Perth Voice Interactive

THEY were often the unsung heroes of the Italian pioneers who travelled across the world and gave WA its cosmopolitan flavour; now those young women are being celebrated in their autumn years with an exhibition at the WA Maritime Museum.

The Nonna Project – Journey to a New Life opens next Saturday May 28 and explores the stories of nine extraordinary Nonnas who’ve made a lasting impression on their community.

It’s appropriate the exhibition is being held on Victoria Quay, where most of them first set foot on Australian soil, hopeful of a better future than what they were leaving in war-ravaged Italy, but often completely naive to what awaited them.

Felicia Re is a bit unusual among the nine, having been born on Australian soil and having just turned 100 years old. Her mother had sailed unaccompanied from the small Italian island Lipary just after World War I and arrived in Sydney with only a couple of names of people who’d recently proceeded her.

One of those was a young man running a small shop on Circular Quay and shortly after the pair were married.

Ms Re said the culture shock was profound, from the food to the way of life.

“She said she looked at the jelly and she thought ‘what the hell is that jelly’,” she recalls.

Her mother also had to help out with the shop, which meant heading to the Kirribilly Markets across the harbour – as well as looking after the three kids who arrived over the next three years,

“But she had to go all the way around – there was no harbour bridge – and she started crying the first day.

“So my father said ‘it’s no good crying, you’ve just got to get hold of yourself and do this’.”

This stoicism became a trademark of the Italian women, which exhibition organiser Nella Fitzgerald said was one of the things that attracted her to telling their stories.

Her own mother has a treasure trove of stories, such as walking 100 miles as children to meet Benito Mussolini, only for the dictator who’d been touted as Italy’s saviour not turning up.

Bootlegger

“These are the stories my mum would tell me; of my grandmother who was a bootlegger in the US.

“And I thought ‘gosh, I feel humble to have my mother as one of those people that came out with nothing, not knowing,” Ms Fitzgerald said.

“And this is why I feel so privileged to know Felicia and the other Nonnas, because I said to my mum ‘I don’t know how we’re going to do this’ and she said ‘don’t talk about it, just do it.

“And that’s what they’ve all done.”

For Ms Re’s family, life took a harsh turn when her father fell ill and died; the landlord wouldn’t hear of a now mother-of-five taking over the shop where they also lived so she was forced to go househunting while still mourning her husband’s death and later try to earn a small living from doing dressmaking.

A few years later World War II broke out and Ms Re met her future husband Bert (Umberto), who lived in Perth but had signed up to the army and had been posted in Sydney before being shipped off to New Guinea.

But while she was gaining a beau, who wrote to her religiously every week, there was more family tragedy. 

“I lost a brother during the war,” Ms Re said.

“June 6 is a holiday in Sydney and the doorbell rang and it’s the postman and he gave me this letter.”

Her initial relief in thinking the letter was alerting the family to her brother being wounded turned to horror when she realised it said “died of wounds”.

“My mother had gone to see her comare (something like a godparent) up the street and she was so happy and I had to tell her that … that was the hardest thing”.

The romance with Bert was blossoming via letter, but Ms Re refused to leave her widowed mother on spec and made him come across from Perth to get married in Sydney.

They took the train across the Nullabor but there were more surprises awaiting her; Bert’s reassurances that there were lots of young nieces at her new home to talk to turned out to be a bit of blarney – they had to share the modest cottage with his parents and six of his 10 brothers. The nieces were all too busy raising families and working to hang out much.

Butcher

But Ms Re said she was warmly embraced by the family and while Bert earned a decent living as a French polisher their own family grew until they found their own house a few years later.

There was one more shock left for her, but it became a defining moment for the family – and for Perth.

“So then my husband came home and he said he bought a butcher shop … he’d never seen a pig and he had to go to the market to pick the pigs out.”

It was a tough call, but the furniture polish was ruining his hands and Bert was determined – even the front room of the family home was co-opted when it was time to dry the sausages.

Re Butchers in Mt Hawthorn became one of the first continental smallgoods producers in Perth. As the kids grew up it became B Re & Sons, who still carry the name and operate out of bigger premises in Malaga.

“So he kept making these sausages until he was 93 – he was a hard worker,” Ms Re says.

The butchers became an important hub for the Italian community, which by now was well established in WA and had made a mark by transforming its fishing industry.

The Nonnas Project opens at the WA Maritime Museum on Saturday May 28 and runs until September 4.

CONFIDENTIAL advice given to Perth councillors ahead of a vote to close the Citiplace Child Care Centre has cast doubt on the official story it was costing about $1 million a year to run.

