Perth Voice Interactive

A STAFF culture survey at Perth council last July showed most employees would warn others against taking up a job there.

The “Cultyr” scorecard was conducted just before state-appointed commissioners left; the result’s worse than during a tumultuous 2017. 

Among the dozens of questions, a “promoter” score measures how likely they are to recommend the city as a good workplace to a friend. 

In the mid-2017 survey (taken as former lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi’s misconduct trial dragged through the courts) the score was -32. It dropped to -51 in 2019 as the state inquiry was in full swing and commissioners were drastically overhauling operations. 2020’s report rates it only barely better at -46. 

The score subtracts the number of employees warning people off from those a bit more positive. Women were notably less likely to recommend working there than men (-50 compared to -28). 

Most employees didn’t blame the commissioners, saying their behaviour had started strongly and kept improving.

But they wanted more encouragement from senior staff, training, career progression, appreciation and respect.

Staff reckoned the workplace was getting better in most areas and the executive were now working together. 

Despite not recommending it to others, more than half (55 per cent) still thought it was a good place to work. 

Lord mayor Basil Zempilas, elected after the survey was complete, said: “We know there is a lot to do and as part of the new leadership I will be working with councillors and the CEO to build the culture and ensure accountability of our city.”

A new survey’s due to start this month as required by the inquiry. It includes councillors for the first time.

by DAVID BELL

IT had to happen: A locally produced video game has captured Perth during its Covid lockdown madness.

The retro-style Sonny Yang’s Incredibly Inconvenient Pandemic Game was made by Perth comedians Yang and Alice McCullagh (Alice Mack on stage) and features a protagonist struggling with crowded shops, closed pubs and a toilet paper shortage.

It’s an old school throwback to 90s adventure games like Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max Hit the Road, but with the action taking place in and around Beaufort Street and the CBD.

At last year’s Fringe festival Yang performed a surreal live show featuring his “Incredibly Stupid Adventure Game” where the crowd could yell out suggestions on where to wander and who to pick a fight with.

Comedy

The comedian was planning to perform it at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, but that got canned along with the rest of the comedy scene as venues closed for Covid. 

The pair stayed indoors instead and programmed this Covid-safe version, nabbing some funding from Vincent council’s Covid arts relief grants.

Yang says he was working on an entirely different story for a downloadable chapter of his Fringe show “when COVID reared its ugly head and inspired me to change the plot to be relevant to contemporary events.”

McCullagh says: “I saw Sonny’s original show at Fringe last year. I thought it would be really fun as an online game. At the time, we were both super busy with other comedy projects though. 

“Then, Covid-19 came along, which gave us both a lot of free time, and I think also made me more passionate about creating a form of comedy that could be enjoyed entirely online.

“For a while, I’ve wanted to work on a project that combines my ‘day job’ (computer programming) with the stand up comedy I do for fun. 

“Obviously, due to Covid-19 restrictions, there aren’t so many opportunities to do live comedy. 

“While luckily a lot of venues are back open in Perth, there isn’t really the option to travel and perform material in other cities. So, doing a comedy video game seemed like a great way to keep making funny, creative things and also get them out to a wider audience.”

The game takes about 20 minutes to play through if you’re familiar with the strange puzzle logic of 90s games, and during that time you’ll likely end up in the Mount Lawley Hospital about 35 times. 

It’s thick with strange and comic encounters in familiar places, and encounters with a mix of slightly-assistive and deeply, comically unhelpful characters.

“I wanted to make a game about the pandemic that dwells on all the minor personal inconveniences people have faced rather than focusing on any ‘big picture’ issues,” Yang says.

The game’s free to play at http://www.pandemic-game.com.au and Yang’s Incredibly Stupid Adventure Game is at Fringe February 5, 6, 11 and 12, tickets via fringeworld.com.au

by DAVID BELL

A DISPERSED and diverse series of events across five days will replace Perth’s cancelled Australia Day Skyworks.

In November, Perth’s new councillors took heed of WA chief health officer Andrew Robertson’s advice and cancelled the Skyworks due to the risk of having huge crowds packed together for a few hours and uncertainty about WA’s Covid status. The call was made early so not too much cash would be sunk into the $2.2 million event, but about $250,000 of “unrecoverable” cash had already been spent on planning and contracting according to a report. 

Perth has never publicly considered cancelling Australia Day festivities as Fremantle council did over concerns about Aboriginal sensitivity, but this year it has put Indigenous events at the forefront, opening with Shining the Light: The Story of Us, a light and water projection at Elizabeth Quay.

It tells the story of this area’s Whadjuk Nyoongar traditional owners, with narratives of courage and resilience during the colonial times.

It’s got the endorsement of the council’s Elders Advisory Group, with elder Noel Nannup saying in a statement: “If we are going to have genuine healing, we need opportunities like these to tell our story so we can have the best possible chance for genuine healing and this will take us to a much stronger future.”

The yearly Birak Concert celebrating Aboriginal cultures will also still go ahead on the afternoon of January 26 at Supreme Court Gardens, and there’s a couple dozen other free events running across January 22 to 26 listed at visitperth.com/ausdayfest

by DAVID BELL

MORE than 50 greyhounds and allied dogs had walkies around Hyde Park on Sunday January 10 in support of a campaign to phase out the racing industry by 2025.

