Former Bayswater councillor Chris Cornish still keeps an eye on local government, and was taken aback by City of Perth commissioners’ support for Brookfield’s over-sized Elizabeth Quay towers as “a political response” to the impact of Covid-19 on WA’s economy. In this week’s Speaker’s Corner he dissects three failings of a flimsy planning system.  LAST…

JAN RODDA is as Freo as you get – she’s been thinking outside the square for decades and is a regular volunteer down at her local community centre where she’s always up for a good talk on saving the environment. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER she finds a novel solution to one of the problems…

DUDLEY MAIER is a former Vincent councillor. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER he casts a critical eye over a lease deal at Leederville Reserve between the WA government and Vincent council and finds the city needs to lift its game. THE December 21 edition of the Voice had a front page story about how the…

NEW legislation is about to go before parliament to control the trading and welfare of dogs. Coincidentally, COLIN NICHOL had been looking around for a four-legged companion and discovered some disturbing facts about the canine breeding industry during his search.  THERE’S a sad little story on a dog-selling website. In part it says: “My best…

ANN MCRAE was a journalist with the West Australian and the ABC from 1966-2014, a counsellor with the Nursing Mothers Association for 25 years, and a member of the King Edward Memorial Hospital Community Advisory Council for 12 years. EVERY day there are news reports of a pandemic of mental health problems that is crippling…

SIMON GEVERS is an artist, writer and nuclear physicalist working on a speech writing book called CELEBRANTING, from which this SPEAKER’S CORNER is taken. I’D like to welcome you all to the launch of this Top Notch Nuclear Facility; TNNF. I don’t know a lot about science, but I do know a little bit about…

In this week’s Speaker’s Corner, North Perth’s Eva Niedzwiedz talks about her recent ulcerative colitis diagnosis. As a personal trainer, her active lifestyle means she can look fine on the outside but the invisible illness can strike unexpectedly. She says businesses can make going out in public easier for people with Crohn’s and colitis by…

LAST month’s death of Kevin the Kookaburra at a northern suburbs tavern exposed a gap in animal welfare laws that Maylands MP Lisa Baker wants fixed. The swiftness of Kevin’s death (his head was twisted off) may not have met the legal standards to constitute cruelty or suffering. In this week’s Speaker’s Corner Ms Baker…

PIERS VERSTEGEN is director of the Conservation Council of WA. As a long time campaigner for the environment, he was initially skeptical about the tactics used by Extinction Rebellion members, who’ve promised to use civil disobedience and disruption to urge action on climate change.  LIKE many people committed to action on climate change, I initially…

VINCENT SAMMUT is a Leederville local and long time Voice correspondent who ran Books Etcetera on Fitzgerald Street until 2013. Originally from the US, he moved here half a century ago. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER, he discusses anti-semitism. IN 1940’s Brooklyn, I was only two years old. I remember how, on a quiet, snowy winter’s night,…