• THE CBD bounceback looks to be underway with Perth having its biggest footfall count for a Friday night in months. Lord mayor Basil Zempilas reported at the May 3 AGM that “the Friday night just gone… figures showed an increase of 14.6 per cent in activity on the previous week,” the biggest number of people in the city in 11 weeks. “And that was day one of the masks coming down… we’ve seen just on day one, the first available numbers, the immediate impact.”
• FRIDAY also brought the announcement that Andrew and Nicola Forrest had bought Carillon City arcade for a reported $80m, which Mr Zempilas called “a huge vote of confidence for our city and in particular the retail core”. The arcade contains a huge chunk of retail space but has been dogged by disruptive upgrades that’ve left shops vacant in preparation for a redevelopment that’s never arrived. Those plans will now be scrapped.
• MUNICIPAL meetings have made for compelling viewing during the pandemic, but anyone missing city hall vibes will be glad to hear regular council meetings are back. Local government minister John Carey announced this week: “I will shortly be writing to all local governments to ask that meetings now return to normal, including allowing for any interested member of the public to attend in-person to engage in the regular business of council meetings.” He said online meetings allowed people who couldn’t attend to participate, and he’d like to keep the online streaming an option; “I also think there is now no reason for typical council meetings to be held in an online-only format.
USING the car park opposite the WA Magistrates Court is always a roll of the dice.
“Sorry I dinged your car – family of convicted murderer who feed their pitbull tabasco sauce – do you accept Visa?”
Some of the characters milling about reminded me of jury duty in Glasgow, where I found a man guilty of robbery and then had to share a lift with him as I left the court building. In a word, awkward. In keeping with the legal theme, my brief was to go for lunch at Long Chim in the State Buildings across the road from the Supreme Court.
The historic State Buildings were stylish and had that solemn, prim grandeur befitting a place that was once home to the treasury.
After passing several eateries in an upmarket food court, I descended a flight of stairs and followed the glowing neon sign towards Long Chim.
There was a dining room, but since I was on my tod I decided to sit in the cosy bar area which was more casual.
Long Chim deserves plaudits for its cool choice in music – James Brown and bonafide funk when I was there – as some venues peddle soporific muzak that sounds like Michael Bolton taking a bubble bath on ketamine.
The menu, inspired by Bangkok street-food, had an inventive range of mouth-watering starters (spicy pork with rice cakes, Chiang mai larp of chicken, crunchy prawns) and mains (yam pan, deep fried whole fish, baked prawns).
Funky venue
There was also a two-course $36 lunch with a small range of dishes inspired by Bangkok’s bustling Silom district including grilled squid gorlae, beef massaman curry and vegetarian noodles.
With interest rates and utility bills on the rise, the set menu was a prudent option, but Ijust couldn’t go past the cured kingfish ($20) and sour orange prawn curry ($34) from the à la carte.
The service was great – polite and friendly without being intrusive or having that dreaded forced enthusiasm – and while my meal was being prepared I sipped sparkling water and tapped my foot along to Sex Machine.
I couldn’t help wonder how many Supreme Court judges had dined here, slurping their spicy curry while discussing the merits of a double homicide.
It wasn’t long before the waitress returned and I was tucking into cured kingfish with shallots and chillies, which looked like a work of art with the diced fish neatly scattered over vibrant green leaves.
Unfortunately the flavours didn’t live up to the presentation – I was waiting for that trademark sweet kingfish hit, but it didn’t materialise and the chillies seemed to overpower the fish, while the greens added a strange dry texture.
The ingredients were all super high quality, but somehow the flavours didn’t get airborne.
Thankfully the sour orange prawn curry was fantastic: the murky, fishy broth was teeming with spices and flavour, with a hint of orange complementing the wilted spinach, soft onions, flowering choy sum tomatoes and rice.
The fleshy tail-on prawns were juicy and perfectly cooked (no rubber bullets) and it was a delicious meal with a seriously fiery kick (the waitress warned me the dishes were spicy so maybe ask for the heat dialled-down if you have a delicate palate).
