Perth Voice Interactive

THEY say local knowledge is best.

So when family friends invited us to a new pizza joint in Mt Pleasant, we jumped in the bat mobile and headed there toute de suite.

Situated close to the fish and chip shop on Gibson Street, Mastro is in a lovely suburban spot dappled in shade from gum trees and old houses.

The pizzeria opened in March, just when the first wave of covid hit, but it hasn’t stopped the owners building up a drooling customer base, and when we arrived there on Friday night the place was heaving with people dining-in and getting takeaway. 

No Italian twee here; the decor was contemporary and sleek with swish pendant lights, stylish tables and large bay windows letting in the evening breeze (more of a simoom on Friday).

The place had a lively buzz with staff, patrons and takeaway drivers doing a merry dance as the night unfolded.

Mastro has an extensive range of woodfired pizzas including all the old favourites, some nice seafood numbers, and a few sophisticated curve balls like Blackbuffalo with truffle pate. 

You could have the base gluten free for an extra $4.

They also did a small range of antipasto, wood-fired pasta, salads and desserts.

We got four pizzas to share and “Big John” reckoned the King Prawn Catch ($25) was the pick of the bunch.

“It’s got a lovely thin base with just the right amount of toppings — prawns are succulent and tasty, cherry tomatoes give acidic flavour, and the subtle red onion and garlic round off this highly enjoyable pizza.”

Across the table, Helen was enjoying the Starvo Supreme ($23).

“This has a great combination of fresh, tasty toppings including sugo sauce, cacciatore salami, capsicum and olives,” she noted.

“The savoury flavours blend well, resulting in a highly enjoyable pizza served piping hot.”

In between slices, we refreshed our palates with a greek salad ($10).

So often salads are limp disappointments in pizzerias, but this was a triumph with a light house dressing and a tasty mix of fresh ingredients including olives, feta and tomatoes.

The diavola pizza ($22) had a nice spicy kick with the fresh chilli and salami creating a mini Vesuvius in my mouth. 

The accompanying eggplant and roasted red peppers generated a complex mix of flavours, maintaining my interest for several slices.

At the other end of the table, my two young kids demolished a lovely looking margherita ($20) in record time. We had asked for no basil and the kitchen duly obliged.

I was really impressed by the quality toppings on Mastro’s pizza: no expense was spared with super fresh ingredients bursting with flavour.

These were top notch pizzas with thin, classic wood-fired bases.

Mastro is a lively, modern pizzeria with a great buzz and pizzas to match.

Mastro Pizza
30a Gibson Street, Mount Pleasant
http://www.mastropizza.com.au

ABOUT 2,000 people gathered in Forest Place on January 26 in support of changing the date of Australia Day – the biggest WA rally to date. 

The “Invasion Day” event took place alongside other Australia Day events in the city, highlighting the country’s competing perspectives. 

Premier Mark McGowan opened Australia Day by saying he didn’t think there was a clear enough consensus for changing the date, despite rallies across the country. 

Organisers and speakers at Perth’s rally travelled from as far as the Kimberley to speak about the injustices First Nations people face. 

These include high incarceration rates of Aboriginal men, “femicide” of Aboriginal women, land rights and the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in state care. 

“We worry about fracking, and we worry about our water,” one Kimberley elder told the crowd. 

“Soon there’ll be no country to go back to”. 

Elders on stage mourned the deaths of Aboriginal women killed since Australia’s colonisation. 

Noongar academic and co-writer of the 2020 case study “Indigenous femicide and the killing state”, Hannah McGlade, said modern society was built on the same colonial systems which sought to subjugate and harm Aboriginal women. 

Dr McGlade said this has created a culture in which violence against Indigenous women was able to prevail, unchecked and unnoticed. 

According to the case study she co-wrote, Aboriginal women are 17 times more likely to die from homicide than non-Indigenous women. 

Charmaine Thorne spoke about the mistreatment her family experienced through the media and judicial system while seeking justice for family member Stacey Thorne, who was murdered 13 years ago. 

She said the media’s use of bloodied images from the crime scene had been traumatic for the family and they did not feel supported by the courts. 

Stacey’s former partner Scott Austic was convicted of her murder, but he recently successfully appealed his life sentence. 

“Our family has not moved on and will not move on until [there is] justice,” Ms Thorne said.

by KELLY WARDEN

THE inner suburbs are being wooed with election cash from all sides, with a huge plan this week from the Liberal party to sink 500 metre of railway line to revitalise City West.

Liberal leader Zak Kirkup announced the plan with Perth Liberal candidate Kylee Veskovich, saying they’d sink the railway line between Mitchell Freeway and Thomas Street so the land could be developed, helping boost the CBD’s population.

They pledged $5 million to undertake detailed master planning, but the Liberals say much of the work could be paid for through a “Public Private Partnership” that could make it nearly cost neutral. 

“It’s an important difference to how the Labor governments operated over the last four years,” Mr Zirkup said at a January 25 press conference that was punctuated by the noise of unsunk trains passing by. 

“We have a vision to work with our friends in the private sector to unlock the potential for Perth. That’s the way it should be done, that’s the way that taxpaxers expect it would be done, in a way that’s financially prudent and fiscally responsible.”

Labor’s transport minister Rita Saffioti doesn’t buy that, saying selling off two hectares of land for private development would be lucky to net them $60m, while the overall project costs closer to a billion. 

