Police found cannabis plants in a Kennett River house after a tip-off.

POLICE have urged people to continue reporting crimes after a public tip-off led to a drug seizure at Kennett River, north-east of Apollo Bay.

Detective Chris Potter of Colac Criminal Investigation Unit said police would interview “and likely charge” a 52-year-old Kennett River man with cultivating and possessing cannabis after a raid on the man’s home.

Det Potter said police found and seized “a few” hydroponically-grown cannabis plants, a small hydroponic system, and an undisclosed amount of dry cannabis.

He said the raid and seizure were a direct result of a tip-off.

“It resulted from information being passed on from a member of the public to Crime Stoppers,” Det Potter said.

“We’re very grateful that someone took the trouble to do that,” he said.

“You hear stories about cannabis being grown up and down the coast but police are certainly looking to the community to point them in the right direction.”

Det Potter was Acting Sergeant at Apollo Bay Police Station at the time of Friday morning’s raid.

Colac’s Buckley Greenfield has spent the past two years recovering from a head-on collision near Lorne.

A CAR accident forced Colac’s Buckley Greenfield to change careers as well as recover from his injuries.

Another car hit the 27-year-old’s car head-on on the Anglesea-Bellbrae Road near Lorne in January 2010.

“The driver going the other way fell asleep and went through the corner,” Mr Greenfield said.

He suffered a fractured wrist, dislocated left shoulder, shattered knee cap, and a lisfranc fracture to his foot as well as multiple cuts.

Mr Greenfield said a lisfranc fracture involved multiple breaks and dislocations in his foot.

He had surgery and spent a week and a half in hospital, and six months in plaster.

“They removed most of my kneecap, and put wires in my foot,” Mr Greenfield said.

“I’ve probably got a knee-cap the size of a ten-cent-piece,” he said.

Mr Greenfield had a landscape business at Lorne, and was a keen surfer and competitive motocross rider before the accident.

“I was competing at state level for a couple of years, it’s now out the window,” he said.

Mr Greenfield had 15 months off work, then started to look for a job that he could do with his injuries.

He decided to be a mechanic and is doing an apprenticeship, but it took him a while to get used to eight-hour days at work.

“I was pretty knackered after the first month,” he said.

“I’m standing up, still alive, that’s the main thing.

“It could have been a lot worse.”

Mr Greenfield said he had started to feel confident in his body, more than two years after the accident.

“You still have hesitations in what you do, still double-think things,” he said.

But Mr Greenfield hasn’t given up on getting back on a surf board.

“No I’m not going to take it lying down,” he said.

“Definitely I want to be as good as I can be.”

TAC road safety manager Samantha Cockfield said about 5500 Victorians had serious injuries in collisions each year.

“That’s about 15 people a day who are seriously injured and in some cases, they are catastrophically injured,” she said.

“While we tend to focus on the road toll figure as an indication of our success in road safety, we cannot forget the pain and suffering those who are seriously injured go through each day.”

Colac’s Kailee Foley has entered an online competition to become the “face” of a Sydney clothing label.

ASPIRING Colac model Kailee Foley’s bid to become the “face” of a clothing label is maintaining momentum.

Ms Foley is coming second in a Facebook contest to model for Sydney online clothing label Viparo.

People have until Friday to vote for Ms Foley by clicking “like” on her entry photo on the social networking site.

Ms Foley, who is a law clerk at Clarke and Barwood Lawyers has more than 1000 votes, putting her ahead of about 100 hopefuls.

“It’s going really good, I’m still in second place so I’m very, very happy and very grateful,” Ms Foley said.

“I’m just getting so much help from everyone and even strangers,” she said.

Ms Foley said the leading contestant was ahead by about 600 “likes”.

“What happens is they pick the top five or 10 who have the most likes and then the judges decide from there,” she said.

“So I still have a chance even if I’m second.”

