Latest news with #FederationUniversity
Sky News AU
2 days ago
- Sky News AU
Mushroom cook Erin Patterson opens up about complex relationship with estranged husband as she gives evidence in her murder trial
Mushroom cook Erin Patterson has entered the witness box for the first time to give evidence in her murder trial over a deadly lunch which allegedly killed three relatives of her estranged husband two years ago. Ms Patterson, 50, is accused of murdering her former in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, as well as Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, who each fell fatally ill after eating a beef wellington meal on July 29, 2023. The mother-of-two has also been charged with the attempted murder of Heather's husband and local church pastor Ian Wilkinson, who survived the meal after a lengthy stint in hospital. Prosecutors allege Ms Patterson's beef wellington lunch, held at her house in Leongatha, was intentionally laced with death cap mushrooms. Ms Patterson has denied the allegations, and pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. On Monday afternoon, defence barrister Colin Mandy SC made the decision to put Ms Patterson up for questioning in front of a jury of 14 in the Supreme Court trial in regional Victoria. The prosecution had just wrapped up its evidence when the 50-year-old was summoned to the witness box where she opened up about her marriage for the first time since the fatal lunch. The mushroom cook began by confirming her full name as Erin Trudi Patterson and declaring she will give the full truth in her evidence, before being questioned about her life in July 2023. "My children had just recently settled into a new school, I had changed schools at the start of that term," she told the court, adding they were doing "a lot better than expected". 'So the children lived with me full time and they could see Simon whenever they wanted to.' The court heard the-mother-of two was accepted into a Bachelor of Nursing and Midwifery at Federation University at the start of 2023, and was due to begin her studies in 2024. Ms Patterson said she was "comfortable financially" to go to university without having to work a full-time job at the same time. In that same year, Ms Patterson revealed she noticed some distance growing between herself and her former in-laws. 'I had felt for some months that my relationship with the wider Patterson family, particularly Don and Gail, had a bit more distance or space put between us, we saw each other less," she said. Ms Patterson also had "concerns" her husband Simon Patterson did not want her to be involved with his family anymore. "From the start of the year to July, we mainly just related on logistical things like church, the streaming, the kids. But we didn't relate on friend things, banter, like we used to, that changed at the start of the year," she told the court. Ms Patterson then took the jury to the beginning of her relationship in 2004 when she first met Simon through mutual friends at Monash City Council. When she was dating Simon, Ms Patterson was a "fundamentalist atheist" and was trying to convert him, but instead became a Christian like her husband, the court heard. Ms Patterson even described having a spiritual experience during a sermon delivered by Pastor Wilkinson, who was the only person to survive the beef wellington meal. After getting married in 2007, Ms Patterson and Simon "hit the open road" and began travelling before retuning to Perth at the end of the year where Simon got a job in an inner-city council. Fast-forward two years, Ms Patterson gave birth to her son in 2009, describing a "very traumatic" experience in which she was required to have an emergency caesarean. "It went for a very long time and they tried to get him out with forceps and he wouldn't come out and he started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat, so they did an emergency caesarean and they got him out quickly," she told the court. Ms Patterson was overcome with emotion during her testimony on her birthing experience and recalled how she had "no idea" what to do with a baby, until her in-laws came to visit. "I remember being really relieved that Gail was there, because I felt really out of my depth," she said. "I had no idea what to do with a baby and I was not confident and she was really supportive and gentle and patient with me." After some time, the couple began travelling again before retuning to Perth where they separated for the first time, marking the beginning of several to come. Mr Mandy told the court there were separations between 2009 and 2015. When questioned on what caused the separations, Ms Patterson appeared distressed and attributed it to a lack of communication. "Primarily what we struggled with over the entire course of our relationship ... it was, we just couldn't communicate well when we disagreed about something," she said. "We could never communicate in a way that would make each of us feel heard and understood." Ms Patterson said the couple's priority was their son and making the separation as "easy as possible" on him. 'We just both loved him … they were adult problems, they're not problems for a child,' she said. The trial before Justice Christopher Beale will resume on Tuesday, when Ms Patterson is expected to return to the witness box.
