ABC Gippsland

A tree that locals says contributed to one house being completely flooded and another badly damaged is at the centre of a bureaucratic dispute over who is responsible for it. Stockyard Creek at Foster in South Gippsland, eastern Victoria, flooded earlier in July after the area received 79 millimetres of rain over a 24-hour period. Foster locals Geoff and Shirley McCraw were woken by police door-knocking in the area to find their Boyd Court home flooded with up to 15 centimetres of water.

A banned private midwife at the centre of a dispute with a Gippsland hospital has lodged a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, claiming there is a collective boycott against her. Midwife Angela Kellock worked at Bairnsdale Regional Health Service until earlier this year, when she resigned to start a private practice.

A Victorian koala refuge is planning to open the first purpose-built koala hospital and burns unit in the state. The hospital, to be established at the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter in Rawson in the Gippsland region, will help carers give round-the-clock care to the animals — particularly during bushfires. Colleen Wood started the shelter 22 years ago and since then she has cared for hundreds of animals, including 'Sam the koala', which become an icon following the Black Saturday bushfires.