NEWS

Before February 2026, LGBTIQA+ residents on the Mornington Peninsula wanting a Midsumma event had to drive to Melbourne. Now they have their own. Out Loud on the Ninch, held at the Mornington Peninsula Community Theatre, was the Peninsula's first Midsumma event, born after four local organisers noticed the gap and decided to close it themselves. More than 300 people turned up on the night, a number organisers say they'd never seen in one room locally before. At its centre was

A junior rangers program set a target of 20 students. It now has 200. Ngawak Biik, meaning "Understand Country, Listen to Country" in Bunurong language, is a 90% Indigenous-led program on the Mornington Peninsula, developed by Mornington Peninsula Shire with the Bunurong Land Council after schools and families flagged that First Nations students had few opportunities to connect with culture at school, and that the gap was showing up in attendance. Students learn cultural land

Forty fish. Then more than four hundred, in a single breeding season. That's the turnaround for the endangered Eastern Dwarf Galaxias at The Briars in Mount Martha, achieved not through a hatchery or captive breeding, but by changing how water moves through a wetland. Mornington Peninsula Shire's Destination Conservation and Wildlife Team, working with Ecology Australia through the Briars Arc Program, slowed water loss, built shallow vegetated breeding areas and improved conn