🦎 How’d Robin Hood end up in Drouin?

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

• SATURDAY, 08/08/26 | William Crighton

• SUNDAY, 09/08/26 | Adalita

• THU. 18/05 - MON. 24/08 | Bacchus Exhibition

• EVERY WED, SAT. & SUN. | Walhalla train rides

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

• SATURDAY, 08/08/26 | Coal Creek Farmers Market

• SATURDAY, 08/08/26 | Metung Market

• SUNDAY, 09/08/26 | Longford Community Market

• SUNDAY, 09/08/26 | Kongwak Market

✍️ GIPPSLAND QUIZ ANSWERS ✅

1. Which animal unique to Gippsland sounds like a “lavatory being flushed” when it moves, according to Sir David Attenborough?

   The Gippsland Giant Earthworm.

2. What name is used for the long stretch of coastline running from Port Albert to Lakes Entrance?

   Ninety Mile Beach.

3. Which Gippsland town do the four AFL Duursma siblings originate from?

   Foster.

4. What is the name of the nine-year-old boy who rode to Sydney on a pony for the opening of the harbour bridge in 1932? (Two extra points if you can name his pony.)

   Lenny Gwyther and his pony Ginger Mick.

5. At which Gippsland beach will you find the Trinculo Shipwreck?

   Golden Beach (part of Ninety Mile Beach).

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

🐔 Chicken poo revolution: Gippsland farmer extracts electricity, dye and fertiliser from waste

Chris Freney is using chicken poo to save a dollar on power.

The Toongabbie poultry farmer is trialling technology he says could help farmers cut their energy bill. It’s known as anaerobic digestion.

“As a chicken farmer, I've always been conscious of our litter, where it goes and what to do with it,” Freney told the Monitor.

Poultry farmers often sell their litter to other growers to be used as fertiliser, but in 2018  Freney hatched a plan to extract more from the 10,000 tonnes of chicken number twos his broiler farm produces every year.

“Essentially, I put the litter into a very big bucket … add warm water … stir it and I put a tarp over the mouth of the bucket,” Freney said. “After 60 days, the digestion period, I get three things out of the bucket - a gas, a liquid and a solid.”

In 2018, he organised a meeting with Wellington Shire Council to discuss the approvals required to operate a system that would turn his litter waste into fertiliser, natural food dye and electricity.

The farmer has since been refining the technology and hopes it will be fully operational by the end of this year.

Read the full story here.

👷‍♂️ Union challenges Opal's plan to remove fire, first aid and training positions at Maryvale mill

Opal Australian Paper’s decision to cut 84 positions at its Maryvale Mill has come under fire from local unions, who warn the company is targeting safety, emergency response and training jobs.

What happened: In a statement released last week by Opal, the company claimed the losses in jobs were due to the end of white paper production at the site and the failure of the Victorian Government to meet its contractual obligations to supply the mill with woodpulp.

What jobs are at risk?

The Timber, Furnishing & Textiles Union’s (TFTU) Denise Campbell-Burns told the Monitor mill workers deserved greater transparency from the company.

"If Opal believes these jobs are no longer required, then it needs to show the workforce exactly how it reached that conclusion," Campbell-Burns said.

Read the full story here.

💵 Would you pay $9,000 to seal your street?

Latrobe City Council is considering whether to charge 14 Moe residents $127,500 to seal two roads.

At a meeting in late July, the councillors voted to defer a decision on whether to have locals fund a quarter of the $510,000 needed to seal Pindari and Kandra roads.

But the policy of getting residents to chip in for road improvements is not new to Gippsland - Wellington Shire has been doing it since 2020.

Take a look at a video explainer below.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

By 2030, data centres are forecast to use six percent of Australia's electricity - equivalent to all the homes in Victoria.

Queensland and the NT are the only state or territory governments refusing to make data centre companies build the renewable power needed to cover their energy needs.

My colleague Archie Milligan from the National Account looked into new promises made by the federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who said he plans to force data centre energy laws "even if some states have different ideas".

Take a look at the full story below.