CARS queuing for Covid tests are clogging Mount Hawthorn.

The long lines have left residents unhappy with the noise, blocked driveways, and pollution from cars idling near their homes. 

The testing clinic is on Oxford Street, but to avoid causing chaos at the street’s busy intersections drivers have been directed to queue on the other side of the block, on residential Fairfield Street.

Resident Sophie Fernandez delivered a petition to Vincent council this week, saying locals’ wellbeing was suffering and they were “against the continued use of our street for Western Pathology Diagnostic’s drive-through Covid testing clinic.

Ignored

“We feel we have been consistently ignored, and there has been a failure to manage the site in an appropriate, timely, and sustainable manner by Western Diagnostic Pathology, City of Vincent, and the state government.”

Ms Fernandez said signs and traffic management weren’t solving the issue.

But it’s been tricky to pin down who can help them.

Ms Fernandez says the state public health emergency operation centre hand-balled responsibility for approving and monitoring private clinics to local governments, but when Vincent checked it was told it had no power at all. 

“This is something that has been granted planning approval by the state government exemption for Covid-related health, under state emergency management orders,” mayor Emma Cole said.

Those orders are valid until May 2023.

“This high caseload has really started to have an impact on residents, where residents are experiencing queuing traffic with engine noise, talking on mobile phones, shouting, car horns, driveways being blocked, residents unable to leave their homes, and concerns over air pollution due to car fumes,” Ms Cole said.

Vincent CEO David MacLennan has written to WA’s chief health officer Andy Robertson asking for the health department take the Covid clinics’ impact on residents into consideration.

Council rangers also met with the clinic’s traffic managers and Ms Cole said there’d been some improvements. 

“We have also asked to meet with Western Diagnostic to see if we can work with them to change the operating hours, and also work with them to help identify an alternative location.

“I sincerely appreciate the impact this is having on residents … I understand this is really reaching the point of frustration. We are working with you and we’re doing what we can within the power of our control.”

They’re hoping to have a response by the chief health officer and a report on what else they can do by next month’s meeting.

No idle health concern

COVID’S bad for your lungs, but long lines of idling cars waiting for a test will inevitably cause damage too. 

While long lines have become a common sight in Perth streets during the Covid-era, overseas many cities are banning idling engines around sensitive spots like school pickup zones.

Following a coroner’s inquest in 2020, nine-year-old Londoner Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah became the first person in the UK to have “air pollution” listed as the cause on her death certificate. She had asthma and died in 2013, and the coroner’s report says “the principal source of her exposure was traffic emissions”.

An estimated 4000 Londoners per year die from toxic air pollution stemming from cars, wood burners, and machinery on industrial sites. 

Last year a Victorian parliamentary inquiry found “it is highly likely that [discretionary idling] has the potential to cause harm, both in the short and long term” and recommended the government consider laws against it. 

Here in WA the state environment department says “it is more efficient to turn off your car and re-start it, than to be idle” when stopping for more than 30 seconds, but there’s been no moves to enforce it beyond that polite advice.

by DAVID BELL

Parents up in arms

CITY parents say they’ve been left in the lurch after Perth council decided to shut the Citiplace Childcare Centre without first consulting them.

The 33-year-old centre will close in September following a behind closed doors decision by councillors on March 29. The item was opaquely titled “service review”.

The review was not good: The centre runs at a “significant loss” to the city, and there’s competition from increasing numbers of privately run centres nearby.

Families are now petitioning the council to keep the centre open.

No consultation

Former councillor Reece Harley’s son has been going to the centre for four years.

He says there was no consultation with parents or centre staff.

“The wonderful educators, with decades of experience, have been left in puddles of tears,” Mr Harley said.

“Families’ plans have been upended, needing to find alternative care for a short period just a few months before Christmas.”

Mr Harley says all the parents he’s spoken to support raising fees to keep the centre viable, which the council would’ve known if it had consulted first.