But the concept has worked to fund big infrastructure projects in Sydney and Melbourne and has been touted 

as a good plan by the federal government’s Infrastructure Australia in the past, and the theory goes that the land price shoots upwards because of the new improvements.

An IA report on the concept says the Melbourne City Link (which cost $2b) improved the value of nearby land by $30b.

The Liberals also pledged  $10m for a Perth Events Fund for “inspiring” CBD events to liven up the city.

DESIGNS for a hefty high-tech addition to the East Perth train station site have been released for public comment.

The new seven-storey high “Metronet Public Transport Control Centre” will go on the carpark north of the gloriously brown brutalist Public Transport Centre, formerly known as the Westrail Centre.

Plans describe the new building as “an essential infrastructure project that will form the nerve centre of Perth’s rails system” by 2023, running the high capacity signalling needed for Metronet that allows trains to run closer together. The current system’s nearing obsolescence and requires big gaps between trains for safety because it just senses which fixed “block” of track a train is in, while the new system will precisely track their location and speed. 

The design of the heritage-listed 1976 building, ugly but beloved, will influence the new one. The brown building’s arrow-slit windows were designed to keep out the harsh western sun, and the new building will have similar but “finer and softer” angled screens. In contrast to the hard angles of the old building, the new building’s rounded edges are “inspired by historical rail designs” and meant to reference the round front of an old steam engine. 

Because of the hefty price tag the decision to approve will be made by the state-government led Development Assessment Panel instead of the council. 

Just over 60 public car bays will go to make way for the new building, a significant hit given they’re currently almost all utilised according to the plans. There’ll also be a very slight shortage of staff parking bays under Vincent council rules, but because it’s classified as “public works” and on a crown reserve those rules don’t apply (and the designers reckon it’ll be easy to get to by train, since it’s at a train station).

Decent review

While the council will be bypassed the design did get a decent review from the Office of the Government Architect, in contrast to the OGA’s scathing assessment of the PTA’s other big project recently, the Bayswater train station redevelopment.

For this one the OGA’s pretty happy, giving a rubber stamp of support in 7 out of 10 categories with “pending” marks for the other three. The OGA wants small improvements to landscaping, details on the public art to be installed on site, and also wants a better sustainability rating (it says the planned four star rating is “inadequate for a government building of this significance” and they should really hit five). 

Full plans are up for comment at imagine.vincent.wa.gov.au until February 9, with the DAP likely to decide on it in March.

THEATRE-LOVING City of Perth councilmen have been asked to withdraw from the Perth Theatre Trust board to avoid giving it a testosterone overdose.

The state government sets a target of a 50/50 mix of guys and dolls on government boards and the trust table is already a little gentleman-heavy, with three men and two women, even before the city’s representatives come on board. 

But no one informed Perth councillors of the gender quota and they inadvertently nominated three male councillors last year ‚Äî Liam Gobbert, Clyde Bevan and Victor Ko. 

That would’ve meant a six-man two-woman board, so arts minister David Templemen told the City of Perth to send more women. 

Quota

At the January 19 special council meeting lord mayor Basil Zempilas said the three councillors were 

“thespians of some note, and people who had a genuine interest in being on this particular board”. But “we’ve been notified that our three males going forward doesn’t suit the purposes of the 50/50 quota split. 

Cr Ko decided to withdraw after being the last nominated as a result of a vacancy popping up in December, but Crs Bevan and Gobbert wanted their November nominations to stand. 

Crs Di Bain and Sandy Anghie have also now nominated, and rather than have to vote between Crs Ko and Bevan the council decided to send off four nominations and let the minister pick his cast. 

The Trust runs venues including His Majesty’s Theatre and the State Theatre and board members are paid $460 for an average three-hour meeting (six a year). 

The PTT Act from 1979 says there has to be three Perth councillors 

on the board, but an updated bill wending its way through parliament will replace the PTT with a broader “Arts and Culture Trust” that has no provision for council representation.

by DAVID BELL

ELECTION promises have started flowing and urban bushland’s looking like a potential winner.

Incumbent Mt Lawley Labor MP Simon Millman has announced the Friends of Coolbinia Bushland will get $5,000 for their battle against veldt grass and other weeds, as well as volunteer engagement if Labor is returned at the March 13 state election. 

Nearby, the Friends of Inglewood Reserve have been pledged $8,000 for equipment and stock for weeding and re-planting natives, in a joint election promise from Mr Millman and neighbouring Maylands MP Lisa Baker.

VETERANS advocate and former federal MP Graham Edwards is turning his attention to homelessness, becoming the first patron for East Perth’s St Bart’s. 

Mr Edwards, a wounded Vietnam veteran, was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his advocacy for veterans and people with a disability. Labor MP for Cowan from 1998 to 2007, he’s also a former Stirling councillor, past president of the WA branch of the RSL, and was chair of the Australian Paralympic Committee for WA.

He’ll now be fighting for St Bart’s aims of providing accommodation and services for people who are homeless or going through mental health struggles. 

In a statement Mr Edwards said: “I am extremely excited and motivated by my appointment as St Bart‚Äôs patron. I have met with the dedicated crew who work for St Barts. Their level of commitment to the clients is inspirational.

“The board members are well qualified and professional in their approach to the issue and diligent in their pursuit of resolving homelessness in WA. 

I am keen to work with staff and the board in support of their endeavours.”