Perth Voice Interactive

THE saga of sculptor Lyndon Dadswell’s The Wildflower State continues to grow more colourful than a field of Morawa  everlastings.

The sculpture, which was rescued from a demolition company’s junk pile after being removed from the old Commonwealth Bank in Hay Street in the 1990s, was loaned to Macquarie University in Sydney and bought at auction by a mystery bidder for $81,000 in 2022.

But the bloke who rescued it from the junk pile says it’s been donated back to him, and the university is putting so many roadblocks in the way of getting it back to WA that he’s starting to suspect they’ve damaged it while packing it up.

Paul Nield says he can’t believe the university would treat a benefactor so shoddily after being loaned a historically-important artwork for 16 year.

“Their lawyers sent me a letter saying I needed to pick it up by February 28 or they would apply for a court order to take possession of it and destroy it or dispose of it,” Mr Nield said.

He offered to pick it up himself and inspect it before it left the university, but says that’s when things got plain weird. 

“They said, ‘oh no, you do know that if you lift the lid, there’s a danger that you will cause damage to the sculpture in the crate’.

“Now, that’s a bit unusual. A lot of crates are made so you can safely remove the contents.”

Mr Nield believes the university is being evasive about potential damage. 

“I said, ‘How could I make a claim if I haven’t seen the sculpture?’ And I said, ‘Anyway, I’m not interested in making a claim at all, for any purpose, if you’ve harmed it or not’.”

The university also demanded he get $20 million in public liability insurance and $10 million in professional indemnity insurance before they’d let him have The Wildflower State.

“They sent me some photographs, but I asked for photographs of the mounts because I’d looked at the sculpture only two or three months ago, and they mounted it really badly,” Mr Nield said. 

Chopped off

“A colleague of mine was looking at the photographs they had sent, and you can just about see two mounts still on the wall after taking it down. Maybe they chopped off an inch or two, I don’t know.”

Mr Nield says he tried to pick up the sculpture before Christmas while he was over east trying to convince federal health minister about the anti-cancer properties of bee pollen, but got “pissed around”.

He says he’d brought a van down from Canberra, picking up a rescue dog from a council pound on the way, but when university staff insisted they didn’t have time to remove the sculpture from its wall, he ended up sleeping in the back because he couldn’t find a dog-friendly hotel.

He says the university then offered to transport the piece over to WA, but later changed its mind and said he’d have to organise the moving and they’d cover the cost.

“Which is all good, but they’re going to bizarre lengths to deter me from looking at it.”

Despite the obstacles, Nield is determined to return The Wildflower State to Western Australia, saying, “if there is damage, then it just becomes part of the journey of the artwork.”

Macquarie University told the Voice it was not aware of any damage to The Wildflower State. 

“Professional art removal services were engaged to deinstall and store the work at the owner’s instruction,” a university spokesperson said.

“The university has made numerous attempts to return the sculpture to its owner for over 18 months.

“The university has advised the owner that the work may be inspected at any time. The university looks forward to the owner collecting the work.”

Just before going to print, and not long after our questions, Mr Nield got back in contact to say the uni had waived the need for professional indemnity insurance.

by STEVE GRANT

FREMANTLE’S electors have voted for their council to hold a meeting to raise awareness about AUKUS. 

At a sometimes spiky electors’ AGM on Monday, representatives from Stop AUKUS WA put forward a successful motion calling for the City to “address the need for information and consultation” about the nuclear submarine deal. 

The motion also requested that “qualified representatives” from the Australian Submarine Agency, Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, local MPs and government defence spokesperson attend the proposed meeting, along with a First Nations spokesperson and representatives of action groups opposed to nuclear weapons. 

Stop AUKUS campaign coordinator Leonie Lundy says a public meeting is a “logical step” towards transparency, provided the council agreed to hold it. 

“Defence is known to be the least transparent government department… trying to get information out of Defence is like trying to get blood out of a stone,” Ms Lundy said. 

“We don’t agree with Fremantle council assisting Defence to get social licence, but yes, we absolutely support council providing a platform for the community to be properly informed.”

At the meeting on Monday, Ms Lundy was critical of the City’s recently-released reports detailing findings from its fact-finding mission to the United States in September. 

“There has been a disappointing absence of council taking a proactive role in advocating for the safety and security of residents, the need for disclosure and transparency, and importantly, the need for community consultation on these issues,” Ms Lundy said. 

“In reality, it didn’t require a US trip at $14,000 a head to reach the conclusion that Defence and AUKUS lacked social license, and ascertained what measures they would need to take.

“The resultant report… with respect to the City’s mayor and CEO, clearly endorses AUKUS and reads like a PR spin for Defence.”

Despite this criticism, Ms Lundy welcomed the report’s conclusion that community awareness of AUKUS is “essential” and that there had been “no comprehensive audit” to determine community sentiment towards the nuclear submarine program. 

