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News.com.au
8 hours ago
- News.com.au
Revealed: The Melbourne Cup is set for a major prizemoney boost for the new racing season
Australia's most famous race, the Group 1 Melbourne Cup (3200m), has got richer. This masthead has established a long-held Victoria Racing Club (VRC) dream – a $10m Melbourne Cup – has finally been realised. Racing Victoria is set to confirm prizemoney for the 2025-26 season, as early as this week. The Melbourne Cup has carried an $8m prizemoney pool since 2020 – marketed as $8.75m including the iconic 18-carat gold three-handled trophy, valued at $750,000. It is only the sixth significant prizemoney boost for 'the race that stops a nation' since 1990 – the first seven-figure ($1m) purse. The Melbourne Cup has increased in 2000 ($2m), 2009 ($5.5m), 2010-17 ($6-6.2m), 2018 ($7.3m) and 2019 ($8m). RV controls prizemoney in the thoroughbred racing industry. The VRC has lobbied RV since 2022 for a $10m Melbourne Cup, as part of annual industry-wide prizemoney submissions to RV. This masthead in May revealed the latest VRC bid again included a $10m Cup wish. RV rejected past submissions due to a tough economic and wagering environment. Wagering returns, which fund the racing industry, dropped 10-15 per cent year-on-year after an explosion during the Covid pandemic. While wagering income and cost control remains crucial, better collaboration between RV and stakeholders, including racing clubs has allowed for important prizemoney adjustments. The total Victorian prizemoney pool – $316m last season – is likely to largely be retained but greater flexibility at club level, in particular, to redistribute funds has afforded select changes. It is understood the VRC has been able to trim prizemoney off other feature races to achieve the $1m and change required to secure a $10m Melbourne Cup. The All-Star Mile and Australian Cup dropped from $3m to $2.5m last season. The Group 1 features could be subject to further reductions. RV chief executive Aaron Morrison declined to comment on prizemoney discussions. However, Morrison said any changes for the upcoming season would benefit Victorian racing from grassroots to the top tier. Australia's best race, the Group 1 W.S Cox Plate (2040m), could jump to $6m – up from $5m – ahead of a historic last weight-for-age championship on the traditional Moonee Valley racecourse. The Valley is being redeveloped after the 2025 Cox Plate, with a return to racing on a reconfigured circuit slated for 2027. RV has yet to anoint a host for the 2026 Cox Plate but Flemington remains the logical frontrunner. The $5m Caulfield Cup (2400m) is likely to remain unchanged prizemoney wise however the purses of other Melbourne Racing Club events could be adjusted to afford select increases.
News.com.au
20 hours ago
- News.com.au
Melbourne man's amazing journey from sleeping in car to homeowner
A Melbourne man has revealed his incredible journey from living in a car after being scammed out of his life savings, to becoming a property investor. And the boilermaker's surprising turning point was a trip to McDonalds. It comes as social housing services groups warn there could be a growing cohort of Victorians who face homelessness on their way path to homeownership. Father-of-two Kostas Papadimitropoulos, who was born in Australia but later moved to Greece with his parents as child, lost everything when a man posing as a prospective business partner left him in financial ruin. But after years of hard work, he now owns a home in Melbourne's north and is in the process of buying an investment property. In 2016-17, about five years after he returned to Australia, Mr Papadimitropoulos met a man who asked for $30,000 so they could build a business together – but the man fled the country. 'He disappeared and he left me with a $60,000 debt with an ANZ business loan,' Mr Papadimitropoulos said. He reported the matter to police, but was left without his life's savings and a short time later was evicted form his rental and eventually wound up sleeping in his car. With his wife, Bibi, and daughter, Sinny, who were in China as this happened, he was forced to use the Wi-Fi in cafes to stay in touch with the woman he had met as she holidayed in Greece years before. His turning point came from a lucky meeting with a divorced mother of two at a McDonalds in 2020. Mr Papadimitropoulos had seen a social media post about a woman, Anissa Cavallo, who had built a 17-property portfolio after getting divorced. Hoping she might be able to help him overcome his bleak financial history, he arranged a meeting. While her children ate Happy Meals, Ms Cavallo told him to focus on work and money, meanwhile the Eda Property founder helped clean up his credit file so he could get a loan. 'Slowly, slowly, I found work and started to build my wealth,' Mr Papadimitropoulos said. In January 2021, using his savings, money sent from Bibi and borrowing from friends – which he has since paid back – he bought a block of land to build a house on. He also got the Victorian government's First Home Owner Grant, and the house was built by mid-2023. Mr Papadimitropoulos, Bibi and Sinny, now 17, have been living there ever since and are now preparing to buy an investment property with the equity from their first home. Ms Cavallo said the incredible journey proved there was almost always a way to get a home, advising people who want to focus on getting a job and their finances in order before preparing to enter the market. But there are growing fears more Victorians will face a similarly fraught pathway to housing security. Melbourne City Mission youth and family homelessness services senior manager Lisa O'Brien said a combination of high rents and low vacancy rates were driving increasing numbers of Victorians to homelessness. 'For some, owning a home may eventually be possible, but for many, just accessing a safe bed is a significant and hard-won milestone in the context of today's housing market,' Ms O'Brien said. 'We have many examples of people and families who have transitioned from rough sleeping, living in cars, sheds or on a couch into autonomous living once more. 'It can be a journey to navigate the housing system and without support it is easy to get lost or left behind.' The Council to Homeless Persons chief executive Deborah Di Natale said as the Victorian housing crisis intensified, support services had 'seen an alarming surge of working people experiencing homelessness'. 'Unfortunately in the past year we've seen no indication the situation is improving,' Ms Di Natale said. In March, Infrastructure Victoria recommended the state government urgently build 60,000 new social housing homes to help address the situation. 'Without that kind of decisive action, we'll continue to see more families in crisis, more women and children leaving violence with nowhere to go, and tragically more people dying on our streets,' Ms Di Natale said. She also called for more investment in Housing First programs which provide long-term rough sleepers with housing and wraparound support services. TIPS TO GO FROM WORKING HOMELESS TO HOMEOWNER – Work longer hours to earn more money, overtime can ramp up; – Save as much money as you can from day-to-day expenses; – If you're renting, try to find a cheaper rental property; – Take advantage of existing government help schemes, such as the Victorian government's First Home Owner Grant; – Don't be afraid to seek advice from industry professionals. Source: Kostas Papadimitropoulos