“One hundred per cent of surveyed parents agreed to increase daily fees from $135 to $145 or up from $550 to 600 a week for the full-time rate.”

Mr Harley says while there are other childcare centres in the city, Citiplace is unique in providing an hourly creche, while it’s also qualified to look after infants. 

Lord mayor Basil Zempilas said there was no longer the same demand as when the centre opened.

“In the city, we are lucky to have many options,” he said. 

“In fact, a recent report into childcare across Australia recognised Perth City was one of six areas in Western Australia which had enough places to meet demand.”

The centre is used by 53 families. It’s the cheapest in the city at $550 a week, with others starting around $700, and it’s not easy to get a place.

Work from home

Last week Mr Zempilas implored city workers to stop working from home and come back to the CBD.

Mr Harley says about half the families he’s spoken to indicated if the centre closes “they’d elect to work from home instead”.

Parents were seeking a face to face meeting with the council but hadn’t heard back as the Voice went to print.

by DAVID BELL

THE nasty tree-killing polyphagous shot-hole borer has been spotted in Hyde Park, infesting at least five trees so far.

The mysterious insect’s origin was unknown but it was first identified attacking Sri Lankan tea plantations in 1868.

WA kept the tiny bug out of our borders for a long while but it was first reported in East Fremantle in August 2021 when resident Joanne Taggart spotted unusual insect damage in branches that’d come down in a storm. 

It sent government biosecurity agencies onto high alert and they removed the box maple tree right down to its roots, but sightings of the bug quickly popped up in neighbouring suburbs. 

The “polyphagous” part of their name means they chew into almost any tree, eating their way in and farming fungus for food. 

Their favourite fungus food Fusarium causes dieback and tree death in susceptible species, and the WA agriculture department fears if the pest gets a foothold it’ll be bad news for native vegetation, amenity trees and the fruit and nut industry.

With the bug’s telltale tiny holes spotted in Hyde Park’s trees the ag department will prune branches from five affected trees, and traps have been set up to see if there’s more shot-hole borers flying around and trying to spread.

Hyde Park has many trees listed as “high risk” by the ag department, as they’re particularly susceptible to being turned into fusarium farms by the shot-hole borer, including plane trees, oaks, jacarandas.

As the bug has spread, a quarantine area has been declared across 17 local government areas stretching from the northern edge of Stirling, down to Cockburn, and from the coast to Canning. No wood can leave the area unless it’s been chipped down to pieces less than an inch across, and living plants can’t be moved unless their stems are less than 2cm.

The department’s calling for anyone who spots the shot-borer or its tiny bore holes to call 9368 3080 or use the MyPestGuide app to report, as Ms Taggart did back in August.

The borer, scientific name euwallacea fornicatus, is just 2mm across, shiny, black, and has a big rounded head. 

by DAVID BELL

A LONG-AWAITED wall will now be built at Beatty Park Reserve to prevent flooding of nearby homes, following a years-long campaign by residents.

Homes just north of the reserve were flooded in the bad storm of 2010 when drains couldn’t cope, and water’s threatened properties in some of the rainier years since (Voice, April 2, 2022).  

In 2017 Vincent council commissioned an expert report costing $25,000 on how to prevent future flooding. The report recommended extending a retaining wall and fence, which would slow water to give the drains time to cope and also keep leaves and other debris from blocking the grating. 

The council budgeted cash for the wall, but instead ended up spending $260,000 on other mitigations like upgrading the pipe network. 

The wall dropped off the agenda at some unknown point and now Vincent staff advised it wasn’t needed anymore since homes didn’t flood during the heavy rains of 2021.

Homeowner Steve Burke told this week’s council meeting the only reason houses didn’t flood is because he and other residents spent many hours clearing out the drains, and even installed $750 worth of sandbags between the park and homes to slow the flow last year.