The walk was hosted by racing abolitionist group Free the Hounds and supporter Greens upper house MP Alison Xamon.

The number of racing dogs injured or killed has dropped in recent years, but Ms Xamon says it still has to end as no reforms will eliminate all suffering: 

“Greyhound racing is a fundamentally cruel industry based on exploiting animals simply for the sake of gambling profits,” she said.

Speaking to attendees Ms Xamon said it was “no longer be considered an acceptable form of entertainment.  

“It also says volumes that when Florida recently voted to outlaw gambling on greyhound racing it effectively signalled the death knell for the industry.

“This is not a hobby, it is animal cruelty to support the gambling industry.”

Industry authority Racing & Wagering WA states one of its goals is to “uphold the highest standard of animal welfare” and its annual report for 2019/20 says deaths dropped that financial year. 

One reason was WA’s injury rebate scheme, where some track injuries attract a government subsidy for the vet bill. 

It’s meant to deter owners from killing injured dogs to save on vet expenses, and last year had its cap increased from $1,200 per injury to $3,500. 

Since then euthanasia due to injuries has dropped by more than half, but still 19 injured dogs were killed last financial year, and 17 retired greyhounds were euthanised.

by DAVID BELL

EX-PERTH lad Jason Chatfield has won the ComicOz award for Best Australian Original Comic for 2020 for his cautionary coronavirus comic.

The former (and still occasional) Voice cartoonist, now living it up in corona-central New York, penned the multi-page toon back in April after contracting the virus. It depicts a hellish experience lying about for more than a week, often too sick to stand. 

He wrote it as a warning for people to take the pandemic seriously, back when some were still downplaying the threat.

The ComicOz award has been around for 10 years every January 5, marking the birthday of Australian comic icon Monty Wedd. The winner is chosen by ComicOz editor Nat Karmichael, who described the process as “carefully considered and serious, and also totally subjective”.

Chatfield tells us: “Knowing the absurd volume of quality Australian comic art that came out this past year, I can only say I demand a recount. In all states.”

Chatfield also draws Ginger Meggs, and is the fifth artist to work on the longest-running Australian comic strip which is coming up to its centenary later this year. He’s also built a following as a stand-up comedian.

His full corona comic is up at: https://www.jasonchatfield.com/coronavirus

by DAVID BELL

TRAFFIC will be diverted from North Perth Common for 12-months as Vincent council tries to get the drastically underpopulated public space working.

The $1 million public square at the corner of View and Fitzgerald Streets was opened mid-2019 to address a shortage of casual hang-out space on the pedestrian-unfriendly strip.

But apart from some organised events like yoga days, the native plant sale or December’s Young Makers Christmas Market, it’s a rare sight to spot anyone sitting there. 

Local walking and bike riding advocate Andrew Main wrote to the Voice last year saying that was no surprise, as it was “next to a noisy, polluted main road [Fitzgerald Street], with a busy road [View Street] cutting through the middle”. 

Prangs

The corner’s also had its share of prangs: There were 14 reported accidents at the corner since 2015.

The council’s now going ahead with a plan to extend a median strip on Fitzgerald Street and prevent right turns into View Street for 12 months. Mr Main warned it would push traffic onto residential streets but council-appointed traffic consultants reckon diverted traffic will be “acceptable”. 

The part-closure will cost $10,000 and in February the council will ask residents and businesses on whether to include slow points in nearby streets like Alma Road, with a decision due March.

By DAVID BELL

AN old photo tucked away in the back of a drawer has revealed a stark West Perth of 50 years ago. 

Ian Hale owns The Backlot cinema down in the former industrial wedge of the suburb now known as the Pickle District. He was first given the photo by neighbour Andrew Kailis shortly after moving in back in 2014.

Amidst the chaos of moving in and starting up a cinema, Mr Hale says “I lost it, and I was devastated because I’d wanted to get it framed”.

But last month he noticed “my drawer in the bar wouldn’t close properly. I thought I’d have to get someone to come in and get it fixed”.

With a bit of perseverance he opened the drawer and discovered the photo tucked in there, and after sharing it on his social media channels it brought in a flood of nostalgia.

The 1970s photo shows the Kailis household – still standing to this day – along with a neighbouring house removed for a warehouse some years before the cinema moved in. 

The lush park behind The Backlot is barren, and the roads are almost entirely empty of cars. 

The district had been built up during the 1950s, but over time new roads came through, then the overpass and freeway were built nearby and by the 1970s it was just those two houses standing. In the past five or so years it’s started a new life as an arts neighbourhood hosting galleries including Stala Contemporary and the Holmes à Court Gallery and redubbed The Pickle District.  

Mr Kailis says the house has been in his family for 70 years and the photo was given to him by his aunt. It had appeared in the defunct Daily News back in the 1970s under the headline “Little House on the Prairie”. He says a figure in front of the cottage in the photo may be his mother, and he’s now hoping to unearth a copy of the article.

Mr Hale’s since had the photo framed (it definitely won’t slip behind a drawer now), and Mr Kailis has his own version blown up and block mounted to remember what the suburb used to be.

By DAVID BELL