PLEASE inspect your citrus trees for lumps and bumps—they could be nests full of invasive wasp babies about to hatch. The state agriculture department has issued a warning that citrus gall wasps are concentrated in Bayswater, Vincent, Stirling and further north in Bassendean and Swan. Native to Queensland and the warmer regions of NSW, their…

THE future of East Perth is looking bright after City of Perth commissioners allocated $300,000 to revitalise the suburb. The revitalisation is being overseen by not-for-profit organisation Historic Heart and city staff recommended they be given $117,032 for the second stage of their revamp, but commissioner Gaye McMath said they should get $300,000 to ensure…

GAY MPs in Voiceland are supporting a law change that would give male same-sex couples the same rights as women for surrogate pregnancies. Women who can’t conceive and female same-sex couples are allowed  to use a surrogate mother as long as she is not paid, but it’s illegal for single men and same-sex male couples.…

Morley Labor MP Amber-Jade Sanderson told the lower house in WA Parliament on Tuesday it’s not just gay men who’ll benefit from proposed changes to the Human Reproductive Technology Act and the Surrogacy Act 2008. “There has been a lot of focus on access to surrogacy for same-sex couples, but what about single men? I…

Call for more women in cryptocurrency scene Perth tech podder Abheeti Kathryn Pass has put out the call for more women to jump into technologies like cryptocurrencies. She makes the call through her podcast Crypto Clothesline, hoping this will encourage more women to get involved in the ‘cryptosphere’. She says industry after-parties in the heavily…

SONLIFE CHURCH has moved into the long-empty St Mary’s Hall on Oxford Street in Leederville. “This is our fifth home,” says founding Pastor Binh Nguyen. “We started in my living room,” with about 13 people in 2011. These days about 200 people attend his engaging service. Pastor Nguyen was originally from southern Vietnam and his…

THE Australian passport office has issued just 110 gender ‘X’ passports since they became available in 2002 – an average of seven a year. In 2017-18 more than two million Australian passports were issued and the government estimated that about 57 per cent of the population, just over 14 million people, had one. The 2016…

PERTH council will spend $4 million on replacing the council building’s flashing exterior lights. Commissioners, sitting in for suspended City of Perth councillors, voted to approve the new lighting system at last week’s council meeting, ignoring a $500,000 option to remove the lights and not replace them. The existing T-shaped lights were installed nearly 10…

ARE Michael and Michelle Sutherland the new power couple of the WA Liberal party? Last Thursday Mr Sutherland, a former WA parliamentary speaker, was appointed president of the Mt Lawley branch of the Liberal party. His wife Michelle is the president of the neighbouring Yokine branch. The two branches will be involved in preselecting the…