Long Chim is a funky basement venue and I could imagine hanging out there with friends, enjoying some drinks and spicy dishes from the Silom menu.
They also have a seperate “tuck shop” if you want takeaway lunch and don’t have time to sit-in.
I rest my case, your honour. Long Chim’s food speaks for itself.
Long Chim State buildings, Barrack Sreet and St Georges Terrace longchimperth.com
PERTH musician Gemma Farrell has been nominated for a humanitarian award for her tireless efforts for women and non-binary performers in jazz.
Farrell has been running the Young Women in Jazz Program since 2014, and at the height of the #metoo movement in 2017 formed The Artemis Orchestra, a welcoming home for non-binary and transgender professional musicians.
“The Young Women in Jazz Program is a judgement free space for female identifying students to learn about improvisation and try things out,” she says.
“Jazz is a very male dominated industry and if you’re one of only three girls in your school jazz band, that can be really daunting.
“In YWIJ we encourage the students to try things and not be afraid of making mistakes, it’s how they learn.
“With The Artemis Orchestra, I wanted to create a similar environment like YWIJ but for female, non-binary and transgender professional musicians.
“We exclusively perform the music of Australian people of marginalised genders and last year we launched our debut album to a sold-out audience.”
Farrell’s efforts have seen her shortlisted for the humanitarian gong in the Australian Women in Music Awards, and she’ll travel to Brisbane for the glitzy awards ceremony on May 18.
When Farrell’s not busy helping others, she’s doing what she loves best – playing jazz.
Her Gemma Farrell Quintet recently put the finishing touches to their second album The View from the Top; the title track a cute pop at the music industry.
“I was frustrated with the opinion of people who were successful in the jazz scene, thinking there is no problem with the gender gap,” the saxophonist says. “I spent a lot of time thinking about this issue and trying to make sure women are getting gigs and being thought of for things.”
Similar in style to their debut album, The View from the Top features contemporary jazzwith some funkiness and a few quieter tunes. Farrell says she didn’t experience second album syndrome.
“It didn’t feel difficult at all. I started working on these 12 tunes straight after Organised Chaos and once we had 12 unrecorded charts I started planning the recording,” she says.
“I think the main difference is that we’ve been playing together longer, and we know each other better musically and personally,”
Farrell says the live music scene is slowly getting back to normal after covid restrictions recently eased: “Things are getting better, but it’s still difficult. Venues like to book artists that do well in pre-sales, but audiences are reluctant to buy tickets because they worry that they might get covid themselves, or the show may be cancelled due to the artists getting covid,” she says. “Rehearsing is very fulfilling as well, but to me performing live gives me a goal to aim towards, as well as the enjoyment.
“When people have told me that they’ve enjoyed my music, that makes all the hard work worth it”
The Gemma Farrell Quintet will play a special launch gig for The View From The Top, with the Holly Forster Quintet supporting, at Lyric Lane’s Underground in Maylands next Saturday (May 14). Tix at oztix.com.au
LET’S face it, Bassendean used to have a pretty naff image.
Many thought it was like some cheap fanny pack strapped to the bulging gut of Bayswater with little sophistication or sense of excitement.
But in recent years there has been a reappraisal of the suburb, which has undergone a bit of a cultural renaissance and development boom.
Never more evident than in this luxurious two bedroom two bathroom apartment in the heart of Basso’s town centre, with lovely northerly views over Old Perth Road.
Normally you sacrifice a bit of space in an apartment, especially in the kitchen, but this has a super-sized one with lots of bench space and high-end stainless steel appliances.
The sense of space is enchanced by the high ceilings, neutral colour scheme and numerous north-facing windows, ensuring plenty of natural light.
And when you feel like some fresh air, but don’t want to get out of your pyjamas or maybe even your birthday suit, there’s a spacious balcony with enough room for a BBQ and a dining or lounge setting.
