IT’S a rare thing to hear in East Perth, but resident Terry Maller reckons the situation’s vastly improved down at the trouble-ridden Wellington Square.
The former Perth city council candidate says he’s at the park every morning, and the number of people sleeping around the toilet block has dwindled to near-nothing over summer. Police patrols are up and officers on bikes are often seen pouring out illicit grog.
Some locals want the toilet block demolished (at a cost of $500,000 including a self-cleaning replacement that you can’t loiter in).
The old building’s seen as a magnet for trouble but is often used as shelter by Aboriginal people, many of them in town for dialysis at nearby Royal Perth Hospital.
Mr Maller, 70, has come out of activist-retirement to call for the block to stay. He can’t understand why people would still want to knock it over, unless they just don’t like blackfellas being in the park.
“Wellington Square is a public space, and there for all to use,” he says. “If they are not breaking the law there is no basis for a complaint unless it is based on an aversion to a particular cohort of people using the square.”
Perth Liberal MP Eleni Evangel has presented a petition to parliament calling on the toilet block to go, but says there’s no room for racism in the debate.
by DAVID BELL
Perth Voice Interactive 
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