Media Coverage: July 2019

Frankston heath research precinct

The Frankston Healthy Aging Centre (announced in the 2019 federal budget as the Frankston health futures hub) has officially been launched. The initial funding tranche includes $2.6 million in grant funding for ‘Living with Dementia’ research projects.

‘Healthy ageing’ centre for uni
Frankston Times, July 22, 2019 Bayside News, Brodie Cowburn

PROFESSOR David Copolov, Dr Johnson George, Greg Hunt, Dr Nadine Andrew, Felicity Topp and Professor Christina Mitchell announce a “national centre for healthy ageing”.

A NATIONAL centre for Healthy ageing will be established at Monash University’s Peninsula campus following a financial agreement between the federal government, Peninsula Health and the university. An existing building at the campus in Frankston will be extended to “accommodate staff and cutting-edge simulation environments / transformation facilities for research and education for community-based care”.

Flinders MP and Health Minister, Greg Hunt, last week said the first “milestone payment” of the government’s $32 million contribution had been made. “The national centre, the first of its kind in Australia, will deliver new research and treatment programs for older people and those with addiction and mental health issues, backed by new state of the art physical testing environments and data infrastructure,” Mr Hunt said. “Bringing together the major health training, education and research activities at Monash’s Peninsula campus and Peninsula Health’s Frankston Hospital, the National Centre for Healthy Ageing will fast track and improve the health care of the nation’s most vulnerable people.”

Mr Hunt said the Mornington Peninsula region’s population is one of the fastest ageing in Australia “making it the ideal place to trial innovative health care solutions for older people, whether it be at home or in residential aged care”. “Successful models would then be scaled up and rolled out across Australia.” Mr Hunt said the use of “state-of-the-art living labs” and technology, would see “new models of care focus on delivering greater independence so people can stay at home for longer and avoid unnecessary hospitalisations”.

Mathew Langdon, Mr Hunt’s media contact, said ‘living labs’ was “a term used to describe real-life and life-like environments to help ensure research outcomes are easily implementable and lead to quick translation in the health system”. Priority work of the new centre would include developing strategies and programs “to engage and assist those at risk of having an unwanted transfer to the emergency department, to develop their end of life care plans”, Mr Hunt said. New models of care would be designed using assistive technology within purpose-built facilities to improve quality of life through continued successful living at home and reduced hospital admissions. The centre will also partner with organisations in Frankston and on the peninsula to “identify addiction and severe mental illness solutions at the local level to improve the treatment for Australians with these illnesses”.

One of the Frankston campus-based projects would use electronic record data to develop ways of monitoring the prevalence of dementia. The $600,000 grant to Monash University researchers will use the unique aspects of the peninsula region to conduct a pilot study for a program that will be rolled out across Victoria and nationally if successful,” Mr Hunt said.  The university had also been given $2 million for a study designed to prevent and reduce the risk of developing dementia in 45-65 year olds. “Without a medical breakthrough, it is predicted that more than 1.1 million Australians will be living with dementia by 2056,” Mr Hunt said.

First published in the Frankston Times – 22 July 2019

Dunkley News

The Dunkley electorate will be sadden to learn that their newly elected MP Peta Murphy has been diagnosed with a cancer relapse. The Committee for Greater Frankston would like to pass on our thoughts and best wishes to Peta and her family during the coming months.

New MP’s shock cancer diagnosis
Rob Harris Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 2019 — 11.45pm

After five years Peta Murphy thought she was in the clear. But a shock new cancer diagnosis won’t stop her from making a defiant first speech to the House of Representatives next week. The 45-year-old Labor MP, who won the south-east suburban Melbourne seat of Dunkley at the May 18 election, has vowed her “fighting spirit” will get her through. Sworn in as a new MP just 15 days ago, she received the “unexpected news” last week that her cancer had returned. “While this has come as a shock, my doctor advises me that my condition is treatable and that he expects me to do well with treatment, which I will start in the coming weeks,” Ms Murphy told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. “I have terrific support from family, friends and colleagues, and a strong fighting spirit.”

It was her first cancer fight which gave the former barrister the courage to stand for Parliament at the last two elections. Ms Murphy has spoken openly in the past about how her initial diagnosis had prompted her to enter politics after a previous career as a justice policy advisor to Labor minister and now Federal Court judge Duncan Kerr. She was first diagnosed with cancerous tumour in her breast in 2011 while acting as a junior counsel in a murder trial.
Ms Murphy and her husband, public sector consultant Rod Glover, moved to Mt Eliza to be closer to family, before a short stint in the United States where she completed her recovery following surgery and intense chemotherapy. “It sounds like a cliche but at the end of that we wanted to make sure we did something with our lives,” she said in 2015.

She campaigned on health funding at the 2016 and 2019 federal elections, having credited Australia’s health system with saving her life. “I had excellent treatment and, having passed the five-year mark since my diagnosis, we were confident that I was in the clear,” she said on Wednesday.

Ms Murphy’s victory against Liberal MP Chris Crewther in May was the first time Labor had won the seat – which takes in Frankston, Carrum Downs, Langwarrin and Seaford – in 23 years. She secured a personal swing of 2.4 per cent in her primary vote on top of a boundary redistribution which had moved Dunkley, a notional Labor seat with a wafer-thin margin of 1.3 per cent. She has vowed to her community to continue to work hard “at home and in the Parliament” while undergoing treatment.

