🏍️ RIP Moto GP

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

• THURSDAY, 19/02/26 | ThornBird live

• FRI. 20/02 - SUN. 22/02 | Superbike World Championship

• FRIDAY, 20/02/26 | Regurgitator live

• FRIDAY, 20/02/26 | Luke Kidgell: Good intentions

• SAT. 21/02 - SUN. 22/02 | Warragul Lions Club Autumn Book Fair

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | A Night With Tina

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | San Remo Channel Challenge

• SUNDAY, 22/02/26 | Deb Rielly Run for the Kids

• SUNDAY, 22/02/26 | Summer Sunday Sessions on Churchill Island

• SUNDAY, 22/02/26 | Mojo Jacket at Bena Hall

• ALL OF FEB. | Baw Baw Arts Alliance sessions

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | Inverloch Rural Farmers Market

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | Drouin Craft and Produce Market

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | Warragul Farmers Market

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | Prom Country Farmers Market

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | Sale Producers Market

• SATURDAY, 21/02/26 | Fish Creek Summer Market

• SUNDAY, 22/02/26 | Bairnsdale Howitt Park Market

• SUNDAY, 22/02/26 | Inverloch Lions Community Market

• SUNDAY, 22/02/26 | Coronet Bay Market

• SUNDAY, 22/02/26 | Kongwak Market

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

🐨 “It's highly significant”: Five years counting koala poop pays off by revealing undiscovered population

Not many people would like to spend 82 days counting Strzelecki koala dung in the bush, but Anthony Amis knows this research must be done if we want to understand how many of these distinct koalas are alive and well.

What happened: A new study published by Friends of the Earth Land Use Researcher  Anthony Amis has found a relatively unknown population of the genetically distinct Strzelecki koala.

• The study took Amis five years to complete and totalled 89 days in the field at two forested areas in South Gippsland (Mullungdung State Forest and Won Wron Flora Reserve).

The results show there is a relatively unknown population of about 700 Strzelecki koalas living in these forests. 

• This could amount to a quarter of the entire Strzelecki koala population.

The Monitor spoke to Amis about his research and what makes the Strzelecki koala distinct from a run-of-the-mill koala.

What makes the Strzelecki koalas so special?

Amis said Strzelecki koalas are Victoria and South Australia's only lineage of koalas that were not impacted by a Victorian program in the 1870s and 1880s that moved koalas to French and Phillip Islands.

• The Victorian government did this because they were concerned about the loss of koala populations at the time.

“There were only three koalas that were moved to French Island,” Amis said. “Those animals bred up to the extent that the government then moved populations back onto mainland Victoria in the 1940s.”

• “The koalas were extinct everywhere in Victoria and South Australia at that time, except for a tiny little population that hung on in the Strzelecki ranges.”

The population of the koalas that were moved from French and Phillip Island then skyrocketed on the mainland in the following decades, making the remnant Strzelecki koala the vast minority.

• Amis said there’s no way to tell the difference between the two koala species by looking at them.

Read the full story here.

🏠 How does affordable housing work in Victoria – and how much more do we need?

There were 7,520 people in Gippsland looking for social or affordable housing units in 2025, according to Gippsland Homelessness Network.

As inflation and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis puts pressure on renters around the country, more and more Australians are looking for affordable housing options.

There are currently over 100,000 Australians living in government regulated affordable housing homes. These residencies often have subsidised rents and stricter rules than your average rental.

In Victoria there are over 26,000 affordable housing units run by not-for-profit housing agencies.

So how do these properties work, and what criteria do renters need to meet to apply for one?

What is affordable housing? Affordable housing is a type of rental available for Australians who don’t meet the requirements for social housing, but are still struggling to pay their rent on a low-income.

• Affordable housing can be operated by private or not-for-profit housing agencies.

• These agencies can receive government funding to help address housing shortages.

• Affordable housing is an umbrella term that refers to a number of different state government programs.

• The goal of affordable housing is to provide rentals at below market rent to those who are struggling to afford average rents.

What’s “affordable”? For a property to be considered affordable housing, rents must be set at least 10 percent below the area’s median market rent. 

• These rental prices are also not able to increase by more than 5 percent a year.

Read the full story here, or what a video I made about affordable housing below.

🏁 "We're in mourning": Phillip Island loses the Moto GP after 37 years

The 2026 Australian Moto GP will be the last time the event races on the Phillip Island grand prix circuit after negotiations between the state government and MotoGP fell through on Wednesday.

The Victorian minister for tourism, sport and major events, Steve Dimopoulos, told reporters the privately owned Moto GP company had demanded the race be moved to Melbourne’s Albert Park.

🗣️ “We know we could have kept the event in Victoria if we’d sold out Phillip Island. We weren’t willing to do that,” Dimopoulos said. “We matched every requirement they had except one, which was to move it to Albert Park.”

Community in mourning

Bass Coast Shire mayor Rochelle Halstead told the Monitor: “Our community is in mourning. Our community has come together for the last 30 years, welcoming this event, so it's a huge hit for us.”

• 🗣️“This is part of the fabric of our community. We’re not just financially invested here in the Bass Coast, we're emotionally invested and have been for over 30 years.”

Almost 40 years: The Moto GP started racing on the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit 37 years ago in 1989, and last year's event attracted 93,000 people to the island and provided 284 jobs.

• The island won the current 10-year Moto GP contract in 2016.

A 2023 economic impact study by Ernst & Young found the race brought $54.6 million into Victoria’s economy, $29.4 million of which was spent locally.

The whole island is hurting: Island Pies owner Ken Chandara told the Monitor his shop in Newhaven gets a lot of extra business when the traffic is flowing through to Ventnor and Cowes.

🗣️“We get a lot of traffic and customers from the event, it’s sad to see it go,” Chandara said.

The CEO of Destination Phillip Island, Kim Storey, told the Monitor it’s not just Phillip Island that will be impacted by the decision. 

• 🗣️“People stay for the Moto GP in the outer rim of Melbourne and surrounding areas of Gippsland, anything within a two hours drive of Phillip Island was attracting accommodation for the event.”

Looking to the future: Mayor Halstead said she had received a call from Dimopoulos last night where they discussed looking for other tourist events for Phillip Island.

• 🗣️“It's important that we start to look at other opportunities that Bass Coast can be involved in, events that we can try to get to fill the gap the GP has left.”

The last Moto GP race to be held on the island will be this year’s Grand Prix in October.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

I really enjoyed this short video my colleague Matthew Sims from the Eastern Melburnian made about the history of the Mount Dandenong TV towers.

It’s only a 40 second video but Matt does a great job of summarising the towers history. There’s some fantastic footage of the towers being helicoptered onto the site in 1955.

Take a look at the video below.