“We acknowledge the recommendation that more needs to be done to consult and inform the community about AUKUS and its impacts, and that local governments are well placed to assist,” Ms Lundy said. 

The meeting motion will appear on the council’s agenda towards the end of February. 

The Stop AUKUS request comes a week after Council CEO Glen Dougall responded to a recent anti-AUKUS petition.

The petition requested that council call on the Commonwealth government to ban nuclear submarines from berthing at Stirling Naval Base, which Mr Dougall said it had “no head of power” to enforce. 

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER

MOSQUITOES have become “intolerable” around Maylands, leading Bayswater’s deputy mayor to question whether the City is doing all it can to give residents living around the river some relief.

“As someone who lives in Maylands and is affected by this as well, I fully share the frustration and concern by others,” Cr Elli Petersen-Pik said.

“It has always been an issue, but this is really a crisis.”

Cr Petersen-Pik said he’d been told the current La Nina weather pattern had pushed up tides and created prevailing winds that were fuelling the problem.

Tides

“I’m also aware that there is currently an unprecedented increase of mozzies at Gibbney Reserve and around the Maylands Peninsula Primary School. 

“The nearby drainage area was treated a week ago, but following my request, it was treated again on Tuesday before the school year started,” the deputy mayor said.

At January’s council meeting, he asked the council’s community services director Bianca Sandri what the City had done so far, and was that the best they could offer.

Ms Sandri said Bayswater was so thorough in its pest control that other councils sought them out for advice, particularly their drone program which allows them to target midges in hard-to-reach locations.

“This year, we are experiencing higher tides due to the weather pattern, and that is something that we cannot control,” Ms Sandri said.

“We are treating more than we have in previous years in response to the issues that are being raised, however… the prevailing winds do bring in mosquitoes from other areas, which does cause some difficulty.”

Ms Sandri said the City had been placing traps on residential properties and tracking mosquito movements to identify where they spring from, noting there was a mix coming from the river and from peoples’ properties.

“The environmental health team is an innovative bunch, as we have experienced with the treatment of midge [sic].

“If there was something more that we could be doing that is innovative, then I would suggest we would be doing it.”

Ms Bianci said it was an issue being felt by other councils along the river, who Bayswater continued to liaise with.

by STEVE GRANT

POPULAR Fremantle brewery Gage Roads says it cancelled an anti-fracking event featuring musician John Butler after realising it would be more than just a concert.

The internationally-famous rocker had posted on his social media the cancellation was over the event’s political nature, pondering why the brewery had accepted Labor MP Simone McGurk’s campaign launch this week.

“Spineless…Did someone get a little call from a powerful mate?” Mr Butler questioned.

The post was later taken down. 

Described as a ‘mini-festival’, Freo for a Frack Free Kimberley was organised by Environs Kimberley and the Lock the Gate Alliance with Mr Butler headlining.

It was originally scheduled to be held at Gage Roads on Victoria Quay, but was relocated to Port Beach Brewery. 

Gage Roads executive director Aaron Heary says because the Frack Free event was free of charge, it would “likely exceed the capacity” of the Victoria Quay venue which usually sees between 500 and 600 customers on a Thursday night. 

“This event changed from a music-only gig with some merchandise for sale, to something more like a rally with multiple speakers delivering amplified speeches throughout our entire venue,” Mr Heary said. 

“We felt this would potentially overwhelm the capacity of the venue and would significantly impact the ambience for those who were just coming down for dinner and a drink. 

“Gage Roads just isn’t fit for purpose for this type of event and for these reasons we asked the organisers to relocate the event.” 

Mr Heary says that while Gage Roads did host the Labor campaign launch last weekend, it did not disrupt the music or ambience of the wider venue and was relatively short. 

Additionally, the free nature of the event, as well as its “much longer timeframe, internal venue location, large stage, and amplified speeches” were deemed by management to be unsuitable for the Gage Roads venue to host. 

“We made some calls to our contacts within the Fremantle community which ultimately resulted in the successful shifting of the event,” Mr Heary said. 

“The Port Beach Brewery space will be far more suitable, and we wish John and the organisers all the best for their event.” 

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER

FREMANTLE’s community independent candidate Kate Hulett this week announced a range of policies which she says target WA’s housing crisis. 

As part of the policy, Ms Hulett says she will push to ban ‘no-reason’ evictions, and revise current public housing policy to prevent eviction of children into homelessness. 

“WA is the only state in the country that continues to allow no-reason evictions, whereby families are evicted from their homes without being given any reason or opportunity to address it,” Ms Hulett said. 

“Worse still, as the WA government is the largest landlord in the state, with more than 30,000 public housing tenancies, the Labor government, as landlord, has evicted hundreds of families from public housing every year for no reason.”

