AFTER 15 years on James Street, restaurateur Tam Pham is calling it a day. Mr Pham and wife Tai ran the Saigon Cafe, a cornerstone of Northbridge’s late night crowd. The independent, family-run restaurant will be replaced by Malaysian chain PappaRich. Mr Pham says it feels like the right time to move on: a buyer…

ALANNAH MacTIERNAN has been red-carded from the House of Representatives for the second time after heckling “protected species” education minister Chris Pyne during question time. Speaker Bronwyn Bishop sent the fiery Perth MP out of the chamber for an hour, after she twice heckled Mr Pyne while he was spruiking the government’s teacher education ministerial…

THE contractor who created the Beaufort Street arty sign won’t be paid the full amount, with Vincent council unhappy with the result. Bremick was initially contracted for $95,000 to erect the big Beaufort Street Hollywood-style lettering at the Barlee Street carpark, but asked for an additional $38,000 because the concrete work was more expensive than…

THE Mount Lawley Society has been short-listed for a gong in the WA heritage awards. It is a finalist in the “outstanding contribution to heritage by a community-based organisation” category. The MLS has been busy in the past two years, successfully campaigning to preserve the old façade on the burnt-down Mount Lawley primary school and…

LIGHTNING PARK recreation centre is set to get a $400,000 extension from the WA government. The centre is home to The Noranda Hawks football club and Morley Eagles tee-ball club. The grant will be used to extend the clubrooms in order to hold members’ functions, awards nights and other community events. Morley Liberal MP Ian…

INTERNATIONAL photographer Nigel Bennet is documenting William Street as the area’s new artist-in-residence. A joint project between Vincent city council and Form, the Anglo-American traveller is asking locals what the street means to them. His three-stage process is designed to remove as much of his own subjectivity as possible. “The idea of the work is…

MT LAWLEY MP Michael Sutherland has fired a broadside at Stirling city council, claiming its anti-amalgamation campaign is “scaremongering” and packed with “half truths and misinformation”. The council has come under fire in recent weeks for issuing letters to residents in Dianella and Inglewood claiming they would suffer if borders were to shift, placing them…

ABOUT 350 Vincent locals turned up to the town hall on Sunday to prepare their submissions on council mergers to the WA local government advisory board. Mayor John Carey says he is “under no doubts our community wants Vincent to remain as is”. “That message was made very clear in last year’s plebiscite, where we…

PLANS to convert the Inglewood IGA site into a $16 million mixed use complex have been rejected by the Stirling development assessment panel. The applicant had hoped to build a three-to-five storey building, with 94 apartments, and an office, shop and restaurant on the ground floor of the property, at the corner of Beaufort and…

IN the early 1800s Louis de Freycinet set sail to Australia, sent by the French government to collect specimens of native plants and animals. On the journey artists depicted the expedition in a series of paintings, drawings and maps that came to be known as the Freycinet Collection, now held in the WA state library. Two…