The apartment looks pristine with high-end finishes in all the living areas, bedrooms and bathrooms.
The main bedroom is especially impressive with a large walk-in robe.
The home includes ducted reverse cycle air-conditioning, separate built-in laundry, entrance hall, store rooms and two undercover secure car bays.
This 97sqm apartment is situated on the Old Perth Road, in the heart of Basso, with loads of cafes, restaurants and shops at your fingertips, and easy access to the local train station, parks and the Swan River.
The complex has only 40 apartments with secure intercom access and lifts.
Why not spread your wings and see what Bassendean has to offer; I’m sure the same apartment in the city would be about double the $400,000-odd asking price.
This abode could also be a good investment as the “inner-city” spreads further and further out, and we constantly reclassify where it begins and ends.
From high $400,000’s 304/85 Old Perth Road, Bassendean ACTON Mt Lawley 9272 2488 Agent Carlos Lehn 0416 206 736
• Mayor Filomena Pifferetti wants to deal with the budget shortfall “honestly and openly”.
CASH-STRAPPED Bayswater council will spend up to $50,000 figuring out why it doesn’t have enough money.
Concerns over the council’s long-term financial health were raised at a closed-doors workshop in March, and this week mayor Filomena Piffaretti moved to obtain “an independent detailed analysis of expenditure, revenue and financial management over the past five years … to understand the current financial situation” and determine “the causes of the predicted deficit position” for the upcoming budget.
The motion came after Perth Now published an article saying “leaked documents” from March’s workshop showed Bayswater was facing significant deficits for the coming budget, with more financial pain likely in the future.
Cr Piffaretti has been on council since 2017 but was voted mayor by a majority of councillors in October 2021, winning out over previous mayor Dan Bull.
The tone was tense in the chamber at the April 26 meeting where Cr Piffaretti presented her motion, with a sense the analysis might be looking to blame the former regime for the current financial position in the wake of the budget leak.
Cr Piffaretti said: “It’s time to deal with the problems and do so honestly and openly.
“That’s what an independent report will allow us to do.”
She said a bird’s eye viewwas needed of council decisions and assumptions “free from any perception that the city might be trying to justify itself or not be as transparent as possible”.
Cr Josh Eveson, who supported Cr Piffaretti’s bid for mayor, said“financial sustainability and planning for the future are the key reasons I became a councillor.
“Five years ago I raised concerns about the short-term view and questionable leadership focus being applied to ratepayer funds, and now I’m on council I’m privy to information that hasn’t made me any less concerned about what I had seen happening.
“Over the five years as my concern grew, I continued to see money spent on ‘nice to haves’…I essentially saw defunding of key services to help bridge this gap that was createdby this behaviour, which was very unsettling.”
He said the analysis was needed because “council needs to understand the causes, deeply consider solutions, and place the utmost focus on minimising the financial burdenon ratepayers, residents, and businesses”.
Cr Bull, who was mayor for four of the five years the analysis would look at, said it was odd to spend money on this new analysis when their finances were already scrutinised by the auditor general’s office.
He said it also was not unusual for the first look at the budget to project a deficit, as happened at the March workshop.
“The first cut of the budget always looks hard … you throw everything but the kitchen sink into the first cut of the budget, and then it’s up tous as councillors to work towards a balanced budget based on what we consider are the priorities for our community.
“That is our job, and this year is no different.”
The council’s finance staff, already operating on a skeleton crew, were concerned that compiling data for an independent analysis would be a distraction from preparing the 2022-2023 budget.
Cr Sally Palmer, a supporter of Cr Bull, said: “This is an investigation, and I don’t think it’s necessary. I think it’s utterly crazy to do this to our financial team… they’re short on staff.”
Ultimately councillors Lorna Clarke, Catherine Ehrhardt, Assunta Meleca, Elli Petersen-Pik, Michelle Sutherland and Piffaretti voted in favour of paying for the new independent analysis, with councillors Bull, Palmer, and Giorgia Johnson opposed.