In March councillors held a confidential vote to close the centre in September and rent it out to make more money, on the grounds it was costing too much to run and there were now plenty of private childcare centres in the city. 

The city’s PR department provided the Voice with an emailed statement attributed to lord mayor Basil Zempilas saying: “The City of Perth has been subsiding the cost to run the centre an average $950,000 a year for the past seven years”. Other media outlets reported costs as high as $1.1m.

Parents whose kids attend the centre pooled money to pay for a freedom of information request and have now obtained the secret advice given by Perth staff to councillors ahead of the March 29 vote.

The document – the council agenda item – revealed they’ll only save $410,405 by ceasing childcare services, and the far larger figure came from rolling in $598,000 they’ll still have to pay once the childcare is gone, in the form of insurance, maintenance, and staff time allocations.

A big redundancy bill also cuts into savings. The centre has 18 staff, some of them who’ve worked there for 33 years since it opened. The redundancy payout could total up to $1.15m if they can’t be redeployed within the council.

The discrepancy in costs puts the centre closer to a sustainable model, and parents were hoping the council might consider closing the profit gap rather than shutting it down. The fees there haven’t risen for years, and many parents told the Voice they were unanimously happy to pay higher yearly fees to help keep the centre afloat because of its quality care and expert staff. 

One of the parents with a child at Citiplace, former Perth councillor Reece Harley, has written to the Perth councillors and CEO saying the actual cost of $410,405 “stands in stark contrast to the lord mayor’s public statements”.

He says bandying about the much larger figure is unfair on the centre’s workers – who’ll soon have to look for other jobs in the sector – since it sends the message they can’t run a child care centre efficiently.

“These misleading statements… reflect negatively on the professional reputation of the centre’s staff,” Mr Harley wrote.

Mr Harley is sceptical of the big amount allocated to running the centre.

“These internal charges are, quite clearly, not directly associated with the running of the centre.”

We queried the council on the discrepancy between the confidential financial statements and the public statements. 

The response said some of the remaining $598,000 could be reallocated to other areas of council, such as tech support and human resources, further reducing the childcare centre’s impact on the bottom line.

Mr Harley said parents were disappointed they had to pay for a Freedom of Information request to see the documents, as secrecy had been a big part of the problem with the whole process.

“We believe the document should have always been on the public record and available prior to the council meeting.

“Had it been, we would have been able to raise a number of questions prior to council’s decision.”

Of the 19-page agenda item, just one paragraph was redacted before being released to the parents – an estimate of how long it might take to get a new tenant and the likely commercial terms. 

by DAVID BELL

A HEAVY duty truck driving through Hyde Park has ridden roughshod over delicate tree roots and turtle nesting sites. 

Australian Garden History Society WA branch chair John Viska last year warned plans to put a commercial kiosk in Hyde Park were counter to the park’s heritage listing and were a risk to its venerable trees.

The kiosk plan prompted the national AGHS to put Hyde Park on its “landscapes at risk” list.

A year on the western toilet block is being readied for a new commercial kitchen.

This week a sub-contractor’s truck tore up the grass, and drove over red cedar roots and tough netting put down to protect known turtle laying sites.

The damage happened in a ‘zone of considerable significance’ as specified by the 2003 Hyde Park Conservation Plan, Mr Viska says.

We asked Vincent council what went wrong.

“This is not normal practice and fortunately no turtles or hatchlings were harmed,” mayor Emma Cole said in an emailed response.

“In this instance, a sub-contractor entered the site after hours on 13 May,” Ms Cole says.

“The driver had not been to site before and had not been properly briefed by the responsible contractor on the correct procedure to protect Hyde Park.”

That would include a briefing by the overseer before being allowed on the park.

“Since this incident, the city’s contractor contacted the driver and reiterated the correct procedures.”

Bright orange bunting has now gone up to make it clear where not to drive. 

The parks team will also work with the UWA research project studying the oblong turtle population to look at options for more protection for the turtle nests.

by DAVID BELL

HYDE PARK has been preserved in Lego form by two local Lego masters who spent two months creating the model.

The pint-sized park project came from Vincent local history librarian Susanna Iuliano who put the call out for modellers to celebrate its 125th anniversary.

WA Brick Society volunteers Chris McRae and Ryan Masters took up the challenge to recreate Hyde Park, leading other volunteers to craft the model brick by brick.

Vincent deputy mayor Suzanne Gontaszewski said she hopes it inspires local kids to get creative about their local neighbourhoods. 

“The model has already attracted interest from the community, including many kids who now have another way to celebrate the history of Hyde Park.”

The Lego model is part of a history display at Vincent Library and Local History Centre, along with photos, maps, art and stories about the area.

