Perth Voice Interactive

FULL plans for the apartments to be built on the old heritage-listed Lyric Theatre are now out for comment.

The plans for the seven-storey building show the developer Australian Development Capital proposes to demolish the roof, interior and parts of the theatre’s external walls, retaining most of the front facade and some of the other walls.

Bayswater council lists it as a “category 2” heritage building, stating “conservation of the place is highly desirable. Any alterations or extensions should reinforce the significance of the place”.

But the decision will be made by the state Development Assessment Panel.

ADC are asking for some leeway on the council’s planning rules (it’s seven storeys instead of the permissible six), saying it’s a high quality design that’ll liven up the area. Lyric Lane gets upgrades as part of the package, and will be co-located with a 262qm plaza forecourt. The plans include a tavern, restaurant, fast food outlet and two shops on the ground floor, and 52 apartments on the upper six floors.

The public comment period closes December 9, and plans are available in person at the council’s 61 Broun Avenue civic centre or at engage.bayswater.wa.gov.au (click the small “Development Applications” box). 

A BITE-sized Christmas Nativity play will return this year after Perth’s newly elected councillors overturned a decision of the city’s former commissioners.

Back in August commissioners resisted Christian lobbying and voted not to go ahead with the $330,000 two-night nativity because of its lack of draw power. 

It also squeezes the crowd into Supreme Court Gardens, and commissioners decided a five-night Christmas concert at Forrest Place would help spread people out in case Covid kicks off again (it’d also bring people closer to shops).

At the November 24 council meeting new lord mayor Basil Zempilas put up an urgent business motion calling for the reinstatement of the nativity.

He said he didn’t agree with the commissioners’ decision. 

“Christmas in the city. The Christmas Nativity. They go together. It’s not difficult. I’d like to see it reinstated,” he said. 

Some details were still fuzzy (including exact cost) when councillors voted, and the city’s community manager Anne Banks-McAllister told them it would be impossible to deliver a full scale event given the timeframe and budget. The procurement process for the similarly-scaled Christmas concert events, a legal requirement when local governments spend significant amounts of cash, took them nine weeks.

Councillor Viktor Koh asked the lord mayor: “Do you believe in miracles?”

Mr Zempilas replied: “I believe in us opening our minds, opening our hearts, and giving everything our very best shot. And if there is a way to make it happen, a way that is possible for us to make it happen in 2020, then I think we should go for it.”

Council endorsed his motion and after some quick toil by city staff over the last week it was announced on Tuesday that a small one-night event will be held on December 13 in Forrest Place. 

by DAVID BELL

Brookman Fountain pictured in a postcard, showing a dog wandering off after likely visiting the water bowl. 

HYDE PARK’S history and a splendid but long-forgotten fountain will feature in a walk and talk by two local researchers, with 2020 marking a century since the fountain was pulled down.

Long-term Highgate resident Rodney O’Brien has spent years delving into the park’s history, and is teaming up with garden history expert John Viska who’ll cover the botanical aspects of the walking tour. After many long and dusty hours poring over old letters, newspaper articles, surveyor’s maps and turn-of-the-century election material, Mr O’Brien has located the spot where a grand fountain once stood, having no rivals in the rest of Perth’s parks at the time.

Despite its grandeur, Mr O’Brien says “hardly anyone visiting the park today would know there was a fountain, and those who do wrap it in mythology”.

Back in 1899 one of the town’s most fabulously wealthy men WG Brookman was planning on running for Perth mayor at the next election, and donated ¬£50 of his own money for a fountain in Hyde Park.

Envy

Mr O’Brien says Brookman’s idea would have appealed to the growing population north of Perth.

Similar fountains had been built in parks in Victoria for the Queen’s 1887 Jubilee, and Mr Viska believes a bit of local ornament envy may have contributed to the desire to see some flowing water.

“WA has always has this inferiority complex,” he said, pointing to letters to the editor back in the day  decrying our scrubby, sandy parks and demanding ornamental gardens.

Swamp

It probably didn’t help that Hyde Park was still commonly referred to as The Third Swamp Reserve.

The fountain was erected in the central south of the park by February 1900, built by the Victorian fountain architectural modeller George Andrew Hastie Waugh.

It was a star attraction; a popular gathering point for families and couples, or children wanting to fish out the gold and silver fins, and true to the area’s dog-loving community today, the small drinking fountain attached even had a water bowl for dogs. 

