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Wednesday 29 April 2020
5974 9000 or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au SORRENTO-PORTSEA RSL president John Prentice knew it would be an Anzac Day like no other. In line with other RSLs around the country, the sub-branch had to cancel its traditional commemorations, such as the dawn service, Gunfire breakfast, street march, midday service, afternoon barbecue and live music. “Regulations required our sub-branch to be closed on this important day. Sad, but there it is,” Mr Prentice said. “Normally we would have 400 for the breakfast, the march and the guest speakers, the laying of the wreaths and the flag-raising.” But not this year. At 5.45am, Saturday 25 April, Mr Prentice and past-president Michael Jeffreson conducted a brief, two man wreath-laying ceremony at the cenotaph on the Sorrento foreshore. “It was a bit strange,” Mr Prentice said. “The two of us went down there to lay the wreath and do the flag raising. A bugler stood near the toilet block playing The Last Post. We held a minute’s silence; I said the Ode and we raised the flag during Reveille.” The Ode, from the traditional Anzac Day poem: For the fallen, contains the immortal words: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.” Minimal though the tributes were, it is certain those being honoured would have respected the sentiment behind them. Lest we forget. Stephen Taylor
An Anzac Day to remember Tradition upheld: Sorrento-Portsea RSL president John Prentice and past president Michael Jeffreson conducted a two-man Anzac Day commemoration at the cenotaph on Saturday. Picture: Yanni
Attractions could be fatal Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au AN unknown number of the 1300 colourful beach boxes regarded as attractions on Mornington Peninsula beaches and foreshores could be death traps. Potentially deadly amounts of asbestos has been found in about 120 of the beach boxes on beaches controlled by Mornington Peninsula Shire and Dromana foreshore committee, but details of another 500 boxes is un-known. The owners of the Dromana beach boxes have been asked to remove asbestos from their buildings but no such request has been issued by the shire.
The mayor Cr Sam Hearn said none of the asbestos in 89 of the 824 beach boxes on shire-controlled beaches had been put in the “immediate elevated risk level category”. The shire is already under fire from beach box owners over a proposed new set of rules and the High Court is expected to soon hand down its decision over a challenge by the Mornington Peninsula Beach Box Association to annual fees charged by the shire. The politically influential and seemingly cashed up association describes the peninsula’s beach boxes as a “colourful cluster of historical icons” that “grouped together … assist social
harmony and create a sense of community”. John Steele, a Dromana Foreshore Committee member, said the use by date recommended by asbestos products’ manufacturer James Hardie Industries expired years ago. He said “salt, sand and wind” made asbestos on beach boxes “friable and brittle”, creating a fine dust that was almost impossible to see in sand or inside beach boxes. Tests had shown the presence of asbestos dust “and you can imagine young children and babies crawling around in it when their parents shelter in their beach box if it’s windy or raining”.
Mr Steele, who suffers from asbestos-related illnesses, said he removed as-bestos from his family’s beach box 30 years ago. While “everyone knows about it”, foreshore committees were unable to force asbestos removal. “Dromana [with 30 sheds out of 240 having asbestos] is pretty good, but sheds on lots of other foreshores are hidden,” Mr Steele said. “James Hardie gave ‘super six’ asbestos cladding and roofing a life span of 25 years. As the last sheets were used in the mid-1980s, they are now well past 25 years. Some must be 50 years beyond this guideline.”
Mr Steele said swab tests taken from sheds under the roofs on the foreshore “have shown alarming levels of fibres”. “The health risks are very real for owners, visitors and staff that work on the foreshore. The risks on the foreshore are far greater than similar constructions away from the foreshore.” Mr Steele warned that claims for compensation against foreshore commit-tees and the shire would be easy to prove. “The crunch time will come. You can’t have an unsafe workplace and we all know it [asbestos] is there.” Continued Page 8
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