🦎 Ultimate Gippsland Christmas event guide

Plus: Art shows and road repairs.

Author

Jacob Wallace
November 26, 2025

⏱️ This Wednesday edition of our newsletter is a six-minute read.

👋 Hello Gippslanders, it’s Jacob here.

✍️ The Monitor has put together another packed newsletter for you. In preparation for the silly season we’re compiling our gig guides and events lists for December to make sure you have plenty to do over the holidays.

In this week’s newsletter we’re going to be covering:

  • A new collective’s art show at the Old Traralgon Courthouse;

  • The federal government announcing $8 million in funding to prepare Gippsland for increasingly frequent, severe and dangerous weather events;

  • Local councils under financial stress over growing road repair bills;

  • Labor’s new environmental laws, and whether they’ll get through parliament before the end of the year, and;

  • Christmas events across the region.

📸 First of all, take a look at this picture I took at Cape Woolamai beach on Phillip Island over the weekend. If you get really close you can see Quigley playing on the rocks.

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

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🚀 Alright, let’s jump into the Monitor’s latest yarns, local interviews and silly videos!

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

From scarlet macaws to rainy urban scenes, a new exhibition from Gippsland’s Young at Art Collective is showcasing local award-winning talent and the region's picturesque landscape.

What happened: Maree Brady, a member of the art collective who will be exhibiting her abstract flower paintings at the Traralgon Courthouse, told the Monitor the 13-member group has only been together for a couple of years but has already had several exhibitions.

🗣️ “We've done two exhibitions at the courthouse, one at Foster a couple of months ago, one at Briagolong earlier in the year and one in Mornington.”

Brady said the collective consists of varying levels of artists, from casual painters to more established artists.

  • “I’ve been playing with crafts for most of my life, but art itself, painting and pastels, I've been doing since about nine years ago,” Brady said.

The federal government has tipped more than $8 million into making Gippsland communities more resilient to increasingly frequent, severe and dangerous weather events.

Contributions from the state bring the funding total to about $18.4 million.

What works are being funded?

  • Over $5 million for flood mitigation infrastructure (vertical seawalls, dune restoration, etc) on Bullock Island, Fishermans Beach in Mornington, Loch Sport and Silverleaves.

  • Over $2 million to upgrade Bogong High Plains Road, which runs from Tawonga South to Glen Valley, with the goal of allowing water to run underneath the road to mitigate against landslides and closures.

  • $500,000 to Foodbank Victoria’s community warehouses in Morwell and Ballara, to allow for better disaster preparation.

  • $440,000 to help establish community hubs in Traralgon aimed at assisting residents in preparing and responding to flood events. The hubs will provide sandbags, safety information and practical training.

The Monitor has sought comment from Liberal MP for Monash, Mary Aldred, and Nationals MP for Gippsland, Darren Chester.

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

🎊 With so many gigs, exhibitions and festivals in Gippsland, the Monitor has compiled a list of the biggest events in the region throughout December.

📧 If you have any suggestions you’d like to share please email us at [email protected]

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

This week I enjoyed a short video my colleague Huw Bradshaw from the North Shore Lorikeet put together on whether the Labor government will be successful in passing its environmental protection laws.

Take a look at the video Huw made below.

Instagram Post

🎥 Watch: As oceans warm, Gippsland’s road network suffers 🚧 

I wrote a story last week on how Gippsland councils are still repairing roads damaged in storms over two years ago. I spoke to a professor of economics at the University of Canberra about how the mounting costs of landslides and severe weather are putting local governments in a pinch when it comes to road repairs. Take a look at our video below.

Instagram Reel

🙌 Thanks for catching up with us this week at the Monitor. I hope you enjoyed this mid-week issue of our newsletter and I’d love to hear your feedback. If you have suggestions for stories, or a topic you think is being underreported in your town, feel free to email us at [email protected].

I’ll be back in your inbox on Friday morning with more news, fun videos and December event lists.

Cheers,
Jacob & the Gippsland Monitor team