🥧 A pepper steak pie to die for

Plus: Who pays for coastal damage?

Author

Jacob Wallace
May 01, 2026

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

👋 Hello Gippslanders, it’s Jacob here.

It’s been another busy week of reporting stories from all around Gippsland for the Monitor. Before we dive in though, here’s a shot I took on a morning walk through Poowong yesterday.

👀 Looking ahead. In this week’s newsletter we’re talking about:

  • 🚗 What Sandy Point caravan park holidaymakers think of the site’s DA;

  • 🌊 Whether local councils should consider soon-to-be published flood mapping when they approve new builds;

  • 💰 Bass Coast Shire Council’s request for a fossil fuel levy to pay for coastal damage;

  • ☀️ Why an Aboriginal community in the NT is suing the government, and;

  • 🥧 A pepper steak pie in Mirboo North.

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

🚀 Alright, let’s jump into the Monitor’s latest yarns!

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

Robin Lemon comes to Sandy Point Holiday Park every year with his wife and two kids. 

“It's picturesque,” Lemon told the Monitor, standing out the front of his family's caravan plot in the park. “It's just a little escape and there's different people here all the time, so it's nice to meet new people from all over.”

Lemon’s mother has been paying for a lot at the Sandy Point Holiday Park for six years, but a new development at the holiday caravan park - narrowly approved by South Gippsland Council - would see the end to the family’s caravan getaways.

What happened: Sandy Point Holiday Park, which has provided reasonably-priced  accommodation to families for 60 years, is set to become 11 permanent townhouses, after South Gippsland Shire Mayor Nathan Hersey used his casting vote to break a council deadlock and back the proposal.

A previous application for 14 subdivisions at the same site - a mixture of holiday cabins and permanent sites - put forward by the owner, was refused by council in 2024, and the refusal was upheld by VCAT.

Bass Coast Shire councillor Mat Morgan is acutely aware of the risks posed to coastal towns by extreme weather and rising tides.

The 27-year old councillor lives in Inverloch, 300 metres from the sandbag wall that was built to protect the surf life saving club from falling into the ocean.

Morgan told the Monitor he is worried that the rising costs of saving coastal towns, buildings and infrastructure from water inundation is going to end up bankrupting local governments.

“In Inverloch, with the dredging and the sandbag wall, [governments are] spending millions and millions of dollars to save one town. If you multiply that by every coastal town across Australia, just think how big that bill will be. It's just unrealistic.”

In March, work on a new 110-metre sandbag wall to protect the coastline was completed. 

  • Since 2019, over $2 million in funding has been provided to Bass Coast Shire through state government grants to protect Inverloch. 

The sandbag wall at Inverloch Surf Beach.

What happened: At a council meeting in April, Morgan moved a motion to call on fossil fuel companies to foot the bill for climate impacts that are endangering Bass Coast Shire communities.

Morgan said the council consistently receives petitions “campaigning for all sorts of climate mitigation measures from a local government that has a $100 million [annual] budget”.

In the four years before the 2024/25 financial year, Bass Coast Shire spent approximately $150,000 annually on its Coastal Risk Management Program, $61,000 of which was for works at Inverloch. 

In 2024/25, the shire’s expenditure on Inverloch Surf Beach rose to $330,000.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

Papunya is a remote community about 230km west of Alice Springs. Around 350 people live there across 50 homes, all of which are owned by the Northern Territory government.

Temperatures hit 35C on more than 110 days a year in the town. It's so bad that some residents are sleeping outside.

There houses are poorly built, under-insulated and have little to no air conditioning. So, should the tenants’ landlord, the NT government, be legally required to provide housing people can actually live in?

This week my colleague Archie Milligan from the National Account interviewed Senior Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, Jack McLean, who is representing Papunya locals in the Federal Court.

Take a look at that interview below.

🎥 Watch: Pepper steak pie from Strzelecki Bakery review

This week on the Monitor’s never ending mission to find the best bakery pies in Gippsland, I stopped into Strzelecki Bakery in Mirboo North to devour a pepper steak pie.

Take a look at the video review below.

🙌 Thanks for catching up with us this week at the Monitor.

👀 Call out: Next week, I’m looking to interview someone who is studying to get a job in a clean energy industry at Gippsland TAFE. If you know anyone who is currently studying to enter the renewable energy workforce there, or anyone who has recently graduated, I’d love to chat to them.

You can reach out to us at [email protected].

I’ll be back in your inbox next Wednesday with more local yarns, important topics and event guides.

Cheers,
Jacob & the Gippsland Monitor team

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