Today, while metal detectors go wild at something under the ground, there remains no visible trace of the fountain. Mr O’Brien was finally able to pinpoint the location just last year, after coming across a hand-drawn map by surveyor HF Moody held in the State Records Office.

Even among the few who know about it there’s a popular falsity about its demise. They claim the fountain was iron, and it had to be melted down for The Great War effort.

After extensive research, Mr O’Brien says the story doesn’t hold water. 

He’s found letters from the time clearly stating the fountain was pressed cement, but it might’ve been given a false-ferric colouring by minerals in the water or the finish Waugh applied. 

The fountain did have some iron bands, but the timeline doesn’t match up for them to have been melted down either: The fountain was removed in 1920, after the war was over. 

Instead of being sacrificed to the war effort, the fountain’s inglorious end came about due to severe vandalism.

Vandalism

It had been a target years before, and Waugh was brought in to replace it. But a more severe attack in 1918 broke the pedestal.

Waugh was very ill by that time, and after his death in 1919 the council decided to remove the statue.

“It was removed in 1920,” Mr O’Brien says, “to where, we really don’t know,” but they continue their search to find more photos and details about the fountain’s life and fate. 

The walk marks the 100th anniversary of the fountain’s removal and will touch on other tales of the park’s past. All welcome and no registration required, just come along to the Lake Street entrance at 10am on December 12.

by DAVID BELL

AFTER five years’ dormancy a reincarnation of the Friends of Coolbinia Bushland has sprung up to take care of the Bradford Street remnant bush. 

In the years since the last group drifted away the spot’s become heavily overgrown with weeds like veldt grass, and the native vegetation including orchids has struggled.

The Friends group’s revival has been prompted after its overarching body the Urban Bushland Council of WA got some federal funding for community environment groups. 

They were able to get some professional weeding done to make a dent and over the past couple of months volunteers have been in training to identify and strategically remove the pernicious weeds. 

Biodiverse

FoCB’s Karen Lee tells us: “We had a really successful walk and talk in late August, where we had about 100 people in our community come and express an interest. 

A lot of them had never seen that bushland before, they had no idea how biodiverse it was,” Ms Lee said.

The little strip of Australiana has more than 90 species of plants, plenty of birds and a Noah’s Ark of other little animals making a home there.

“It was at a time when people were turning inward a bit, and thinking about how to care for places close to home.”

A core group went on get involved in land care training, guided by experts from the Urban Bushland Council. 

“We’ve weeded about 30 per cent of the bushland already, so that feels really good,” Ms Lee says. They’re “making space for the bush to flourish, for that diversity of species to be maintained, [and] for our community to know it’s there and to enjoy it and to coexist sustainably with the health of the bush”.

Mt Lawley state Labor MP Simon Millman headed along to their last weeding day for November and says “remnant bushland areas such as the one in Coolbinia are incredibly valuable to our community.

“We are fortunate to have these patches of bush in our backyard, and I’m very pleased the Friends group is up and running again.”

The group’s wound down its weeding days for the holidays, but they’ll be back in the bush and looking for more volunteers early next year. Follow them via the 

“Friends of Coolbinia Bushland” Facebook page, or their page at bushlandperth.org.au

Unpacking the Sannyasin aftermath

A NEW four-hour documentary which seeks to unpack the colourful and controversial Rajneeshee movement in Fremantle during the 1980s will premiere next month.

The Beloved is the latest work by filmmaker Joseph London, who grew up in Fremantle and had many childhood friends whose parents became devotees of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

London said the Sannyasins or Orange People were a “compelling mystery that remained in the fabric of the city” and 40 years later the issue still touches raw nerves.

“I think there is a lot of unresolved aspects of that history, because the movement came very strongly into the public focus, and a part of that was that they had a lot of backlash,” London said.

“There was a lot of bad press, particularly when the crimes of the leaders were exposed; many were put on the spot to justify what had happened, and many had difficulty doing that.”

Shock

He says the impact of removing children from their families and educating them at a school near Pemberton was still being felt today.

“That has been a lasting wound for the community to come to grips with because a lot of kids who were sent down there were too young, and many parents were recent annunciates and it was all a major shock to the system.”

The Sannyasins also ran a commune in Collie Street which collapsed under the burden of supporting the Bhagwan’s notorious Rolls Royce collection, sumptuous ranch in Oregon and growing scandals. London says devotees are still trying to work out what happened.