The Age
2 days ago
- The Age
Erin Patterson on her in-laws, her estranged husband, low self-esteem and a spiritual encounter
She said at the time, she was also preparing to return to study in 2024 after being accepted into a bachelor of nursing and midwifery at Federation University, which she had previously deferred to care for her children. The accused was also asked about her Leongatha home, telling the jury she'd helped design it using Microsoft Paint and wanted it to be her forever home. 'Where once they moved away for uni or work, they could come back and stay wherever they liked, bring their children and I'd grow old there. That's what I'd hoped,' she told the jury. 'I really liked living there. I was comfortable financially, such that I could afford to go to university and I didn't need to work a full-time job at the same time.' A softly spoken Patterson, seated in the witness box, explained that in the early days of her relationship with Simon Patterson they had lived together in Perth. There, she said, Don and Gail Patterson visited several times a year, even helping plan part of her wedding to their son by arranging a large marquee and food. But in early 2023, she said she felt things began to change. 'Partly as a consequence that I no longer lived in the same town as Don and Gail,' she said. Patterson said her relationship with Simon Patterson – after separating in 2015 – had grown to be only functional and they no longer related to 'friend things' like they used to. The accused said by 2023, she was also not feeling good about herself physically and had been fighting a never-ending battle with low self-esteem, putting on weight, and was unable to exercise as much as previously. 'I was planning to have weight-loss surgery, you know, is it gastric bypass? I was planning to do that,' she said. Mandy took Erin Patterson back to the beginning of her romantic relationship with Simon Patterson which she said began in mid-2005 before they married in June 2007. She said it was while they were dating in early 2005 she first met Don and Gail Patterson while staying at their house during a weekend away. The accused said at the time she knew her partner was Christian, but she described herself as a 'fundamentalist atheist'. That all changed though, she said, during her first-ever visit to church where Ian Wilkinson was giving a sermon at Korumburra Baptist Church. 'So through the course of those months, December '04, January, February '05 we had a lot of conversations about life, religion, politics and a lot about religion, and I was trying to convert him to being an atheist, but things happened in reverse and I became a Christian,' she said. 'I remember being really excited about [going to her first church service] because I'd never been to a church service before, I'd been to my sister's wedding in a church but that was it. 'I remember that there was a banner up on the wall, behind where Ian was preaching … it said ... faith, hope and love. 'There's a passage in the Bible that talks about faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love. 'I had, what at best can be described as, like a spiritual experience.' Patterson said she went on to attend Bible study sessions with Simon Patterson and some of his family and friends before the couple got married in June 2007. 'We got married in the Korumburra Anglican Church. A beautiful church. We wanted Ian and Heather to be able to come and relax as guests rather than have jobs for the day like they would have if we'd got married at Korumburra Baptist,' she said. The accused said her husband's cousin walked her down the aisle as her parents were 'in Russia on a train' at the time. 'Don and Gail hired a huge marquee and put on a buffet for everybody,' she told the jury. Trying to hold back tears, Erin Patterson detailed the help Gail Patterson had been to her after the 'traumatic' birth of her first baby. 'Don and Gail came very quickly. It would have been only a couple weeks after,' she said. 'I remember being really relieved that Gail was there because I felt really out of my depth.' Erin said Gail was really supportive, gentle and patient with her, giving advice about helping settle the baby and trying to interpret his cries. 'She gave me good advice about just relax and enjoy it, you don't have to stick to this timetable, this schedule, just relax and enjoy your baby.' In late 2009, Erin and Simon Patterson took their three-month-old son on a trip across the top of Australia, but she said travelling with a baby was difficult and she eventually returned to Perth where the couple separated for the first time. The jury was told after reuniting two or three months later, the pair endured further separations during their relationship until 2015 when they split permanently. She said there didn't appear to be any conflict in their parenting of the children.
ABC News
3 days ago
- Business
- ABC News
Ghost towns that were once bustling gold mining, farming, railway hubs
The decaying ruins of Jubilee tell a tale of what might have been. Like many other Victorian gold mining towns of the age it boasted busy diggings, mighty processing engines and cosy homes for the hopeful miners that lived and toiled there. The local school once echoed to the laughter of 500 children. But Jubilee was not destined to become one of Australia's famed mining cities. Once the gold was dug out and carted away, Jubilee dwindled and died. What's left are the remnants of a town that might have been. Federation University associate professor of history David Waldron said Jubilee had succumbed to the boom-bust cycle typical of many mining communities. "That becomes self-perpetuating as people leave. The shops have fewer people to sell to. There's less reason to be there, facilities disappear, and eventually so does the town for all intents and purposes." As is the way, Jubilee had a relatively short life. Gold was found in the 1850s and, after a gold-bearing reef was uncovered in 1887, it become a boom town. However, the gold soon dried up and by 1912 Jubilee was completely abandoned. Old Tallangatta's path to ghost-hood was anything but a gradual decline. When the Hume Dam's height was raised 9 metres it eventually flooded the town, previously named Tallangatta. The town's population famously moved about 8 kilometres west to Bolga where a new town (renamed Tallangatta) was built. The flooded town posthumously became known as Old Tallangatta. The town's remains can be seen when the Hume Weir dips to half-full, with a handful of occupied houses remaining above the dam's high-water mark. It's not the only ghost town on Australian maps. Cook, in far western South Australia, was a railway town that serviced the Trans-Australian Railway and once boasted a hospital and school. But the introduction