Marijuana plants found in Coldstream yard

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News from our sister town.


One Coldstream resident had more than regular vegetables growing in his backyard.
When a neighbour asked the 48-year-old gentleman if that was marijuana he had growing in the backyard of his home in the 15400 block of Kalamalka Road, he didn’t deny it.
“He told the neighbour, ‘Yep, that’s what I’m growing,’” said Gord Molendyk, spokesman for the Vernon RCMP detachment.

Storm Damage in Coldstream

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An hour later, at Coldstream on Melbourne's northeastern fringe, a 70-year-old woman was lucky to escape injury when her car hit a tree that had fallen across the road at the intersection of Killara and Boundary roads.

Be aware of scams during tax time

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The ATO is warning people to be aware of dodgy tax schemes and scams designed to steal your personal details and money.
Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo said the ATO continually comes across sophisticated scams designed to trick people into giving away their personal details such as passwords, banking and credit card details.
“People should be wary of approaches from people they do not know who are seeking personal information, financial details or tax file number details,” Mr D’Ascenzo said.

Examples of scams

The ATO regularly identifies new scams. Some recent examples are below:

• A job aimed at international students is advertised in a newspaper. The students call a number in the advertisement and provide their tax file number and date of birth, and are told they will be contacted a few days before they are due to start work. The number is subsequently disconnected and their details used to lodge fraudulent tax returns.
• People claiming to be from the ATO call people advising they are entitled to a payment of approximately $3,600 as a bonus for paying their taxes on time. They are asked to provide their personal bank account details so the refund can be deposited. If the phone call is unanswered a message is left providing a return contact number and a reference code. When this number is called they are requested to make a payment to a third party bank account, usually for an amount between $150 and $190, to facilitate the refund which is never paid.
• People receive calls from people claiming to be from the ATO offering them a tax refund of around $3,000. They are told they need to make a money transfer to a specific charity of around $150 in order to receive their refund. The taxpayer is generally given a NSW phone number to contact the ‘ATO’ once they have completed the transfer. The scammers sometimes quote personal information such as the address and date of birth of the taxpayer during the conversation to show authenticity, and also often have several private contact numbers for the taxpayer.

We need to be single-minded about fighting fires

A single fire service - uniting Victoria's CFA and MFB - would save millions of dollars and streamline firefighting.




This is a uniquely Australian issue. We live on the second driest continent on the planet and summer blazes have been part of life here for thousands of years. Now is the time, in the cool of winter, to introduce some of the much-needed changes so we are better prepared for the coming fire season.


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Smoke from Black Saturday taints reds: Yarra Glen bushfires

SMOKE from the Black Saturday bushfires may have ruined more than three-quarters of the Yarra Valley's wine production for last year.

Coldstream Hills chief winemaker Andrew Fleming said white grapes were easier to salvage because smoke compounds were concentrated in the skin of the grape.

By using expensive hand-picking and pressing the grapes as whole bunches rather than using rougher techniques such as machine harvesting and de-stemming, winemakers can minimise skin contact with the juice.

"The upside of that is we have some pretty smart wines," he said.

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