This week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER is by a couple from Vincent, who endured a prolonged nightmare with a construction project next door. It was the best of times and the worst of times. A line adapted from Dickens prefaces our support for, and concern about, development in Perth and the City of Vincent (specifically, Mt Hawthorn…

NATASHA KEPERT is a town planner who is currently recovering from a nasty trampoline accident. Her injury prompted this SPEAKER’S CORNER on the provision of disabled parking bays.  ONCE I would have been highly critical of people who parked in disabled bays, without an ACROD sticker. Not any more. I don’t believe we should allow…

JESSE J. FLEAY is an Edith Cowan University researcher who finds ways of promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture in the classroom. Fleay says while Catholic schools are currently leading the way in this field, comments from the church higher-ups on the weekend that employees who married same-sex partners could be sacked, prompted him…

ALISON XAMON is the Greens MLC for the north metropolitan area. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER she says it’s time concrete plants got their marching orders from East Perth JUST a few kilometres from the CBD, sandwiched between the Graham Farmer Freeway and train line, Summer and Lord streets, the Claisebrook Road North forms part…

IN the wake of opposition leader Bill Shorten promising a national vote on Australia becoming a republic during a first term of a Labor government, the Voice received an apropos SPEAKER’S CORNER from JEFFREY CUNNINGHAM. He’s self-employed, lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and his dream is a united, strong and separatist-free republic. He thinks…

HANS HUG teaches English to migrants at Central TAFE in Perth, is a devout cyclist and is married to Voice advertising director, Natalie. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER, the Swiss-born greenie explains how we can save the planet, while at the same time increasing Australia’s revenue and savings. The biggest threat to all of us…

LAST week Bayswater council voted in principle to not invest with banks that are involved with the fossil fuel industry, following the lead of Vincent and many other local governments. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER Bayswater Cr BRENT FLEETON, who voted against the policy, gets stuck into the “chronic hypocrisy” of those who supported it.…

Following Bayswater council’s vote to support marriage equality, we’ve heard from councillors, conservatives, Christians and concerned citizens on the issue of LGBTI marriage. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER we hear the Zen Buddhist point of view, with extracts from a statement sent to us by Venerable Reverend MUYJO WILLIAMS. The Reverend is an ordained Zen…

 SONIA GURRIN was surprised when people wrote to the Voice, expressing their disgust that Bayswater council and others local governments had voted to support marriage equality in Australia. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER, she argues that councils should not just deal with rates and rubbish, but are elected to represent the majority of their constituents…

JASMINE KAZLAUSKAS’ grandfather was one of the original “boat people” — a Lithuanian refugee who came to Australia after becoming stateless at the end of World War II. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER, Jasmine examines if Australia has ever really lived up to its self-promoted image of being a welcoming and hospitable country for immigrants. For those…