The 125th anniversary marks Hyde Park becoming a park, but the site’s human history is much older. 

Before it became a public garden in 1897 it was a popular camping site for swaggies and known as “The Third Swamp”, and earlier it was a significant wetland to Noongar who knew it as “Boodjamooling”. 

It’s on display until September.

PERTH lord mayor Basil Zempilas says the state government’s 100-bed Boorloo Bidee Mia homelessness facility on Wellington Street was “perhaps … not fully thought out” and isn’t meeting a need for crisis accommodation.

Speaking at a Parliamentary inquiry into homelessness services, Mr Zempilas said BBM took too long to set up, continues to operate below capacity, and wasn’t providing shelter to people unable to squeeze into already stretched services.

“Perhaps two facilities each with say a 50-person capacity would have been better, or maybe four facilities with a 25-person capacity,” Mr Zempilas said.

“That is what the expert advice has been to us; smaller facilities have a better chance of being successful.”

The lord mayor said the city’s own safe night space for women, which is in a two-year trial, had helped women into transitional or permanent housing, while some had been diverted into rehabilitation or antenatal services.

He said the city had been trying to sell the night shelter concept to other inner-city mayors and CEOs in the hope they would consider establishing their own to take some of the homelessness pressure off the CBD, but hadn’t yet approached homelessness minister John Carey to kick that idea along.

Coordination

Mr Zempilas also called for better coordination of existing service providers so the afternoon drop-out when most closed their doors wouldn’t be so dramatic.

“What happens, hypothetically speaking, to the gentleman who at 3.30pm today is camped out on the corner of William Street on the Esplanade.

“Where does he go? Who attends to him and asks ‘are you alright? Would you like us to take you somewhere safe?’

“And if the answer were ‘yes, I need some help, or I would like somewhere to go’, does that place exist? Is there room at that place?

“The service providers work hard and are populated by excellent, caring staff, but are their hours of operation right to meet this need that I speak of?”

Despite the criticism of BBM, Mr Zempilas said there had been a shift and the McGowan government was making strides. 

He praised the appointment of Mr Carey as the state’s first homeless minister.

“Now depending on your point of view, it was either an admission enough wasn’t being done, or that more needed to be done in this space,” Mr Zempilas said.

“Either way it was a win for the community and a win for our city, and I’m pleased to be able to say that we have seen a change in approach and importantly, a change in vigour in dealing with homelessness.”

But he warned that a number of the government’s initiatives, such as the Common Ground supported housing facility, were long-term solutions, when more immediate action was needed.

by STEVE GRANT

A HOMELESSNESS support worker has urged Perth council to keep running the Safe Night Space for women beyond its two year trial.

In May 2021 Perth council opened the SNS in the Rod Evans Centre on Hay Street to provide shelter and safety for women with the hopes it’d help the transition into permanent housing. 

It’s run by homeless support group Ruah, whose general manager for housing and homelessness Elsie Blay has implored the council to keep it open past the mid-2023 end of the trial.

“Women experiencing homelessness is a crisis in Perth,” Ms Blay told councillors at the May 24 briefing.

“Women experiencing homelessness deserve a safe place and together, we can’t let this service fall through the gaps.

“We have seen the unexpected and positive outcomes for the women who use this space over the past year; women who have moved into permanent housing, have been able to begin a journey of rehabilitation from alcohol, have been reunited with family, an a group of people who are now engaging in employment.”

She said when the service first opened in the cold winter of 2021, there was an average of 25 women a night taking shelter.

Those numbers have been lower lately. “The numbers are dropping because these people are now in housing,” Ms Blay said, but the need was still there: “What we’ve seen is people newly coming into homelessness, so this service needs to continue.”

Earlier that day Perth lord mayor Basil Zempilas spoke about the SNS to a parliamentary inquiry into homelessness services.

He said in “almost 12 months now of operation the city of Perth safe night space for women has assisted 886 individuals on more than 4000 occasions… just over 4000 individuals have received shelter and assistance instead of being vulnerable, out in the cold, in danger, and on the sleeps.

“And the experts tell us that three consecutive good night’s sleep can be the difference between staying on the streets or reconnecting with family or service providers.”

He said many of those using the service were women over age 55.

He said the first year the SNS had helped 80 to 100 women into transitional or permanent housing, 30 women enter rehabilitation, 20 Aboriginal women helped back to country, and 10 women helped to get antenatal care via King Edward Memorial Hospital.

The council’s overarching “Rough Sleeper Plan” that led to the SNS opening is up for consideration by council at its May 31 meeting. Unless councillors decide to make a change, the plan says the SNS will close at the end of the trial mid-2023.