These are the stories that
had the most impact in 2024
These are the stories that had the most impact in 2024
A look back at some of the top articles we published over the past 12 months
Brunswick Voice
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
IT was the year when a popular supermarket was closed by a fire, when a young girl lost her life in horrific circumstances, and the mysterious theft of a statue from Barkly Square attracted national media attention.
2024 was a bumper year for local news and Brunswick Voice was on the scene for every development.
We published 161 stories on our website throughout 2024, many of them later republished in the four 16-page print newspapers that were distributed throughout Brunswick and parts of Coburg.
Most of these stories had significant impact on our community, even though they were not deemed to be worthy enough for the large citywide media outlets to cover.
This is the mission of local media: to be on the ground within the community to inform its citizenry about things that matter to them; to strengthen the sense of connection and social cohesion; to record history as it happens; and to hold governments and other institutions accountable.
Unfortunately, Brunswick is an outlier in metropolitan Melbourne in that it continues to have local public interest journalism where most other suburbs no longer have any local media. This includes the two municipalities to our east and west, the cities of Darebin and Moonee Valley.
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Skyrail delayed while Sydney Road campaign continues
The year began with questions being asked about the future of the much-hyped Park Street to Albion Street level crossing removal project amid growing pressure on the Victorian government’s finances. As early as February, we reported on calls for the state government to clarify whether the $1 billion project would be delivered by its 2027 deadline. We got the answer in May when Treasurer Tim Pallas confirmed delays to more than 100 major projects across the state. Despite the postponement, planning for the skyrail continued with the announcement in September that it would have just two stations, one fewer than the current Brunswick section of the Upfield line. Towards the end of the year, residents living near the proposed northern station were calling for a rethink on its location.
The delay to the skyrail focused renewed attention onto the future of Sydney Road, particularly the ongoing lack of accessible tram stops between Brunswick and North Coburg. Campaigners held a rally in June, marching to the Brunswick Town Hall building and briefly holding up traffic. They vowed to continue their campaign and to draw inspiration from the successful fight which saved the Upfield line in the 1990s.
A life cut tragically short
For several weeks in Spring, Isla Bell’s face was unavoidable in Brunswick, smiling sweetly from posters stuck to every available surface by her family desperate for information about the missing teenager. She had not been heard from since she contacted a friend on social media, three days after leaving her family home in Brunswick on October 4. On November 20, her family received the news they had feared the most after human remains were discovered in a Dandenong rubbish tip and two men were charged in relation to her murder. At the time, the 18-year-old was the 85th Australian woman to have been allegedly murdered by a man in 2024, and she became a symbol of the campaign to end violence towards women.
Supermarket closes indefinitely
When an electrical fault caused a fire in an upstairs area of the Brunswick Supa IGA in Sydney Road, it was initially thought the supermarket might be closed for a few weeks. Those weeks stretched into months, and as 2024 came to an end it has still not fully closed as the damage forced the owners to completely rebuild the interior of the supermarket. The inconvenience to shoppers was compounded by the loss of their jobs of dozens of staff while the repairs continued. At least it partly opened in July with a pop up store occupying about 15% of the floor space but the latest update is don’t expect a full return until February.
Tobacco wars hit Brunswick
The so-called ‘tobacco wars’ between two rival crime gangs for control of the lucrative cigarette industry have enthralled Melbourne for several years, and in 2024 impacted on Brunswick several times. In February, Phoenicia Reception, a venue above the Brunswick Market building linked to an associate of the Hadda crime family, was deliberately set alight. Worse was to come in October when a Lygon Street bicycle store was extensively damaged by arsonists targeting a gymnasium above it that is used by a prominent crime figure.
Sparkly Bear disappears
One of the most baffling crimes of the year was the theft of the Sparkly Bear statue from the Barkly Square shopping centre. The life-sized brass statue of a bear riding a tandem bike was removed from the centre in the early hours of September 11. Thieves used an angle grinder to cut through the base of the statue and then lifted it onto a truck with a crane. The statue’s creators, Gillie and Marc Schattner, said they were “heartbroken” by the theft.
Council elections dramas
There was plenty of drama in the four Brunswick-based wards during the Merri-bek City Council elections held in September and October – the first to be held under the new single councillor ward system – including claims of antisemitism towards a Labor candidate, and the forced withdrawal of an independent candidate for failing to adhere to the rules. Jewish Labor candidate for Warrk-Warrk Jenne Perlstein said she believed one of her coreflutes was deliberately targeted because of her religion. Meanwhile, independent Brunswick West candidate Romeo Delorenzis was disqualified for failing to complete mandatory training for would-be councillors. Ultimately, the Greens made a clean sweep of all four Brunswick wards, claiming the high-profile scalp of long-term councillor Lambros Tapinos in the process.
Conlan goes out with a bang
Greens turned independent councillor James Conlan had already decided not to seek re-election when he quit the council in a spectacular manner while overseas on holiday. Conlan announced his resignation just hours before he had been due to be suspended for a month for misconduct following a complaint lodged by fellow councillor Helen Davidson about a social media post by him. In a parting salvo, Conlan labelled the process that had led to his suspension as “secretive, repressive and undemocratic”. Earlier in the year, Conlan had also been in the news over a controversial proposal which would have forced the owners of residential investment properties in Merri-bek to pay rates bills up to four times higher than owner-occupiers. A council report on the proposal later found it would probably unlawful under current Victorian legislation.
Battle for Wills hots up
The spotlight will fall upon Wills at next year’s federal election after high profile former state leader Samantha Ratnam was chosen as the Greens’ candidate for the seat. In April, Ratnam won a short pre-selection tussle over the party’s candidate in the 2022 election, Sarah Jefford, and resigned soon afterwards as the party’s Victorian parliamentary leader. After officially launching her campaign in September, she has hit the pavement in a bid to secure what would be an historic win. Incumbent member Peter Khalil’s task of retaining the seat has already been made harder by a redistribution which has cut his nominal margin from 8.6% to 4.6%.
Fight to save arts space
Irene Warehouse in Brunswick East is one of the last community run arts spaces in Brunswick. But when Brunswick Voice visited in October, its caretakers were seeking to avoid eviction following a council inspection that had determined the building was not fire safety compliant. They needed to find $10,000 to pay for building works to bring it up to scratch, but had managed to raise just a quarter of that. Thanks to our article, which drew national media attention to their plight, they have now raised more than $16,000 towards a new target of $20,000. Just as importantly, the story has raised awareness about the value in preserving these spaces to maintain the Brunswick area’s special character.
High achievers on and off the sporting field
Three young cyclists who all learnt to ride competitively on the Brunswick Velodrome dominated the Australian road racing circuit at the beginning of 2024. Luke Plapp and Ruby Roseman-Gannon were national road racing champions, while Sarah Gigante won the three-day Tour Down Under. On the lacrosse field, Natasha Rooney and Darren Ricketts from Brunswick represented their nation at the world box lacrosse championships in September. Dan Scott rode more than 4000 km from Melbourne to Darwin in the middle of winter to raise money for the Children’s Cancer Institute. And away from the sporting field, Felicity Kingsford, who runs the art program at Brunswick South West Primary School, was named Victoria’s outstanding primary teacher of 2024.
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