Wednesday, Wednesday, 1130 August, June, 2021
Pakenham
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Living life to the fullest
Vaccine centre opens PAGE 15
SPORT
Frustration on the fringe
Flower power The past 18 months have been a challenge to say the least - but one Cockatoo family has gone above and beyond to lend a helping hand to a friend in need. On a work trip to the remote Ugandan border-town of Busia a few years ago, World Vision photographer Nick Ralph met a very special young man Isaac Mukisa. Coming from a poor family and having lived on the streets for a number of years, Isaac had little chance of gaining an education and achieving his dreams of becoming a journalist - but his passion and positivity were plain to see, and Nick decided he and his family had to help in whatever way they could. STORY PAGES 10 -11
Rural communities on the outskirts of the Cardinia Shire are dismayed and frustrated that once again they have been classed as a part of “metro” Melbourne and will remain in lockdown, while neighbouring regional Victorian towns - some only kilometres away - will open up earlier than expected. At the state government’s press conference on Monday 9 August, Premier Daniel Andrews announced that lockdown restrictions would be lifted for all of regional Victoria as of 11.59pm that evening - a decision which has left many fringe towns like Garfield and Lang Lang feeling overlooked and “lumped in” with their more distant metro neighbours. STORY PAGE 7
Canned terror
The Ralphs are a family with hearts of gold, and are going above and beyond to help Isaac however they can. 246572
Picture: GABRIELLA PAYNE
About 20 SPC bean cans were opened and left on the shelves at Beaconsfield Woolworths on Friday 6 August, in what some are describing an act of “food terrorism“ from anti-vax groups. Although a small act of alleged rebellion, the boycott of Victorian brand SPC spread further over the weekend to include stickers calling for action against the fruit packing company. The incidents follow the announcement by SPC that all its workers need to be vaccinated by November. Dallas Goldberg, a prominent opponent of the anti-vax movement, described the incident as an act of “form of childish food extremism“. STORY PAGE 5
‘Let us work’ plea Small businesses within the Centre Court Arcade Pakenham are reeling in the aftermath of a “suspicious“ fire that damaged their shops in the early hours of Tuesday 3 August. Business owners which suffered damaged have been unable to enter their stores and re-
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trieve vital items that could keep them afloat during the coming months of repair work. The continual roller coaster of Covid-19 lockdowns have also left much uncertainty among the leasees. Jim Gregory of the Centre Court Book Exchange has been left devastated following what
he is predicting to be 15,000 books that will be unsalvageable. And for the many hairdressers that occupy the arcade, they are worried they’ll lose clients if they’re unable to retrieve their tools and products before lockdown is lifted. Lauren Amer, who operates her own business out of Finger Dwellers Hair Studio, is wor-
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ried she won’t be able to set up in time for the easing of lockdown restrictions. “If lockdown lifts on hairdressers before we’re able to get our stuff, people will go find somewhere else and you don’t know if they’ll come back to you after,“ she said. STORIES PAGE 3
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