Whittlesea

But also, what if there is no disabled parking available? You have your permit and you suffer from emphysema, so you can't walk very far, but you would like to see your grandchild play sport.

This is a blatant $60,000 cash grab from the Whittlesea Council in a cost-of-living crisis, and it is nothing short of a disgrace.

Two years ago, the fine was $400, which was extraordinary.

But today, it is nearly $630.

Which was, it's insane.

And there were around 100 cars apparently parked at this oval on this Saturday to watch the finals, like suburban footy, which is happening everywhere.

So the Whittlesea councillors thought, great, how can we rip all of these people off? It doesn't matter if they're elderly.

It doesn't matter if they're disabled.

I did not know this.

So what happened last year? And last year it happened in the city of Maroondah and this year it is in the city of Whittlesea.

People can't park around the streets when there's a local footy game on.

If you regularly go to suburban footy, you'll know sometimes they get thousands of people to a final.

So what people do is they tend to park around the oval.

And the council sends out all of their parking inspectors on a Saturday.

And guess how much the city of Whittlesea is fining people for parking on the side of the local footy oval? $627.

So you can rob someone with a machete, you can steal a car, you can have your home invaded, and those people get bail and a pat on the back and a see you later.

He claims on a Facebook group to have cleaned up six trailer loads of rubbish near Mount Disappointment.

Mount Disappointment being, I think it's about 10km north of Whittlesea.

And he's posted some pictures and it's just horrendous.

Mattresses, clothes, cardboard boxes full of things.

Look, I just want to get back to public.

We will talk more about rubbish dumping, Judy.

We're going to speak to a man later on this hour who went and collected six trailer loads of rubbish near Mount Disappointment, north of Whittlesea.

And there was plenty more rubbish dumped on the side of a road there, in the bush, basically.

He'll also, he's doing the double.

So he'll be doing here at Whittlesea and then doing the same message up at Beveridge.

And so that will be an incredible day of getting teaching on healing, but also we want to be praying for people as well around seeing God's healing come.

And then the following week on October 4, Ben will be preaching, which will essentially be, it won't be his final message here, but it'll be the last one before we send off the beverage team.

Who knew that?

Don Lawson from Whittlesea.

He died in a car accident, James Dean, when another driver went through a red light.

That's it.

Carol hates the spotlight.

But Carol, for the last number of years, has led our prayer space here at City Life Church Whittlesea.

And so she's handing that over today.

And so she has faithfully led our pre-service prayer and the WhatsApp group.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And just by way, so what Carolee's doing, she's handing that on and Janine is going to be stepping in and leading that prayer space for us at Whittlesea, which is really exciting.

And so morning prayer from 9am to 9.30, pre-service prayer, which is really preparing the ground for our service here is going to be continuing on.

But we begin, as always, with a look at the week's main news.

Heading VLGA Connect news this week, former Whittlesea Mayor Aidan McClendon has reportedly launched a $3.5 million personal lawsuit against Housing Minister Nick Stacos.

The Herald Sun reported that legal documents were served on Mr Stakos last week, accusing the former local government minister personally of misfeasance in public office, following an invalid suspension that stripped Councillor McClendon of his elected position last year.

The legal action follows a Victorian Supreme Court ruling in June which declared the April 2025 suspension unlawful.

Other issues raised included councillor pay, expanding inclusive civic leadership through the Mary Rogers Awards for Women in Local Government and the upcoming 2026 Victorian Councillor Census.

Victoria's Independent Remuneration Tribunal has handed down a new pay determination for mayors, deputies and councillors, effective from the 1st of July this year.

The shake-up creates a new Category D tier for six fast-growing councils, including Casey, Wyndham and Whittlesea.

and it decouples the Deputy Mayor allowance from the mayoral rate.

Now look, I get Nick Reece getting a pay rise.

It is not easy being mayor of the City of Melbourne, but other, other municipalities, Hume, Geelong, Whittlesea, Wyndham, Casey, Melton, the mayors of all of those municipalities getting pay rises of almost eleven percent.

We'll debate that with the Mayor of Geelong later on in the show.

One double three six nine three, and, um, speaking of cost of living crises, how about this? You remember a few months ago we talked about, uh, quite extensively the, uh, the Reserve Bank's decision to stop credit card surcharges? So no longer can retailers add a surcharge on credit cards.

133693, mornings@3aw.com.au. More calls, more emails ahead.

Uh, it's been reported today that quite a few mayors, uh, are getting quite a big pay rise, uh, depending on which, uh, municipality you are in charge of.

But the municipalities including, uh, Hume, Geelong, Whittlesea, Wyndham, Casey, and Melton The mayors there are apparently getting a 10.6% increase in pay.

One of those mayors is the Mayor of Geelong, Stretch Contage.