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Wednesday 18 October 2023
For all advertising and editorial, call 03 5974 9000 or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au THE 76mm medium calibre gun at West Head Gunnery Range, Flinders, was decommissioned this month after firing an 80-round burst. Inset, members of the 2023 weapons electrical engineering officers application course. Pictures: James McDougall
Shots signal end of an era THE last of the big guns has fired its final shots and been decommissioned at the West Head Gunnery Range, Flinders. More than 100 people, including Naval top brass and former staff attended the Tuesday 10 October ceremony to mark the end of the 76mm medium calibre gun’s role at West Head. Medium calibre training will now be provided via virtual reality simulation and onboard training. The 76mm gun was installed in 1992, and until 2019 used to train operators/maintainers and principal warfare officers from Australia and the Philippines. The decommissioning of the MK75-76mm gun represents the end of 64 years of Navy shore-based medium calibre live-fire training. The West Head gunnery range will continue to operate two Typhoon weapon systems.
Peninsula in step with national No
Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au VOTING patterns in the Voice to Parliament referendum on the Mornington Peninsula were close to those recorded across Australia, resulting in a clear No. The latest counting on Monday morning showed 57.89 per cent of No votes on the peninsula (60.59 nationally) and 42.11 per cent Yes (39.41 nationally). Neighbouring Dunkley, which includes Mount Eliza, recorded 50.07 per cent No and 43.61 per cent Yes. There were some pockets on the peninsula where Yes votes triumphed - Mount Martha and around the Red
Hill area - but No votes dominated elsewhere, from Portsea and Sorrento to Dromana and across to Baxter, Somerville and through Hastings on the Western Port side of the peninsula. Flinders Liberal MP and a supporter of the No campaign waged by the federal opposition, Zoe McKenzie, used a German word when using Facebook to urge people to vote in the referendum: "Turns out Flinders are weltmeister [world champions] when it comes to early voting, with 54% of us having voted by close of business on Thursday.” Dunkley MP Labo’sr Peta Murphy, on voting day on Facebook, said voting Yes was “our chance to close the gap on health, education and housing. Let’s take it”. There was no mention
of the No victory on her Facebook page on Sunday. Labor MP for Hastings, Paul Mercurio, uploaded a video of himself and labor colleague Eastern Victoria MP Tom McIntosh “turning some democracy sausages … I voted Yes not because I'm Labor but because it is the absolutely right thing to do,” On Sunday, after the referendum was lost, Mercurio’s Facebook showed pictures of a microwave meal he’d cooked but made no reference to the result. On voting day, the latest post on Nepean MP Sam Groth’s Facebook page congratulated Dromana Tigers on their Mornington Peninsula Football Netball League division one premiership. Fellow Liberal and MP for Mornington Chris Crewther told
how “exciting” it had been at the official opening of the new Jubilee Park stadium in Frankston. McKenzie had made no secret of her advocacy for a No vote, saying five months ago that although being “firmly committed to the recognition of Australia’s First Nations peoples in the Constitution … I cannot recommend a Yes vote due to the unacceptable constitutional and legal risk it contains”. “While lawyers disagree about what the worst-case scenario might be, former High Court justices have warned that if a court were to find a duty to consult the Voice before the execution of any executive power, then it could ‘bring the government to a halt’ or ‘make government unworkable’ (“A
risk to executive government” The News 30/5/23). The three polling places in Hastings recorded the largest margin between voting preferences on the peninsula, with No receiving 10,170 votes and Yes 5731. The 187 comments on the Hastingsbased Willum Warrain Aboriginal Association Facebook made after the referendum result was known ranged from being sympathetic (“devastating outcome”) to derisive (“what a waste of money”). On the other side of the peninsula, Rosebud’s six polling places added 14,087 No votes and 9555 Yes votes to the tally. Mornington’s six polling places recorded 12,603 No votes to 9718 Yes.