of more reliable trains and railway lines meant Cook's role was eventually rendered redundant. Its population dwindled to next to nothing and it is now little more than a stopover point for passengers on the Indian Pacific train. It's now widely regarded as a ghost town, despite an official population of 71, according to the 2021 census. Dr Waldron said any town that once boasted a large population but had declined to the point where practically all businesses and services had been wound up could be classified as ghost towns. "If you look at the famous ghost town of Linda in western Tasmania, there are still some people who live there, who are hanging on," he said. "Sometimes they try and set up tourism, which is the case [in] … Linda, being quite a strange gothic spectacle of a place." Dr Waldron said other locations like Steiglitz in Victoria had become heritage sites. "It's no longer about the industry that once led to the town being significant," he said. Gold and other precious metals aren't always found in the most convenient places. When gold was found in Gippsland, it was often in mountainous regions that were difficult to reach. The wealth it generated was encouragement enough for families to build in out-of-the-way places like Grant. But once the ground's wealth dissipated, so did their willingness to remain in Grant. Linda Barraclough, a Gippsland historian, said Grant was a thriving place in its heyday. "It was so busy it even had a double main street," she said. "It had hundreds of people, and pubs, and dance halls … they brought it a prefabricated church from England to put up." She said once the Grant gold rush concluded, so did the town's chance of survival. "If you go there now, there is nothing there. You might find the cemetery, and some old bricks and that's about it." Victoria and Western Australia's ghost towns often rose and fell with those states' gold mining fortunes. In New South Wales and Queensland, railways were the common denominator. But when the trains stopped coming, so did the people, according to photographer and outback explorer Greg Davis. "Often they were agricultural towns [that closed], and when the agriculture declined during times of drought, the trains stopped coming and the town closed up," Mr Davis said. "A lot of them became ghost towns in the 1970s, especially in NSW. Changes in agriculture continues to impact rural townships to this day. Dr Waldron said some farming towns risked following old mining and railway settlements into ghost-town status. "Farming is now a high-tech agricultural industry. The number of people employed has declined and the kind of employment is declined," he said. "Those regional centres that accommodated those labourers now face economic decline and, in those cases, face a slow death as that industry transforms." Dr Waldron said there was hope for some of these ghost towns, mainly though tourism. "Ghost towns are gaining in popularity and a lot of people are coming out from Melbourne as well as internationally to explore them," he said. "With the tourists, and of course the tourists' money, comes new industries, new development and new opportunities. "That's certainly happened in old gold mining towns in central Victoria such as Maldon and Castlemaine, which have redeveloped as cultural tourism centres."
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
Gender play gap: Girls lag far behind in sport participation
It's been called 'the gender play gap': girls' participation in sport drops off in their mid to late teens, coinciding with part-time jobs, a burgeoning social life and sport becoming more serious than social. But Girls Sport Victoria, a coalition of 23 private girls' schools, has set itself the challenge of not only stopping the gender play gap but extending female participation beyond the school gates. The most recent data from the Sport Participation in Victoria Survey, released last month, found that 21.8 per cent of 15-19-year-old girls participated in community sport, compared with 41.4 per cent of boys. The gender discrepancy was evident among five to nine-year-olds as well, with just 47.5 per cent of girls playing sport compared with 68.6 per cent of boys. And while almost half (47.5 per cent) of girls aged five to nine participated in community sport in 2023, just 21.8 per cent of 15-19-year-old girls remained involved in sport. 'That's always where we have seen a big drop-off in sport,' said Federation University professor of sport science Professor Rochelle Eime. 'A lot of girls don't necessarily like the competitive nature of sport, and sport can get very serious around 15 to 19, but the majority of girls at that age just want to play with their friendship groups.' Loading Genazzano FCJ College principal Loretta Wholley, who became president of Girls Sport Victoria this week, will focus her efforts on keeping those aged 15 to 18 involved in sport, as well as creating pathways for students into sports at an elite level by working with organisations such as the Australian Women's Golf Network.
The Age
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Age
Gender play gap: Girls lag far behind in sport participation
It's been called 'the gender play gap': girls' participation in sport drops off in their mid to late teens, coinciding with part-time jobs, a burgeoning social life and sport becoming more serious than social. But Girls Sport Victoria, a coalition of 23 private girls' schools, has set itself the challenge of not only stopping the gender play gap but extending female participation beyond the school gates. The most recent data from the Sport Participation in Victoria Survey, released last month, found that 21.8 per cent of 15-19-year-old girls participated in community sport, compared with 41.4 per cent of boys. The gender discrepancy was evident among five to nine-year-olds as well, with just 47.5 per cent of girls playing sport compared with 68.6 per cent of boys. And while almost half (47.5 per cent) of girls aged five to nine participated in community sport in 2023, just 21.8 per cent of 15-19-year-old girls remained involved in sport. 'That's always where we have seen a big drop-off in sport,' said Federation University professor of sport science Professor Rochelle Eime. 'A lot of girls don't necessarily like the competitive nature of sport, and sport can get very serious around 15 to 19, but the majority of girls at that age just want to play with their friendship groups.' Loading Genazzano FCJ College principal Loretta Wholley, who became president of Girls Sport Victoria this week, will focus her efforts on keeping those aged 15 to 18 involved in sport, as well as creating pathways for students into sports at an elite level by working with organisations such as the Australian Women's Golf Network.
