A STATE government-funded cafe selling $3 coffees has been undercutting private enterprise, city cafe owners have complained. The Crew & King Cafe is run by the Perth Theatre Trust and opened in May 2020 after state-funded upgrades to His Majesty’s Theatre. Michael Ivanoff from nearby Crib Lane cafe says the Crew’s $3 coffees, available until…

BAYSWATER council will soon begin the long process of unpicking its complex rates system after giving some homeowners a “Covid-19 concession” in last year’s budget. The strange concession, dubbed “not fair” by a minority of councillors who voted against it, effectively made sure everyone’s rates bill for 2020 was no higher than their 2019 bill.…

NAMES are being sought for the soon-to-be revamped Leederville laneway between the Leedy Hotel and the ABN Group HQ currently under construction. The laneway’s been dingy for years but is being given a big makeover by developer FJM Properties, and rebranded as a “laneway precinct” opening onto shops in the ABN building and dining options from the hotel…

THE National Trust WA received funding last year to run its first writer in residence program. The funding came from the Department of Culture and the Arts, which in 2019 produced a Writing Sector Review aimed at encouraging excellence in writing and foster professional development. The trust chose four writers to kick off the program;…

IN a suspected arson attack, Tent City in East Perth went up in flames at 10pm last Wednesday, turning the fenced-in campsite into a potential death trap.  No-one was in the section of the homeless camp under the Lord Street overpass when it caught alight, but witnesses say that if there had been campers, no…

BURLY construction workers are apparently being “intimidated” by the protest signs of mostly elderly residents around the Bayswater train station, who fear the Metronet transformation is robbing them of their green space. Rose Avenue residents, who’ll lose the little park at the end of their road for a bus interchange, recently penned a 10-point letter…

A STAFF culture survey at Perth council last July showed most employees would warn others against taking up a job there. The “Cultyr” scorecard was conducted just before state-appointed commissioners left; the result’s worse than during a tumultuous 2017.  Among the dozens of questions, a “promoter” score measures how likely they are to recommend the…

IT had to happen: A locally produced video game has captured Perth during its Covid lockdown madness. The retro-style Sonny Yang’s Incredibly Inconvenient Pandemic Game was made by Perth comedians Yang and Alice McCullagh (Alice Mack on stage) and features a protagonist struggling with crowded shops, closed pubs and a toilet paper shortage. It’s an old…

A DISPERSED and diverse series of events across five days will replace Perth’s cancelled Australia Day Skyworks. In November, Perth’s new councillors took heed of WA chief health officer Andrew Robertson’s advice and cancelled the Skyworks due to the risk of having huge crowds packed together for a few hours and uncertainty about WA’s Covid…

MORE than 50 greyhounds and allied dogs had walkies around Hyde Park on Sunday January 10 in support of a campaign to phase out the racing industry by 2025. The walk was hosted by racing abolitionist group Free the Hounds and supporter Greens upper house MP Alison Xamon. The number of racing dogs injured or…