Close colleagues have rallied around the MP in the past days and say she is determined to deliver her first speech, a long-standing convention in which newly elected parliamentarians outline their principles, beliefs and background, next Wednesday. Prior to her election win Ms Murphy had spent two years as chief-of-staff to veteran Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor, whose wife Jodi Dack died breast cancer almost 12 months ago. Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos gave an emotional address to Parliament in February having spent more than 18 months fighting stage four non-Hodgkin lymphoma, declaring “cancer really sucks”.
“Discovering that you’ve got it, accepting that you’ve got it, feeling sick, or, ironically, perhaps even worse — not feeling sick yet feeling totally bewildered; having your life, your family, your work upended; pushing through the multiple rounds of treatment, coping with the side effects of the treatment,” he told the Senate. “Every cancer is different, and everybody’s experience of it is so very different. No matter how much we think we can control things, our bodies have a will of their own, and that can play out in triumphant and tragic ways. “You just can’t pick it sometimes.

New Frankston City Council CEO

Interim CEO appointed
Brodie Cowburn, Frankston Times, 1 July 2019

Monitor’s stay extended
July 1, 2019 Brodie Cowburn, Frankston Times

FRANKSTON Council’s municipal monitor is set for an extended stay. The state government appointed monitor Prue Digby to investigate and prepare a report on Frankston Council in December of 2017, with her tenure due to end in June this year. In the wake of former council CEO Dennis Hovenden’s resignation, Ms Digby has had her stay extended until the appointment of a new permanent CEO.
Questions from The Times about the monitor’s stay were directed to the department of environment, land, water and planning. A statement from the department read that “the current municipal monitor to Frankston City Council, Prue Digby, will continue as monitor to the council. From 1 July her terms of reference will be to monitor, advise and assist the council in relation to its actions and processes concerning to the recruitment and appointment of a permanent chief executive officer to fill the position caused by the recent resignation of Dennis Hovenden.”
“The monitor’s appointment will conclude when the new CEO has commenced their role at the council. The CEO performs an integral role in providing support and advice to the council about its role, obligations and strategic direction, as well as delivering council services. It is important that the council undertakes its hiring processes for the new CEO appropriately,” the statement said. Frankston Council mayor Michael O’Reilly told The Times last week that by April of this year, the monitor had cost ratepayers close to $94,000. He also said that the monitor has no requirements to submit her report to council upon the conclusion of her tenure.

“It’s evident that since Prue was appointed, council meetings have been running more efficiently and effectively, and that the number of notices of motion have reduced. This is largely due to councillors now working alongside officers to investigate their merit and viability prior to submitting,” Cr O’Reilly said. There are currently municipal monitors at South Gippsland Shire Council, Frankston City Council, Greater Geelong City Council and Ararat Rural City Council. The South Gippsland Shire Council was sacked by the state government last month. First published in the Frankston Times – 1 July 2019

Watchdog costs rise
Monitor overseeing council to remain
Christian Tatman, 8 July 2019

Squabbling Frankston councillors will almost certainly cost ratepayers more than $100,000. The Leader can reveal ratepayers have forked out $93,955 (excluding GST) for the employment of State Government-appointed Monitor Prue Digby. Ms Digby was appointed in late 2017 to oversee the council following massive cost blowouts on multiple council projects and months of dysfunction in chambers.
The State Government last week said Ms Digby would remain in the role until the council appointed a new chief executive, which is expected later this year. Mayor Michael O’Reilly said council meetings had been running “more efficiently and effectively” since Ms Digby arrived. Frankston state Labor MP Paul Edbrooke said it was essential that councillors stayed on a “positive path”. “The monitor can always be called on again,” he said.
City of Frankston Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association vice president Darrel Taylor said the council’s inability to get major projects off the ground was deeply concerning. “There’s frustration around their ability to make major decisions and handle major projects,” he said.

Group to help relieve parking woes
Brodie Cowburn, Frankston times, 16 July

Anti-social behaviour’ targeted on holidays
July 15, 2019 Brodie Cowburn

AN increased police presence has been seen in the Frankston CBD and at Bayside Shopping Centre during the school holidays to put a stop to “anti-social behaviour”. The Frankston Police operation kicked off on 11 July. The operation sees a visible police presence across the area to deter people from getting into trouble. Acting Sergeant Julia Starkey said the operation begun in an effort to make people feel safer in their community. “This operation is in response to a general community response. They were feeling unsafe around the CBD in relation to anti-social behaviour. Young people had been behaving poorly around Bayside Shopping Centre food court and the railway station,” Acting Sergeant Starkey said. “We’re going to have a high visibility saturated police presence over several days in coming weeks, involving uniform members and transit members.” Acting Sergeant Starkey said it was decided that the increased police presence was needed after discussions with “local retailers in the area, council, and the security at Bayside.” “We want to let the people causing trouble know that members of the community deserve to feel safe to go about their daily behaviours,” she said. The operation will run on four days. It ran on 11 June and 12 June. The move follows an increased push by Frankston Police to give the community a say about their concerns. They recently invited members of the public to join the Frankston First Community Network to discuss local crime issues. They held their launch event on 26 June. Frankston local area commander Inspector Paul Cripps said the network aimed to “bring together community leaders from across Frankston.” “Through the Frankston First Community Network we aim to build on the strong relationships police have with our wonderfully diverse community,” Inspector Cripps said. “This is a great opportunity to interact with your local police, gain a greater understanding of other community groups and have an impact on issues which affect the Frankston community.”

First published in the Frankston Times – 16 July 2019