🟠 Locals dig in for quarry fight

Also including: Knox Scouts nears the end of lease tug-of-war

Author

Matthew Sims
November 14, 2025

⏱️ The 93rd edition of our newsletter is a seven-minute read.

Hi there 👋 

Matthew Sims here, your reporter at the Eastern Melburnian.

🗞️ This week, I took a deeper dive into the proposed expansion of Boral’s Montrose Quarry, reaching out to locals to hear from them about what another 30 years of living near the quarry — also about 30 acres larger — would mean. Concerns included more dust particles entering the air and impacts on native vegetation and wildlife.

🚔 Yesterday morning, I popped down to the site where locals congregated for a protest. An undercover cop pulled up next to me and gave me quite the shock to ask what I was doing there. He returned later to ensure the group stayed safe on the road and weren’t parked illegally.

🪧 The protest itself was a positive display of local opposition to the proposal. Indeed, with a petition now garnering more than 2,000 signatures, it doesn’t look like the community is going to accept the proposed changes without a fight. I’ve been reaching out to local MPs, councillors, the Planning Minister and Boral itself for a response on this developing issue.

📰 In other news: after a number of stories covering gambling losses and the State Government’s carded play trial earlier this year, I wanted to take the time to shine a spotlight on the element that is often forgot or neglected in media coverage about gambling — the impact it has on individuals and their families.

🎰 I spoke to a local who has been addicted to pokie machines for more than 30 years. While telling his loved ones led to anguish, leading to an eventual divorce with his wife of many years, he has since abstained for about eight months.

What is our government doing to curtail this issue? And what needs to be done further?

A biodiversity impact assessment from March 2024 showed a proposed expansion of the Montrose Quarry site would impact about 21.7 acres of native vegetation – 30.83 percent of the total native vegetation in the area.

The one thing you gotta know ↑

WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

📰 THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES

Montrose’s rock quarry – and pushback from locals over its existence – has been a part of the landscape since the mid-1950s.

Now, a new proposal has caused a new uproar.

Already one of the largest quarries in the state, if approved, the proposal would see the area of the quarry grow by 30 acres, add another 30 years onto its lifetime and allow Boral to dig up about 26 million more tonnes of rock.

Online, a petition has attracted more than 2,000 signatures, calling for site owner and operator Boral to consider other supply sites.

Currently covering just over 203 acres, the site at 56-72 Canterbury Road in Montrose began its life as a quarry in 1947.

The decision on whether the proposal requires an Environment Effects Statement (EES) – an assessment of a proposal’s potential environmental impacts – is currently with the Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny.

However, Kilkenny could decide to simply approve an amendment to the planning scheme without any public consultation or council oversight.

Adding 30 acres and 30 years: Montrose quarry expansion proposal draws ire from 2,000+ locals

While Boral says the quarry is a key supplier of materials for the State Government’s Big Build projects, locals are telling them to source rock from other sites.

Australians lost about $32 billion to gambling during the last financial year. Of that, Victorians lost $3.145 billion on electronic gaming machines or “pokies” alone. Across the eastern suburbs LGAs of Monash, Whitehorse and Knox, gamblers lost a total of more than $268 million in the 2024/25 period.

Gambling – particularly pokies – is clearly a part of our culture that will not go away on its own.

For eastern suburbs local Robert*, playing the pokies went from something that was not part of his childhood to a debilitating addiction.

“You certainly lose,” Robert told the Eastern Melburnian. “You might win at some point, but in the long run, you always lose. That is a given, that's a fact. The longer you play, the more likely you are to lose.”

During his first speech as incoming Monash mayor on Tuesday November 11, councillor Stuart James said Monash was among the LGAs with the highest amount of gambling harm – with more than $126 million lost in 2024/24 across Monash.

“The harm caused by gambling, particularly from electronic gaming machines, is real, widespread and deeply damaging to individuals and families in our community,” said James. “Too often, meaningful reform is deliberately stalled.”

Robert’s story of gambling addiction is one that represents the ease at which habits can form and their long term effects. In the 1990s, Robert said he and his partner would often spend about $50 an hour on pokies after a dinner date.

“It was just fun and it was all quite new at that time,” said Robert.

Robert said he started justifying the habit of popping into a pokies venue after work – and the increasing amount of money he was losing – as simply “a way to relax and just switch off”.

Even when he won a $10,000 jackpot, it wasn’t enough of an incentive to quit, but only provided him with more money to gamble away.

The Federal Government has remained relatively tight-lipped on gambling reform.

It has been two and a half years since the late-Labor MP Peta Murphy called on the Albanese Government to introduce a phased ban on gambling advertising, following an inquiry into the negative effects of online gambling.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie sent a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week, requesting he allow a free vote in parliament on legislation to ban gambling advertising. However, he has not yet indicated whether or not he would do so.

“In the long run, you always lose”: An eastern suburbs local on escaping the cycle of gambling harm

Often, broad reform looks at total losses and the impact on industry. However, the real impact on individuals often creates irreversible consequences.

A four-year tug-of-war between Knox District Scouts and Knox Council has entered its final phase, with a nine-year lease agreement to be signed off within the coming months.

During this week’s council meeting, Knox Council officers recommended councillors vote to impose a $450 per hall lease on Scouts Victoria.

This proposal would add up to an annual cost of $5850 for the 13 plots of land managed by the council.

However, outgoing Knox mayor Lisa Cooper moved an alternative motion. Cooper’s motion proposed cutting the fee to $239 per hall – a 46.8 percent reduction and a total cost of $3107 per year.

All councillors voted for the Cooper change.

Knox Scouts set to end four-year wait for new lease after $3,000+ agreement

About 2,500 locals and 700 children are involved with the Knox District Scouts group.

SEEN THIS WEEK 🤓

Rental rises

The National Account reporter Archie Milligan jumped into recent statistics from Cotality highlighting the growth in rents over the last five years — with national prices jumping up by 43 percent since 2020. Victoria’s median rent sits at $615 a week - the second cheapest capital city behind Hobart.

@thenationalaccount

Rents in Australia have risen by 43% in five years. #australia #todayilearned #news #explained #thenationalaccount

New faces at the helm

This week, a number of local councils got together to elect their new mayors and deputy mayors for the year ahead. So, I thought I’d just go around the grounds to showcase the changes.

Monash

Stuart James — mayor

Elisha Lee — deputy mayor — the first Korean-Australian to enter the role

Manningham

Jim Grivas — mayor

Deirdre Diamante — deputy mayor

Maroondah

Linda Hancock — mayor

Paul Macdonald — deputy mayor

Whitehorse

Kirsten Langford — mayor

Kieran Simpson — deputy mayor.

Thanks for catching up with us this week at the Eastern Melburnian. We hope you enjoyed this issue, and we’d love to hear your thoughts. We’ll be back next week to shine a spotlight on the under-reported issues in our patch, so stay tuned!

Cheers,

Matthew and the Eastern Melburnian team