ELECTION promises have started flowing and urban bushland’s looking like a potential winner. Incumbent Mt Lawley Labor MP Simon Millman has announced the Friends of Coolbinia Bushland will get $5,000 for their battle against veldt grass and other weeds, as well as volunteer engagement if Labor is returned at the March 13 state election.  Nearby,…

VETERANS advocate and former federal MP Graham Edwards is turning his attention to homelessness, becoming the first patron for East Perth’s St Bart’s.  Mr Edwards, a wounded Vietnam veteran, was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his advocacy for veterans and people with a disability. Labor MP for Cowan from 1998 to…

AS we rejoin SASHA WASLEY during her time as writer in residence with the National Trust, she’s just discovered a culinary delight during the colonial era was stewed bandicoot, and has heard a mysterious bell ringing in the depths of Peninsula Farm in Maylands – already the source of many a ghost story. WAS it…

THE second chapter of a grand sci-fi/jazz fusion epic in the making debuts at Ellington Jazz Club on February 16. The new band and multimedia project Sky Machine combines written sci-fi, intriguing artwork, and jazz with elements of funk, rock and metal to tell a story starting with the Roswell UFO landing and moving on…

HOMELESSNESS advocate Mark Piggott has been recognised as Perth’s citizen of the year. Mr Piggott works at St Bart’s helping people work through their trauma to help get them back into stable housing.  West Perth Local scored the active citizenship group award for putting on events and advocating for their patch’s businesses and residents. The…

Bah! Humbug! OF all the TV programmes I have not seen, the recently broadcast  SBS series on Inside Monaco, Inside Harrods, and, I seem to recall, Inside Some Other Inane Locality Frequented by the Super-rich, take the cake for being the most incongruous and inappropriate waste of viewer time imaginable. This is particularly the case when…

81-YEAR-OLD Perth sailor Jon Sanders will complete his 11th solo circumnavigation of the globe when he returns to Fremantle Sailing Club tomorrow (Sunday January 31). Sanders was the first person to circumnavigate Antarctica solo, circling the continent twice in 1981–1982, and was made an officer in the Order of the British Empire in 1983 and…

Traders petition to keep bin service BUSINESS owners are petitioning Vincent council not to abandon its commercial rubbish collection. A rapidly-filling petition titled “Don’t treat us like garbage” asks the council to rescind its September 2020 decision to cease collecting business bins by mid 2021. By law councils are only required to pick up residential bins,…

Fires an ‘accident’ THE charred remains of Tent City in East Perth are now almost completely uninhabited. After months of campaigning for their right to shelter, 44 rough sleepers from Tent City have been assisted into accommodation since Christmas Eve.  Wungening Aboriginal Cooperation worked with the Department of Communities to get the latest tranche of…

MORE than $10 million is needed to refurbish Bayswater Waves as yet another council grapples over an expensive aquatic centre. “Urgent roof repairs” are needed, the gantry lighting system’s busted, the pools needs refurbing, and the chlorine gas storage area doesn’t comply with new Australian standards and must be fixed by June 2021.  At the next…