The Blackwood Times

Ms HUTCHESSON (Waite) (17:05):The Blackwood Times has been the local paper of most of my community for almost exactly 30 years, but the June edition was its last. After 30 years of serving our community, of keeping us informed as to what is happening in the area, celebrating the wins, acknowledging members of our community who do great things, and supporting local business, the editor, Miles Badcock, has sadly decided it is time to stop the press.

Every month over the last 30 years, Miles has worked hard with the help of other journalists to bring together our community, provide a platform for community groups to share their events and stories, to celebrate our sporting endeavours, and to bid farewell to special people. Supported by local businesses through advertising, The Blackwood Times has hit the newsstands in the first week of the month for many years, and we have all waited eagerly to see what might be on the front page, what exciting events might have occurred or were coming up.

Miles has thoughtfully prepared an opportunity for our community to stay in touch, and we will miss him and the paper. In the last edition, our community joined together to say thank you and good luck to Miles. The Blackwood Action Group said:

Over the thirty years, the Times has seen our community change in so many ways, as well as growing in numbers and area.

Always, the Times has reflected what Miles, as editor, has believed to be our community views and values and for that we are very indebted to Miles for his passion and love for our Mitcham Hills community. We wish him well in the next stage of his life.

The infamous Hawthorndene Daily, akin to Lady Whistledown's society paper, which, like the mystery surrounding its author, none are too sure as to who entertains us under the Hawthorndene Daily posts, proclaimed:

Delivered at no cost, the newspaper has been the epitome of the free press.

Supporting a healthy and vibrant community, keeping us informed and imploring us to shop locally, time and time again, the publisher Miles…Has gone the extra MILE.

They went on to say:

We were going to ask rhetorically whether without the Blackwood Times important local news stories will continue to be told. But at press we were too pressed for time. The times they are a changing.

Personally, I thank him for not only supporting our Mitcham and Hills Wellness Education sessions, allowing Tracey Yeend and I to write articles about what sessions we have had and what sessions are coming up, but also supporting us when we relaunched Beacon—Beacon 24. Beacon was operating in our community helping our most vulnerable, and with the collaboration between our inter-church council, Tracey Yeend, myself, Rotary and Lions Club, we have all come together and relaunched it to create food hampers for those most in need that can last them for 24 to 48 hours. Miles has taken the opportunity every month to help us by calling on our community and asking them to donate what they can, and we very much appreciate his support in that space.

I have also had the honour of penning a few articles myself within The Blackwood Times,and also been able to provide comments to other articles, and I thank Miles for all of the support that he has provided to me and our community. The times are a-changing, and for the Mitcham Hills community we will be without our most favourite read. So Miles, thank you for being there over the last 30 years, for working tirelessly to entertain, inform and share success with our community. We wish you all the very best.

With the minute I have left, I just want to talk a little bit around the Friends of Blackwood Forest. They have been absolute champions in trying to look after that area. It is part of the national parks team, but they, as a community group, come together every week to do weeding, to do planting, to look after the manager's cottage, and they do a wonderful job. A little while ago they lost the use of their ride-on lawnmower, and they were unable to slash and keep the grass down, which is always good for all our dog walkers and all the people who love to enjoy that area.

They were not successful in getting grants from state government, federal government or local council, so they opened a GoFundMe page and, together with lots of people within our community, we managed to raise the funds that they needed to buy the ride-on lawnmower. Clementine is her name and I got to meet her on the weekend. She is doing a wonderful job not only to be able to slash the grass but also, with the trailer on the back, to help carry all of the sticks and all of the branches out of the way.

Thank you to our community for supporting the Friends of Blackwood Forest. Thank you to the members of the Friends of Blackwood Forest for all of the work that you do. Without you and all of our 'friends of' groups, we would be definitely having to rely a lot harder on our parks staff, who are already under pressure. We appreciate everything that you all do.