The motion tasks the CEO with finding the $50,000 from “savings identified … in the 2021/2022 budget”.
Some councillors were still wanting to know who leaked the budget workshop documents to the press, but acting CEO Cliff Frewing had decided against an investigation because: “I have no evidence before me to suggest that the documents are confidential”.
• Some spraypaint, some budding Banksys and a whole lot of inspiration has turned one of Perth’s most boring walls into a dash of spectacular colour.
ARTISTS from all walks got together this week to slather some colour on one of the most boring walls in town.
The Melrose Street noise wall was until recently a slab of olive drab panels separating a slice of residential Leederville from the freeway traffic.
Last year the local town team Leederville Connect put in a project idea for RAC funding to liven it up and secured a grant to turn it into a canvas.
Artists from Blank Walls and HPM 6007 guided locals to get in on the painting, polishing off the florid design at the April 24 street party and giving the wall a bright new appearance.
Mills Avenue Park’s use as a depot and HQ has been averted. Photo by City of Bayswater
A PLAN to fence off partof a Bayswater park for a Metronet contractor’s office has been fended off after public outcry.
The state government’s Metronet team sent a letter dated April 14 to residents around Mills Avenue Park saying it was planning to fence off about 2000sqm as a construction HQ for Bayswater station contractor Evolve.
The HQ is currently occupying the rail corridor opposite Whatley Crescent, and the letter gave residents until April 22 to raise “any concerns or queries” about the relocation.
The letter said the playground and trees wouldn’t be impacted, but there’d be on-site meetings from 6.45am.
Bayswater councillor Giorgia Johnson embodied the frustration of a fair few locals over losing so much open space in an impassioned social media post about the proposal, and she sent a submission to Metronet to similar effect.
Cr Johnson said while an updated train station would be “nice to have … somehow it’s all gone wrong”.
“Bayswater is being hammered far beyond whatever benefit a replacement train station with nice toilets will bring,” Cr Johnson said.
“Every day and every week there’s more, and I can’t keep up with all of the road closures and changing pedestrian and cyclist access, the impact on our favourite small businesses in both Bayswater and Maylands, the noise, vibration, interruption, traffic chaos, the absolutely careless destruction of our roads, paths, benches, remaining trees and bike paths, the rubbish, the loss of parkland, the lossof our skatepark for a carpark, heartbreaking tree loss.”
The Metronet proposal would’ve stuck a project HQ (blue) and storage area (red) on the site.
Cr Johnson said the suburbs were being filled with “endless sand brought along by not just the train station build,” but
the accompanying airport and Ellenbrook train lines, the locally-unpopular closing of Caledonian Avenue to pedestrians, and other related projects.
“The place I love is being trashed. I am so sick of our public places and trees being treated as disposable. I am sick of our community’s feedback being ignored.”
This time, though, the weight of public feedback tipped the scales: Due to the overwhelming negative response, Metronet held off and is now seeking a new site.
The whole Metronet upgrade has handed Bayswater council’s control of planning in the project’s area over to the state government.
Bayswater council’s long-term economic development strategy, considered in draft form by councillors at the April 26 meeting, notes the Metronet upgrade “presents a range of future opportunities” with Bayswater set to become the second-busiest station after the Perth CBD stop.
But until then the agenda acknowledged prolonged disruption for the next few years, with the latest inconvenience imposed from above being an impending 18-month closure of Railway Parade from Bassendean Road to Clavering Road from June 2022 to December 2023.
A staff report to councillors advised to just grin and bearit, noting any refusal may lead the state to invoke their greater planning powers from their bespoke Railway (Metronet) Act 2018 and “facilitate the closure with a less favourable outcome for the community and the city”.
IN this week’s Speaker’s Corner, as Rebekah Dawson prepares to move house she pens a paean lauding all there is to love about Leederville.
