes in Moe to the east, stretches to Wilsons Promontory in the south and Pakenham in the west.