Click here to “like” Ms Foley’s entry on Viparo’s Facebook page.

Wayne Mortensen, pictured, and his partner Mary Janssen are sharing their fresh, home-grown produce with members of the newly-formed Otways Garden Harvest Swap Group.

COLAC gardeners are returning to the days of bartering, with a Colac couple starting a food swap group this week.

Mary Janssen and Wayne Mortensen launched the Otways Garden Harvest Swap Group and opened their back yard to district residents to exchange food from their garden and other goods.

“The group can cover from Winchelsea to Warrnambool, the Hamilton Highway to the coast but I think it will become popular enough that we have smaller groups start in other areas,” Ms Janssen said.

She said the food swaps would be monthly at group members’ homes and the gatherings were free.

“You tend to have a glut of vegetables or fruit so it’s a way of swapping what you have for what you haven’t grown.

“We’ve got tomatoes, yellow capsicum, cucumbers, apples, potatoes but people don’t have to bring vegies.

“They could swap herbs, seeds, plants in pots, seedlings, jam jars with metal lids, a bag of sugar, eggs or anything that is homegrown or can be used in the garden,” Ms Janssen said.

“As long as everything is clean and fresh.”

Ms Janssen said people would not exchange money and there would be “no haggling”.

“It will involve an honesty or goodwill system,” she said.

“The food swap is also a community thing about sharing, setting up networks.”

Colac battlers are gambling $60,000 each month.

A GAMBLING support expert says Colac people who can least afford to lose money are blowing more than $600,000 a month on pokies.

Colac and district people spent $3.94 million on the city’s poker machines in the second half of last year, which is steady on the $3.92 million they spent during the same period in 2010.

Bethany Community Support chief Grant Boyd said the type of people who were gambling was more concerning than the latest figures.

Bethany offers its gamblers’ help program in Colac.

Mr Boyd said 65 per cent of Bethany’s clients earned less than $40,000 a year, half of them were not working at all, and a third had a health care card.

He said that while Colac’s losses were “stable” compared with the previous year, it was the people who were losing money that was the most worrying trend.

“If you look at the socio-economic make up of Colac it is probably a community that has less capacity to afford those losses,” Mr Boyd said.

“I would think it would have more of an impact in a community like Colac,” he said.

“A fairly significant portion of Colac’s $4 million losses is going to have come from problem gamblers.

“The concerning thing is the amount of those losses that are coming from people who can’t afford to lose the money.

“The people who are seeking assistance through gamblers’ help are on lower incomes and therefore are least likely to be able to afford their gambling losses.”

Mr Boyd said Federal Government figures showed one in six people who played pokies regularly had a serious addiction.

He said pokies remained the most popular form of gambling.

“Pokies still make up the majority of gambling even though we’ve got new things like online and so forth – poker machines are still far and away the most popular,” Mr Boyd said.

“About three quarters of people who come to gamblers’ help have problems related to poker machines,” he said.

Mr Boyd said one of the major impacts of problem gambling was at home.

“One concern we have as an organisation is the impact on children in families,” Mr Boyd said.

“Kids who grow up with a parent who is a problem gambler are 10 times more likely to have problems gambling themselves,” he said.

Mr Boyd said most people gambled responsibly but he said the small percentage of problem gamblers caused a significant impact, with the social costs of problem gambling “estimated to be $4.7 billion across Australia”.

“Half to one per cent of the total population have a problem but the impacts on those people can be very significant,” he said.

Steve Millar, one of the key figures in ensuring the Lions fielded an under-14 side last season, said he was nervous about how the club would look in years to come.

Millar was despondent about the situation yesterday, saying club officials and the Colac District Football League had exhausted almost every option to lure juniors to Forrest.

“I believe if you can’t sustain your junior base you’ll find it hard in future years to sustain your senior base,” he said.

Forrest fielded an under-17 side in 2011, but is close to pulling the pin on juniors for 2012 because of a lack of players.