Councillor Ron Alexander moved a motion to overturn the staff recommendation and instead build the wall recommended by the 2017 expert report.

“We’ve all probably seen that video of, basically, a river coming off Beatty Park… it certainly shouldn’t be inundating local residents’ properties,” Cr Alexander said.

He held up last week’s Perth Voice, citing “residents spending $750 to sandbag their own properties, which I suspect would have been inundated if they hadn’t done that”.

Cr Alexander, who’s new to council since his October 2021 election, said “this is a project that’s been delayed and delayed and delayed, and I think it’s now time for some action”.

Fellow newcomer to council Cr Suzanne Worner agreed: 

“The current situation at Beatty Park has been festering for over a decade with promises made, undertakings given, some work progressing, and nothing yet really resolved.

“And yet it’s quite clear via the witness reports, photographs and videos that properties at the rear of Emerson Street have experienced flooding issues and risks still remain.”

Councillors unanimously supported the motion to go ahead and build the wall without further delays or extra reports, and it’s now due to be raised in time for winter.

Mayor Emma Cole flagged a need for a future city-wide survey to look at how their drains will cope with increasingly frequent big storm events.

It’s a concern shared by neighbouring Nedlands council, which recently did a study modelling flood risks and found it needed to spend about $2.45m upgrading 40 drains in at-risk streets.

“I think we really need to look at our drainage system and network in the context of climate adaptation mitigation,” Ms Cole said.

“We have a series of wetlands and high water tables in certain areas around our wetlands, and we did have significant flooding in Mount Hawthorn linked to Lake Monger; we have significant flooding near the Leederville tennis club. This is something that we do need to consider and get on top of.”

by DAVID BELL

FORMER Perth councillor Keith Yong has been charged with giving false evidence to a royal commission over his testimony during the 2019 City of Perth inquiry.

WA Police charged Mr Yong (also known as Yit Kee Yong) over his evidence at hearings on August 5 and 6 when the inquiry was looking into vote manipulation and possible “sham leases” set up for the purposes of gaining extra votes. 

Police allege Mr Yong “gave false testimony to the inquiry panel in relation to communication between him and the returning officer of a previous City of Perth election”. The inquiry carried the same powers as a royal commission.

Mr Yong was on council from 2013 to 2017.

Mr Yong’s sister Angie Wong was also charged with giving false evidence during private inquiry hearings in March. Police say her “testimony related to a corporate lease which enabled nominated persons to be ‘corporate voters’ in a City of Perth election.

“During the course of giving the testimony the woman referred to a lease arrangement. It will be alleged after providing that testimony the woman went home and created a false lease document and backdated it by several years. 

“It will be further alleged the woman provided the false document to the inquiry panel the following day to support the testimony she had given the day prior.”

Mr Yong and Ms Yong were briefly in Perth magistrates court on April 5 and released on bail ahead of the next court appearance in May.

The inquiry referred 23 people to state and federal authorities for potential prosecution but little has come of the referrals so far. Charges were laid, but later dropped, against former councillor Jim Adamos. 

Tightening the laws to prevent sham leases are one focus of impending council reforms by the state government.

by DAVID BELL

Many offices are still empty as big businesses and even some government departments continue remote work arrangements, despite premier Mark McGowan last week saying “people should keep going to the office, going to work, and keep taking basic precautions to stay COVID-safe”.

Hospitality businesses are especially struggling from a lack of coffee-chugging and sandwich-snaffling city workers. 

Last week Mr Zempilas urged CBD office workers to get back behind their desks, saying their city needed them.

At the March 29 council meeting he put up Perth council staff as exemplars leading the way back to the office.

“I wanted to acknowledge also all of our staff who continue to lead by example and come in to work on a regular basis. 

“Nobody should be shocked by that statement, I know, but in our community it’s absolutely fabulous and I want to thank CEO Michelle Reynolds and every member of the staff down, particularly those who operate out of this building. 

