John Ellis, Golden Point
Last Monday there was an announcement of funding for further development at the Nalderun Education initiative in Chewton.
An article appeared in this paper (‘A beautiful evolution – Nalderun to build a forever home in Chewton’, Mail, July 31, 2026) and a press release was subsequently distributed by Maree Edwards MP, who had made the announcement. It was deemed positive local news, so it was posted on the chewton.net Facebook page. And then it started to go pear-shaped.
Oh boy! The comments exposed some feral opinions. After deleting one, then a second, and then a third the press release was removed. Comments were vitriolic and quite possibly actionable. Left standing, the organisation behind the administration of the Facebook page may have been held responsible. Unfortunately, there appear to be some racist keyboard warriors within our community. This incident was a genuine wake-up call. Things aren’t always what they seem to be, and certainly aren’t what you’d wish them to be.
Editor’s Note: Racism is never acceptable. We stand with our friends at Nalderun and chewton.net