WA housing minister John Carey denies this and says Ms Hulett’s claim is “false” and “uninformed” (See his letter).

Speaking from the abandoned Edgar Court public housing in Beaconsfield, Ms Hulett says the state government’s position is not conducive to its “eviction is a last resort” claim. 

“People were evicted from those homes because upgrades were supposed to happen five years ago,” Ms Hulett said. 

“It obviously wasn’t the last resort, because those houses are still standing, and those people could still be living here. 

“The government have policies that say housing is a human right, but that doesn’t sit comfortably with saying ‘eviction is a last resort’.”

Ms Hulett’s policy calls for a “minimum annual investment” in public housing which she says will achieve net-zero homelessness in WA by 2030, and proposes a public housing maintenance program to fill over 2000 currently empty public houses in WA. 

Inflation

She also wants to limit rent increases to the rate of inflation if she is elected to the seat of Fremantle at the March 8 election. 

Last year, the Cook government implemented rental reforms which restrict landlords from rent increases to once annually, but Ms Hulett says this was “inadequate” and required further reform. 

“Disappointingly, whilst the government’s rental reforms limited the number of times a landlord can raise the rent to once per year, it did not restrict the amount by which landlords can increase the rent,” Ms Hulett said. 

“This means that many renters are now worse off than they were before these reforms, many at risk of one massive annual increase that could be beyond their capacity to pay, risking eviction and homelessness.” 

Landlords Advisory Services owner Glen O’Brien is not supportive of a cap on rent, saying it could “disincentivise” property owners from purchasing rentals while interrupting the market. 

“The rental market sets itself…it’s supply and demand, so if the government interferes with the free market economy, then we have a skewed situation where things become out of whack,” Mr O’Brien said. 

“Leaving the government to supply housing has obviously been a disaster, so who else is going to provide housing? 

“We have to incentivise people to contribute to our housing stock through investment and wealth creation.” 

Earlier this week, Ms Hulett also announced she had received $20,000 in funding from Climate 200, who famously funded a range of Teal independents at the 2022 federal election. 

“I only applied a couple of weeks ago, when I began my campaign,” Ms Hulett said. 

“As far as I am aware, they have had many applications from across Australia, and they have a board of people who evaluate each application, and assess whether there is evidence that the community are likely to support the candidate. 

“It’s a really democratic way to support candidates who are pushing for serious climate action.” 

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER

A FREMANTLE business has been nominated for a prestigious Marine Stewardship Council award for sustainable seafood practices. 

In a true David-and-Goliath story, Fremantle Octopus was nominated for MSC’s best sustainable seafood award this week and will face industry giants Birds Eye, Bluewave, Coles, I&J, and Skull Island which is owned by Austral. 

General manager Heidi Woschnak says the company use an “ocean to plate traceability” practice which contributes to its stellar sustainability record. 

“[The traceability] starts on board, where we remove the octopus’ head and put it back into the ocean to be eaten, and the product goes into an ice slurry of sea water and ice to be transported so there’s no preservatives,” Ms Woschnak explained. 

“It’s then transported to our purpose-built octopus processing facility within a day of being caught, and hand-washed, packaged, and stamped [to be sold]. 

“We control the entire ocean-to-plate process.” 

The octopuses are caught using a specially-designed trigger trap, which allows for more accurate fishing and a lower impact on ocean wildlife. 

“It’s the most environmentally sensitive way of catching octopus, because we don’t catch anything else in the midst of that,” Ms Woschnak said. 

“When the octopus goes in and smells the bait, if it’s big enough, it triggers the trap door to come down, so we only catch the large octopus, and nothing else. 

“That all feeds into our environmentally sensitive and sustainable fishing practices.” 

It was because of these practices that Fremantle Octopus received MSC’s Sustainable Fishing Hero Award last year, as well as its Blue Fish Tick recognition, so the most recent nomination is the latest in a long line of accolades for the small business. 

The company is the largest producer of MSC certified, wild-caught octopi in the world – the only MSC certified octopi fishery in the world, apart from a small farm off the coast of Spain. 

Fremantle Octopus has also featured in the WA Export Awards, Delicious Magazine Produce Awards, and the WA Good Food Guide awards. 

It’s “monumental” to even be nominated for the MSC award, according to Ms Woschnak, especially with such heavy competition. 

“We’re certainly the underdog,” Ms Woschnak said. 

“From a WA perspective, it’s even more reason to beat our chest, because this is a national award and we are situated in O’Connor, and it really reinforces that what we are doing is world class and with global best practice. 

“It would be a very humbling thing to receive, because it’s just reinforcement of everything that is at the heart of what we do.” 

Public voting for the MSC Sustainable Seafood Award is open on the MSC website and will close on February 14. 

Winners will be announced in March.