WE are embarking on our next adventure, but I wanted to write a love letter to Leederville: To express how much I will miss you. And reflect on all of the walks; There wouldn’t have been a day where one, or all our family, didn’t walk along Oxford Street. For coffee, for wine, for the bus.
We had our first date at the Garden and fell in love with our cute townhouse from the first moment we saw it.
Once we walked down for the Leederville Street Festival and had a marvellous bucket of beers and cheese board at Cranked.
We used to religiously walk up to meet the gang at Oxford Hotel for Thursday members’ night. There was jumping on the bus to head into town, for Fringe.
We had so many date nights at Pappagallos. One time telling our favourite waitress there, Sara, we were going to have a baby.
I remember walking to mothers’ group with the pram around Britannia Oval. Walking up to the lovely doctors on Oxford Street for newborn. Wonderful mornings spent dropping Daddy off at the bus and taking the kids for a coffee and play out the back of Tentazione.
On occasion getting to escape for much needing ‘me time’ to my beautiful beautician Leannda at Bone Fide. I fell in love with yoga at West Coast Yoga. Walking down to have many many wines and cocktails at Roberts.
Recently walking with my son to kindy, hand in hand, while he walks on top of the brick wall outside of TAFE. Him loving walking down with Daddy for his hair cut with Adam at Oxford Street Barbers.
But most of all I will miss the community here. My neighbours — the most beautiful people you will meet. So many memories of street hangs and cheese and wine while the kids ride their bikes up and down the cul-de-sac.
We won’t be too far, but I will miss all the little things that come with living in this beautiful part of the world.
Activate Perth chair Angelo Amara with Perth state MP John Carey announcing funding to get people back in the city.
WITH mask mandates going and a new state government cash injection, there’s optimism this week that some life might soon return to Perth’s CBD.
Premier Mark McGowan announced as of April 29 masks were only needed for public transport, hospitals and care facilities.
Lord mayor Basil Zempilas said at this week’s council meeting he had good reason to be optimistic that’d help get people back to work in CBD offices.
“We know from the example in other capital cities that the mask mandate removal has made a big difference to the number of office workers coming back to the office,” he said.
“Melbourne’s example is perhaps the most relevant for us: 18 per cent office occupancy the month before the mask mandates came down, 60 per cent after the mask mandates came down, and in the most recent month that has continued to climb.
“So we’re very optimistic about numbers of people coming back into our city … we appreciateit’s been very difficult for some smaller businesses, and larger and medium businesses.”
Foot traffic
The next day on April 27 came a state government boon with Perth state MP John Carey announcing a $12m package to boost foot traffic in the CBD.
A third has been earmarked for grants of up to $100,000 each to help run live music, markets and street events.
Another $1m will go to the not-for-profit Activate Perth to get new startups and small businesses in vacant shop fronts, while $7m will go into trying to revitalise Yagan Square.
The square opened in March 2018 but it’s always had troubles, with many of the businesses in the main Market Hall moving out due to a lack of trade and nearby violence in the public square. At times it’s been like a fight club except everyone forgot the first rule. Now police are stationed there round the clock to fend off trouble, with another 175 extra cops in the Perth district incoming.
The $7m will include a revamp of the Market Hall, and hospitality operator Nokturnl are the state’s preferred proponent to give it CPR. They’re behind other big multi-venue hubs like The Old Synagogue in Fremantle, and the newish The Beaufort in Highgate.
Mr Carey said in the announcement: “This is a significant package that makes clear our government will support businesses in the city and Northbridge, and invest in getting people back in the CBD.
“The event grants are reallya blank canvas, and with up to$100,000 on offer, it is a fantastic opportunity for businesses to make use of vacant and empty spaces, to get people back into the city.
“We could see some really fantastic events being held, such as long table lunches alongside the river showcasing some of our state’s finest food and wine, and live music and artistic events in some unique locations in the city.
“My message to the community and to businesses is to make use of the funding, so we can activate the city and Northbridge and bring some vibrancy back into the CBD.”
Perth Voice Interactive 