“I want to thank all of our staff for leading by example and I note that in some sections of our local government community here in Perth some local governments are actually closed. 

“You can’t enter their buildings. There is no one in there. And clearly, the example that we are looking for is the one that’s being set here and I want to thank everybody for coming to work.”

He said some local businesses were starting to get bookings again from tourists now that borders had opened and the Covid peak neared.

In response to city business’ continued struggles, last month the council launched a “Bounce Back” plan to hand out quick grants worth up to $5,000 for those impacted by covid, and they’re also trialling cheap day-time parking and free night-time parking in an effort to get things lively again.

Mr Zempilas said this week the grants had been working out so far and “$30,000 has been approved to 12 businesses and we’re working through more applications as quickly as possible”, and they’d extended the application period for the first round.  

by DAVID BELL

A WAR graves researcher has called for an inquiry into the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board after finding out more than 100 Anzac graves, including a handful of Voicelanders, have lost their headstones to “renewal” at Karrakatta Cemetery.

Gavin Wilkinson discovered the missing headstones while searching for the grave of his great uncle, Pte James Burrows, who’d fought in WWI with the 11th Battalion but died in 1925 after succumbing to his battle injuries.

When he couldn’t find it, he contacted the MCB who said the Australian Imperial Forces granite headstone had been “renewed”.

“Cemetery renewal is the process of redeveloping existing cemetery land to accommodate new burials… the surface area is altered; however, no remains are disturbed during the process,” the MCB justified. 

Mr Wilkinson contacted the Office of Australian War Graves to find Mr Burrow’s commemoration had been moved from Karrakatta to the Garden of Remembrance at the Perth War Cemetery. 

“I visited James’ gravesite and found it a sand patch. After a three-year battle with bureaucracy, it was reinstated with an AIF granite headstone in 2020,” Mr Wilkinson said. 

To Mr Wilkinson’s shock, he discovered the headstones of decorated war heroes and ordinary diggers, much like Mr Burrows’, had also been “re-purposed” to clear the way for new burials at Karrakatta. That was despite an Australian government and MCB promise in 1922 they would be kept “in perpetuity”.

Included in the list are Anzacs John Charles Scarlett, Gordon Ronald McTaggart, William Henry Turbett and Edward James Massey who lived around the Perth city.

“In the main, the hundreds of war graves at Karrakatta are now protected but there is no guarantee. Right now, we are lobbying the state government to place regulations in the 1986 Act to permanently protect the graves,” Mr Wilkinson said.

Authorised by the West Australian Cemeteries Act 1986, this legislation legally empowers the MCB, who controls Karrakatta, to remove headstones via the renewal process. 

Air rights

The MCB also sells the “air rights” of the walkways to people, allowing adjacent plots to be bought and monuments to be erected across two plots, including the walkway. 

“In some instances, the soldier is buried under the new monument to another person. There are soldiers buried under footpaths, walls, and even in garden beds. It is very disrespectful how they have been treated,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“These graves will require the MCB to re-landscape and reinstate the graves and they haven’t yet committed to this, but we are working on it.”

According to Mr Wilkinson, a review of the legislation governing cemeteries is the only way to hold the MCB accountable on put a halt on future redevelopments.

War graves aren’t protected by law WA, although the Geneva Convention requires them to be marked, respected, and maintained.

And though the bodies themselves aren’t being moved, Mr Burrows believes they’re at the whim of the development around them and he wants their headstones returned like his great uncle’s.

“If they can be reinstated … I believe they will be. However, we have soldiers’ whose war graves have now been surrounded by four new graves. This means that the only option to provide these soldiers with a respectful grave is through reinterment. However, it could be difficult because of the four new burials that surround them,” Mr Wilkinson said.

“It is not legally binding and MCB has the final say. The process is a cash grab. They have been using a loophole so that they can maximise the number of new gravesites and revenue they get from selling new ones,” Mr Wilkinson said.