Players who had overage permits last season are ineligible to play in juniors again, while the club doesn’t have the under-14s going through the ranks to replace them.

“We went to the league last year and said ‘we need to get some permits for overage kids’ and they gave us permits to keep those kids on the park,” Millar said.

“We can’t use those kids because they’re too far overage. We haven’t been able to supply the under-14s to come up,” he said.

“It’s a perennial struggle and it’s a never-ending struggle. I’m in serious doubt we’ll get two teams on the field, or even one team on the field.”

Forrest president Mick Paddick was unavailable for comment yesterday.

But Millar said the problem lay largely in Forrest’s geography and not being a town full of young families.

Teenagers wanting to play at a successful club had also contributed to the battle to lure players.

Millar said the Colac District Football League and rival clubs had been “very, very good” in their support for Forrest.

But he said he feared for the club down the track, particularly when off-field stalwart Bob Brooks stepped away.

“I’ve been to a lot of football clubs in my time and I’ve never known a man who put his heart and soul into a football club like Bob,” he said.

“He is as important to Forrest as Tassie Whelan was to Forrest.

“He continues to find footballers at senior level year in, year out to replace those we lose.

“He does that through his own contacts, own personal drive and own personal expense.

“Bob Brooks is 64 or 65. What happens when he’s had enough?”

Colac drag racing export Jack Danaher has impressed in trials at Melbourne’s Calder Park Raceway.

COLAC drag racing export Jack Danaher is preparing for an assault on an Australian drag racing championship.

Danaher, 26, raced his American-imported Dragster at Melbourne’s Calder Park Raceway at an exhibition race in front of 15,000 people.

His fastest time of 6.83 seconds at 318.65 kilometres an hour has Danaher ready to match the best Australian drag racers in the Australian National Drag Racing Association.

Danaher said preparations for his first race in Sydney in late March were on track.

“We were rapt after the weekend, to come out and go straight into the sixes on our first full pass with the new combo was pretty special,” he said.

Jack Danaher launches from the start line.

“I certainly wouldn’t be here without the help from my crew and sponsors UDT Logistics, Exhaust Bros Geelong and Repco Colac.”

The Lara-based speedster completed race testing at Portland earlier this year and overcame engine trouble to complete his first full “quarter mile” at Calder Park.

Danaher said his sponsors and good mate Jason Cunliffe had helped reconfigure his engine setup.

“We bought the Dragster out of the States as a ‘turn key’ deal about eighteen months ago, but after two race meetings we hurt the engine pretty bad,” Danaher said.

“We decided to sit out the remainder of that season and focus our time on piecing together a killer engine combo.

“Everything checked out really well after Saturday, we were very happy with it.”

Danaher heads to Sydney Dragway for round five of the ANDRA series on March 24 and will race further meetings in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Member for Corangamite Darren Cheeseman says he acted on his constituents’ views by calling for a leadership spill.

DARREN Cheeseman’s call for a government leadership spill threw the Corangamite MP into the national spotlight this week, but he says he has no regrets.

Mr Cheeseman was in Colac yesterday and reflected on his “huge week” since announcing he supported former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as future leader.

He is the only Federal Australian Labor Party politician to speak out against PM Julia Gillard’s leadership but Mr Cheeseman says he is a “team player”.

Mr Cheeseman said a leadership spill would “enable the government to move on”.

“Whatever happens I’ll get behind whoever is the leader but we need to hold this seat and the party needs to confront it now and deal with it,” he said.

“There are long-time Labor supporters who’ve been saying they need to know where the government and leadership is at.

“There is no doubt about it that over the last few months of last year and the first month and a half of this year the community’s view has been quite concrete and I’ve acted on it.”

Mr Cheeseman acknowledged media speculation about his motives and he denied a western Victorian newspaper’s claim that Senator Kim Carr had influenced his comments.