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER

PREMIER Roger Cook made a charismatic appearance as Labor faithful converged on Gage Roads last weekend to mark the launch of Simone McGurk and Lisa O’Malley’s campaigns for the state seats of Fremantle and Bicton respectively.

Former premier Peter Dowding and Jim McGinty were also in attendance. Around the grounds, the Liberal Party have finally announced their candidate for the seat of Fremantle: North Coogee local and engineer Serena Kipling.

A group of Tangney residents from Bicton to Cannington held a rally outside Tangney MP Sam Lim’s office on Wednesday, warning about an expansion of Woodside’s gas hub and the benefits of renewable energy.

The Tangney Climate Action Group appeared as climate emergency first responders wearing high viz and hard hats, bearing positive climate action ideas and warning of the dangers of new gas projects.

Their action coincided with Australia’s inaugural Extreme Heat Awareness Day. The group says heat waves kill more Australians than any other weather event and are increasing in frequency and severity as fossil fuel emissions continue to rise.

Rising emissions are a key concern for TCAG as the final decision on Woodside’s gas hub expansion hangs in the balance.

Just before Christmas, WA environment minister Reece Whitby approved Woodside’s gas hub extension to 2070 and federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek is to make a final decision on its expansion.

UWA’s Two Centuries of Chinese Heritage in Western Australia aims to discover, record, and tell stories of Chinese communities’ contributions. Explore the digital portal and podcasts: www.chinesewa.net

CHINESE market gardeners represent an important chapter in the state’s agricultural and multicultural history. 

Arriving in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Chinese immigrants established market gardens in areas like Bibra Lake, Bayswater,  Northbridge and Fremantle, driven by limited economic opportunities and racial discrimination in other industries, such as gold mining and pearling. 

Their contribution to the local food supply was significant, especially during periods of economic hardship, such as the Great Depression.

Bibra Lake’s fertile soil and access to fresh water made it an ideal location for market gardening, attracting people like Chew Lun, who was born in Canton in August 1861 and arrived in Western Australia in February 1889, working initially as a shopkeeper before changing tack some time around the turn of the century.

Like other Chinese market gardeners, Lun, also known as Chew Lung or Chew Lang, grew a variety of vegetables, including cabbages, onions and carrots, which were sold to Perth’s growing population. 

Despite access to limited resources and relying on traditional farming methods like hand irrigation, composting and intercropping, the market gardeners thrived through ingenuity and resilience.

A testament to Lun’s success came from an unlikely source; a correspondent known as The Pagan in the Sunday Times, who wrote in 1913: “The Celestial has about 550 acres of land on lease, and last year he is stated to have grown £700 worth of cauliflowers on three or four acres. Which will convey some faint idea of the wonderful soil in the garden of Fremantle.”

In somewhat derogatory terms, The Pagan describes Lun having a workforce of “white men” grafting for him, all having nothing but praise for their employer. Two of his four children were also attending the local state school

There was one stain on Lun’s reputation; being fined £10 in 1907 when police seized a quantity of opium from his home.

Opium

The West Australian reported at the time that customs authorities had long suspected large amounts of the drug were being smuggled into the state, but it wasn’t until Commonwealth examining officer Smith and Tide-waiter Tapper staked out Lun’s house that they made the breakthrough.

They were rewarded by finding about £15 worth of opium in a meat safe, which they suspected had been smuggled off the Singaporean steamer Charon while in Fremantle.

A year after Lun’s wife May Chew died in 1919, he packed up their four children and returned to China, returning to WA by himself in 1927.

But there’s some mystery around who continued to work his lease, as his name pops up in 1924 in the Sunday Times over the purchase of a “sturdy little truck”.

“A few weeks ago a Gray truck was sold to Mr Chew Lung, of Bibra Lake, conditionally, that it would pull one ton from his place to the road,” the Times reported.

“To anyone knowing the country round about Bibra Lake, there is no need to dwell on the severe test the agents were putting this truck to.”

But the Gray negotiated the distance without problem, leading to “a very pleased Mr Lung”, who’d now get to the Fremantle markets in just one hour.

While it’s known Lun was in China at this time, it was common for Chinese immigrants to use several names, so it’s possible that to keep the lease, one of his colleagues simply appropriated his name knowing authorities might struggle to tell the difference.

The Chinese gardeners faced considerable challenges, including racial prejudice and restrictive immigration policies under the White Australia Policy. 

Despite this, they maintained a strong sense of community and cultural identity, often living in communal dwellings and celebrating traditional festivals. 

Their legacy persists today in the enduring presence of Chinese-Australian families in the region and their contributions to Western Australia’s agricultural history.

Tucked away in Coolbellup you’ll find Hilory Street, named after one of Lun’s contemporaries, Hi Lory, who’ll be featured in a future story, including his link to a tragic murder in Spearwood.