The Star Weekly recently published material relating to the proposed Hobsons Bay council’s plans regarding sister city visits to Japan and two Australian councils. It was a divisive issue in the council debate.
We also published comments by Mr Dean Hurlston, the Vice President of Ratepayers Victoria who was critical of the council and the apparent lack of transparency as to costs and expenditure.
We were then requested to publish a response from the council which criticised Mr Hurlston. That response has been suggested to assert that Mr Hurlston may have held racist views due to his opposition to expenditure on relations by the council with a Japanese city and an Aboriginal council.
We did not intend any such suggestion to be made against Mr Hurlston and accept that any assertions to that effect would be baseless in relation to him.
We regret if any reader inferred such things and sincerely apologise to Mr Hurlston for any embarrassment our article may have caused him.