He also said there had been no promises of a top job or any discussion with Mr Rudd before the weekend’s events.

“I haven’t spoken to Kevin at all. I don’t know if he’s available or not or how this will play out,” Mr Cheeseman said.

“It’s impossible to know if he has the numbers.

“There are a number of camps within the party; some will think Julia should go forward, some will agree with me and some could support other potential candidates such as Simon Crean.

“But if we can deal with it either way, the party will be in a strong position to go forward,” he said.

Mr Cheeseman said he was not worried about gaining pre-selection and was confident, whatever the outcome of the latest leadership shake-up, that he would represent Australia’s most marginal seat at the next election.

“The Seat of Corangamite will remain a battle ground and I will continue to advocate for the people here.”

Mr Cheeseman said the ALP’s first opportunity to consider its leadership would be at a caucus meeting next Tuesday.

A farmer reported the skull and at least eight bones to police after finding them on the shore of Cundare Pool, north of Colac.

Colac police transported the bones to the Coroners Court for further assessment on Friday.

A Coroners Court spokeswoman said an anthropologist was testing the bones.

“The bones are being examined by a forensic anthropologist to try and determine the age and gender, and that will determine if the Coroners Court has jurisdiction,” the spokeswoman said.

She said the bones would not attract a coronial inquest if anthropologists found the person had died more than 100 years ago.

“If the bones are between 50 and 100 years old, the court has discretion over whether there will be an inquest or not,” she said.

“And if the bones are found to be less than 50 years, the case is passed on to police for further investigation.

“Also if the bones have been there for a relatively short time then it will be handed over to police to determine if it was someone missing or the bones are from a family plot that could have washed out.”

An anthropologist from Aboriginal Affairs Victoria visited the Cundare site on Friday to investigate whether the bones were from an Aboriginal burial site.

The Coroners Court spokeswoman said anthropologists would know the gender of the bones “fairly quickly”, as well as whether they were Aboriginal.

“The age of the person can usually be determined by the teeth but determining the ageing process can take much longer.”

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said homicide detectives were yet to take over the case.

“Homicide are aware of the skull and bones and are monitoring the case but are awaiting results from the Coroners Court,” she said.

Samantha McKenzie will play for Coragulac in Division Three cricket finals this weekend.

SAMANTHA McKenzie remembers her first game of cricket well – mostly because of the circumstances surrounding her debut.

Coragulac was short of players for a Division Three match about three seasons ago when it called on the then 16-year-old to make up the numbers in the field.

The humble beginning sparked a lasting interest in the game.

“I started probably about three years ago, they were struggling for players,” McKenzie said.

“I filled in for them one day out of the blue. I thought they were joking at the start but they weren’t joking. I came out wearing massively baggy pants,” she said.

“But I’ve become a part of the team over the last few years, it’s been great.

“I play netball – netball is my sport. I had played cricket before but that was in primary school.”

McKenzie is the only woman playing in Colac District Cricket Association’s senior grades and has become a regular member of the Beeac-based club.

She will play her first final, a knockout semi-final, after Coragulac defeated Colac West to hold its position in the top six.

Coincidentally, Coragulac will take on West in the fourth-versus-fifth match, a year after dropping its Division Two side.

“It is pretty exciting, it was a surprise this year for the club. I’m looking forward to it – all the boys are,” McKenzie said.

“Everyone has come together as a team – whoever rocks up gets a game. Most of the time we have enough but occasionally we don’t, but we all get in there and give it a go,” she said.

McKenzie said she was unsure how to get more girls playing cricket, but said the welcome she received from established Coragulac players encouraged her to stay with the club.

“The club is just great, they encourage anyone and everyone to play,” she said.

“They’ve even got a couple of younger boys in my little brother – he’s just started in cricket, he’s been playing for City United but rocks up every week and he’s only 13.

“And they’ve got a couple even younger who fill in when we don’t have enough players, they’re probably eight and 10.”