“Taking responsibility was a very powerful scene in the aftermath.

“Many didn’t take responsibility; I think there were many who viewed it as a challenge set up by their master.”

London says trying to understand the notion of being a disciple was the area of the film he found most intriguing and foreign.

“Discipleship frightens me because it’s such a surrender of yourself,” he says.

He said while some former Sannyasins were reluctant to see the issues brought to the surface, those who spoke to him were keen for an open dialogue.

Many also came away from the movement with profoundly positive memories.

Dynamic

“It was a huge experience, and so intense and so challenging that it’s impossible to have come out of that without having experienced a shift in yourself,” London says.

“They started the morning with dynamic meditation you could hear all the way up Collie Street.

“They did Kundalini meditation in the evening and they were charged and alive and there was parties.

“They were a happy and extroverted and eccentric presence on the city of Fremantle.”

Interspersed with archival footage are extended scenes of modern Fremantle, and the Sannyasins still have a lasting legacy in the Upmarkets and Norfolk Hotel which were built by a communal company – which employed women amongst its foreman which was a rarity back than.

But London says despite their high-visibility in the city, there were few photographs available to draw on because the one communal photographers images had all been lost, something he describes as “devastating”.

“They didn’t stop to take photos; it was all about being in the moment,” he says.

The Beloved will be having just a single screening as part of the Revelation Perth International Film Festival at Luna SX on Saturday December 12 from 11am. If four hours seems a long stretch, there will be intervals along the way. Tix from lunapalace.com.au

by STEVE GRANT

Chinese exports on hold over tensions

LOCAL rock lobster sales have taken off in Fremantle Harbour just as a Chinese trade halt has knocked the industry for six. 

Legislative changes introduced in September allow 100 lobsters to be sold from the back of crayfishing boats, and the experience has proven so successful local fisherman Fedele Camarda wants the number doubled to encourage more boats to participate.

On Wednesday almost 30 people gathered at Fishing Boat Harbour with bags and eskies in hand to greet Mr Camarda’s boat Neptune III as it came through the heads just after 11am. On board were three generations of the family boasting a haul of the big, clawless crustaceans.

Sold out

They quickly sold out, with those who hadn’t pre-ordered through the Western Rock Lobster Council website having to come back another day.

Mr Camarda, a board member of the council, says this is just an indication of the demand ahead.

“There is always demand in December,” Mr Camarda said.

“The way I’ve looked at it, I’ve always believed that we need to be able to sell to the public in December.” 

Any increase in Christmas sales will help to offset losses created by the escalating trade dispute with China, although Mr Camarda says thankfully his business hasn’t been affected critically. 

But lobster council CEO Matt Taylor said unless the full $700 million trade was resumed with China, “hundreds of family owned businesses in both countries may lose a valuable source of income and opportunity to economic growth”. Australia supplies over 90 per cent of China’s lobster demand.

The Chook bumped into Mr Taylor shortly after reports emerged from China that a $2 million shipment of lobsters had been held up by customs officers at Shanghai’s airport, although two-thirds were later released for delivery.

He said at the time the most difficult aspect was the lack of information on what was driving the delays, which resulted in all shipments to China being cancelled.

In a flurry of “export updates” to members, Mr Taylor said the council was “working hard behind the scenes to resume trade.

“We urge the Australian government to restore meaningful dialogue and communication with China in order to resolve the disruption to trade for Australian rock lobsters.”

Mr Taylor said the industry was looking to develop other markets in the meantime, but fishers “need to return to fishing in order to generate their income and support their communities”.

The next sale from Mr Camarda’s boat will be on Thursday December 3 from 10am in Fishing Boat Harbour.

ANCIENT Noongar Dreamtime stories, once sealed in the archives of the Battye Library, are set to be released in a collaborative effort to preserve Noongar language and culture. 

On December 2, the Humphries Reconciliation Project will launch a collection of books based on stories recorded by Ballardong elder Clifford Humphries between 1995 and a year before his death in 1998.

The first of Mr Humphries’ books, Aalidja Maali Yok Birrla-ngat Kor-iddny (Swan Woman Returns to her River) was illustrated by students from the Perth Waldorf School in Bibra Lake.

Project co-ordinator Elaine Meyer is a parent at the school and suggested to Mr Humphries’ family that it would make a good reconciliation project to involve the students, as well as provide a healing opportunity for the Noongar community.