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
‘What country is this?': Huge crowds descend on Melbourne train platform
A crush of commuters jostle for space on an already overcrowded train platform as more and more people stream down escalators and pile on. It is a scene that would make even the most seasoned commuter anxious. On Thursday night, footage emerged from one of Melbourne's busiest stations showing what happens when trains are delayed to the country. The video from Southern Cross Station, shared by 3AW's Jacqui Felgate, caused a huge reaction. 'Melbourne public transport — the gift that keeps on giving,' one person wrote online. 'What country is this in?' another wrote. The jarring vision has again shone the light on the under-fire regional train services that operate in Victoria. Those who live outside Melbourne need to travel on V/Line trains to the country. The network services areas like Seymour, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. The commute is long enough without being stuck on overcrowded platforms. But those who regularly travel this way say it is an almost-daily nightmare. understands the mad rush to get a spot on platforms 15 and 16 at Southern Cross on Thursday night was caused by a track equipment fault in the North Melbourne area that meant only two platforms could be used. 'We thank passengers for their patience and understanding with disruptions to services on Thursday night due to a track equipment fault in the North Melbourne area.,' a V/Line spokesperson said. 'Some train services on V/Line's three busiest lines were still able to depart from platforms 15 and 16 at Southern Cross, while coaches were also used to transport some passengers to their destination.' The problem was fixed by 7pm, V/Line says. But it's more bad news for a public transport network that has faced more than its share of criticism in recent years. Felgate called the system 'shamefully archaic' and a 'third world service' last month after callers to the AM station voiced their frustration at cancellations and trains so crowded they are forced to sit on the floor. So what's going on? Why, in 2025, is Victoria's public transport network struggling to cope? Daniel Bowen from Victoria's Public Transport Users Association told that crowding 'is now a regular occurrence on V/Line services throughout the week'. 'Disruptions, either due to planned works or unplanned incidents such as animal strikes, aren't helping,' he said. 'Ultimately the government must continue to invest in more capacity and reliability for V/Line, to ensure that the train service keeps up with patronage growth.' V/Line acting CEO Warwick Horsley apologised to commuters in May, explaining that one 'huge factor' was the sheer numbers of kangaroos in the country being struck by trains. 'It's a huge factor at the moment, we're seeing three times as many kangaroo strikes in the regions … so what we've chosen to do, is rather than cancel trains, is try to run every single train where we can,' he said. That often means removing damaged carriages to keep the service moving. Less carriages means less seats but the same number of commuters. Another factor, Mr Bowen says, is a reduction in the price of fares to the regions, introduced in the middle of 2023. V/Line recently reduced fares to match Metropolitan services. The result, which he has seen first-hand, is that commuters are forced to sit on the floor with their bags due to overcrowding. 'While it's good to see more people using the trains, the capacity is not keeping up on some services, with passengers regularly having to stand, sometimes for long distances,' he said. 'On some lines such as Albury, the trains are booked out well in advance, making it difficult to use the service at short notice.' To put the swell of new commuters into context, V/Line data shows there was an increase of 45 per cent year on year after the new fares were introduced. The Guardian reports there were an additional 1.5 million trips on V/Line services between the start of April and the end of June in 2023, compared to the same period the year before. 'Crush conditions' warning Commuters travelling to Melbourne's north and west will face 'crush' conditions without an overhaul of the network, The Age reported last week. Citing a secret government report, the publication foreshadowed stranded commuters on platforms within the next five to 10 years if big changes aren't made. 'Due to significant population growth in the north and west of Melbourne – more than twice the population of Canberra is forecast to move into this region in the next 15 years – there is an urgent need to begin detailed development of rail capacity-boosting projects in the north and west,' a letter from then Department of Transport secretary Paul Younis to his Commonwealth counterpart reads. Sarah, a regular V/Line commuter from Metung, told 3AW in May that train travel across the network was 'really, really painful'. 'There are pretty much three trains a day if you are lucky. It's pot luck if you'll get a train. Sometimes you'll get a coach which is really, really bad in the fact that it can't stop at Flinders Street Station. 'It's absolutely deplorable. You feel like you're in a third world country. They're trying to encourage people to live regionally and in theory that's great, but they need the infrastructure to allow people to do that in the first place. 'We're alleviating in some way the housing crisis in Melbourne. (Many) often need to commute into the city on a regular basis. We're spending a fortune on fuel. When really we should be spending $10 to get into the city — when (the trains) run.' The V/Line spokesperson said the operator was 'closely monitoring patronage across the network following the introduction of the regional fare cap and is running more services than ever before to meet demand'. 'This includes more than 130 services added to the timetable over the past two years, including on the Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Albury lines. 'V/Line is also continuing to roll out more modern, reliable and accessible VLocity trains, with 131 already in service and more being progressively added as they roll off the production line.' The spokesperson said the 12-month network average for reliability was 97.6 per cent, exceeding the 96 per cent target. 'V/Line has reached its reliability target across the network for 17 consecutive months to the end of May 2025.