Mr Humphries’ great grandson Donald Humphries ran workshops for the students, teaching them a Dreaming story which holds significant spiritual value for Noongars and addresses the importance of family in Indigenous culture. The students drew native flora and fauna for the illustrations.

Anthropologist and Indigenous researcher Tim McCabe lived with Mr Humphries and his wife Leticia in Kellerberrin and worked with Ms Meyer to create the Humphries Reconciliation Project.

Dr McCabe said Mr Humphries dream was to bring his and his wife’s language and traditions to his people and all the people of the South West of Western Australia.

With over 1000 copies available, the launch is expected to attract a variety of Noongar language experts. Ms Meyer hopes that their influence can lead to more cultural work within schools.  

The launch is being held at the Perth Waldorf School, 14 Gwilliam Drive, Bibra Lake, this Wednesday December 2 at 3.15pm.

by PIP WALLER

AN aspiring Young Matilda has just taken a big step towards her dream of representing Australia by the time she hits 16.

South Fremantle resident Sophia Brooks (13), who featured in the Herald six months ago urging young girls to give soccer a try, has just won a spot in an elite Football West program designed to unearth the next generation of Aussie stars.

“I got into the National Training Centre; it’s basically where they train girls for things like the Matildas and the Young Matildas,” Sophia said.

Her place as a “full-timer” will have come at someone else’s expense and Sophia says there’s no chance of cruising through now she’s in; every year participants compete for their place and those who don’t make the cut end up back at club level.

If commitment counts, she’s halfway there: “Before I came here I had done an hour of training,” Sophia says at her 9am photo shoot.

“Every morning I do 2,300 touches.”

That means running through a series of different skills, such as circling the ball around her legs or practising moves to fake an opponent.

Having a soccer-made dad who created a mini soccer pitch in the backyard also helps, so her before-school routine often involves slamming a few shots into the back of the net. Then there’s training four or five times a week with her local club Fremantle City Football Club, school five-a-side team the Flamboyant Tacos and the NTC.

Sophia wasn’t always so passionate about soccer and it took repeated urging from her school chums – who recognised her talent – to finally get her on the pitch.

“My brother started playing and I went down, but someone vomited at training so I hated soccer – really hated it – for years,” Sophia says.

But with a local role model to drive her on; “I look up to Sam Kerr, she is so good and so funny,” Sophia now has a big incentive to realise her goal.

“I want to play for the Matildas by 16 because that’s when the World Cup is in Australia,” she says.

by STEVE GRANT

BILLIE Jean King Cup captain Alicia Molik attended the inaugural Alicia Molik Schools Challenge at Robertson Park Tennis Club on Wednesday, with the former world number eight presenting the winning teams with their trophies. 

Unique to the history of international tennis in WA, the interschool mixed gender competition boasts a ‘team tennis’ format similar to that of the former Hopman Cup. A fitting acknowledgement which recognises Molik’s commitment to team tennis, the ‘Alicia Molik Schools Challenge’ was renamed in 2019.

Attuned to the unique offerings, Molik has fond memories of her experiences in team competitions claiming them to be amongst some of her greatest career highlights. Representing Australia in 22 Billie Jean King Cup ties, seven Hopman Cup events as well as representing Australia at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Molik’s team tennis experience spans more than two decades.

“Team competitions were a constant highlight of my career and something that I always looked forward to competing in,” Molik said.

“I was fortunate to play a great number of team competitions throughout my professional playing career and in my role as the Captain of Australia’s Billie Jean King Cup* team, I’m a huge supporter of this style of competition.

“The experience becomes as much about the tennis as it does about the mateship and that’s what makes team competitions so unique for tennis players who spend so much of their time just playing for themselves.

“When you compete with a team you work together to bring out the best in each other and win or lose that becomes a really powerful experience.

“I especially love that the Alicia Molik Schools Challenge will bring male and female players together and I look forward to seeing both the tennis and mate ship on court on Wednesday,” said Molik.  

Coordinated by Tennis West schools coordinator Jenna Sparkes, the event saw 19 teams from nine secondary schools compete for the inaugural title.

“We’re really excited to see so many school teams register for the competition and are thrilled to have Alicia Molik joining us,” Sparkles said. 

“What we most look forward to seeing is the comradery and mateship that goes hand in hand with these teams based events.”  

Played across two divisions, representative teams of students from years 7-10 competed in a round robin format comprising a girl’s doubles, boy’s doubles and mixed doubles match.