Perth Voice Interactive

PROTECTING Perth’s Christmas lights and making families feel safer could cost an extra $100,000 this year.

Perth council staff have asked for the extra money to try and boost attendance along the city’s Christmas light trail, saying “bored families” might be encouraged back for some Christmas shopping if they felt safer.

It would also help protect the council’s $1 million investment in Christmas decorations, with one of its giant baubles ripped open by vandals last year.

Vandals

The city’s $1.4 million Christmas/New Year Retail Boost Plan said the extra protection for 40 nights could be additional security patrols or a beefed-up police presence.

It would “reduce the impact of anti-social behaviour on visitors” and counter vandalism, while helping traders by countering “negative media coverage and messaging”.

The plan targets four “psychographic groups” the city is trying to attract; culture lovers, city socialisers, suburban socialisers and the bored families.

With trader confidence at a low ebb and Deloitte’s annual Christmas survey predicting sluggish sales this Christmas, Perth’s commissioners are also opening up three CBD car parks for three hours or free parking on weekends and public holidays.

Cmmr Andrew Hammond said in a media statement the aim was to make the CBD more competitive against major commercial shopping centres such as Garden City, Carousel or Karrinyup.

“We realise the cost of parking was a barrier preventing people from coming into the city, but now that hurdle has been removed we expect to see the the CBD revitalised,” Cmmr Hammond said.

Giant tentacles, most commonly an indication to flee, have been installed to indicate which carparks are free (His Majesty’s Theatre, Pier Street, and Cultural Centre carparks).

The prehensile wigglers, by UK artist Filthy Luker, were recommended by staff in the retail boost plan as they’d “spark interest/intrigue”.

by DAVID BELL

PIG Stable, Beehive Town or Hamlet Where We Melt Things: The true origin of the word Meltham is lost to history.

Landgate presumes Meltham is named for a West Yorkshire parish that’s been occupied since prehistory.

Its name was recorded in William the Conquerer’s 1086 great survey as Melthā, with no final m, but that document was known for containing a few typos (or scribos).

But it’s likely far older. Like many British places, it could’ve been named by the Saxons: Melt has mostly kept its meaning from old Germanic, and Ham just means home or settlement.

The Saxons also named English towns after areas from their homeland: If this Meltham is named after the proto-Germanic Melsen, it could mean pig stable or marsh.

But the name could be older and nicer: A more common local tradition holds that it’s a corruption of a Roman word Mel-Tun, meaning honey hamlet, or Melliton, a place where beehives stand.

In the 1800s, the UK Meltham’s most prominent burgher was wool and cotton mogul Thomas Brook.

He saw wealth in the new colony down under, buying land in South Australia, Australind and Victoria, where he named a sheep station Meltham Estate.

Then in 1895, Scottish-born, Victorian-raised industrialist Mephan Ferguson built an iron foundry in Perth for CY O’Connor’s pipeline project, naming it Meltham Estate and the surrounding suburb Falkirk.

Ferguson was born in Falkirk, but his link to Meltham was not explained in papers of the day.

Over time, the land around the foundry was sold off.

For decades the Bayswater Road Board urged the state government to build a train station at Meltham, saying in 1934 that construction would be easy as it was a “working man’s suburb” with few cars to contend with.

Plans for a townsite named Meltham Heights were drawn up in March 1937.

BITS of Bayswater, Bedford and a sliver of Maylands could become a new suburb dubbed Meltham.

During Bayswater council’s consultation on what locals would like to see around the Meltham train station earlier this year, a panel noted it was odd not to have a suburb with the same name and recommended it be applied to an area bound by Guildford Road to the south, York Street to the North, and sandwiched by Garratt Road and Sussex Street.

The council will now seek public comment on the proposal (including input on final boundaries) but staff support the new suburb on the basis it’s a geographic fit, dividing the Essex Street light industrial area from Maylands’ character housing area.

Landgate will have the final say, after consulting with emergency services to see if it could lead to any confusion.

A council report warned Australia Post might stop delivering mail with the old suburb names after about a year, while Victorians have already complained, saying the name’s too similar to the Melbourne suburb Melton.

At Bayswater’s November 19 council meeting councillor Lorna Clarke noted there was a lot of support from locals, particularly based on the area’s history, but colleague Catherine Ehrhardt couldn’t see the urgency, labelling it “a waste of time at the moment”.

Cr Elli Petersen-Pik sought to have Maylands properties in his ward excised, saying residents were concerned about “property values and other aspects”.

“There might be people in the area who want to be part of it…Meltham could become the trendiest suburb in 20 years’ time,” Cr Clarke countered.

by DAVID BELL

GLYPHOSATE will continue to be sprayed on Bayswater’s weeds, with instant death at the end of a 1000C flame deemed too risky.

Bayswater staffers have been reviewing the city’s weed control program after council Lorna Clarke earlier this year questioned the use of glyphosate, which has been linked to cancer during a couple of high-profile legal cases in the United States.

Although the staff report recommends a trial of steam weeding in a limited area, it found glyphosate is still alright to use as long as it’s not too close to barbecues, picnics or playgrounds.

The report noted that even the highly cautious Local Government Insurance Scheme (which tries to get councils to avoid all possible risks from dangerous hazards like tyre swings) seemed fine with glyphosate use.

Safe

The LGIS issued a statement in July saying glyphosate had been reviewed by the Australian pesticides authority and found to be “safe to use according to the label instructions”.

Staff said they’d keep an eye out for emerging alternatives, but those currently available were less effective at killing weeds and came with higher labour costs – or worse.

Flame weeding uses giant gas-powered blowtorches to kill plants in just 1/10th of a second, but the report found it posed an “extreme risk” of burning a worker or member of the public, exploding or sparking a fatal wildfire.

Pine oil is a good weed killer, but it’s an irritant that can cause permanent eye damage and smells like Dettol, which prompts diligent residents to call up and report a chemical spill. It can’t be used anywhere near waterways either, so it’s not great for a riverfront council.

Steam weeding has been trialled in Bayswater before, and is part of Fremantle council’s repertoire, but can actually backfire and cause new weeds to germinate. It can only be used on kerbs or footpaths because it’s as indiscriminate as a drone strike and costs more than three times as much as Roundup.

Councillor Michelle Sutherland was one of four, along with Barry McKenna, Steven Ostaszewskyj and Filomena Piffaretti who opposed the trial, saying glyphosate was well tested and widely used.

“Anything’s toxic if we use a lot of it, but I don’t want to go overboard and cost ratepayers a bomb over this issue,” Cr Sutherland said.

In July, 500 Bankstown council workers in New South Wales stopped work in solidarity with six colleagues who were ordered to use glyphosate.

As the bins went uncollected, the council eventually agreed to trial an alternative weed control method.

There are two pending legal cases in Australia against Monsanto, which manufactures Roundup.

by DAVID BELL

HELEN TURNER is closing her eponymously-named art galleries in Northbridge and Claremont after 20 years.

Family commitments, rather than tough economic times, were behind the decision, Ms Turner said.

“[It’s] time to retire and move on gracefully to greater involvement with my growing number of grandchildren and to spend more time with my ageing mother and create time for support of my husband’s new business venture.”

There are also plans for travel, and new ventures.

“I don’t know what’s out there, but if you don’t create a void you will just keep doing what you’ve been doing,” Ms Turner told the Voice.

In 1999, aged 50 and fresh out of Claremont Art School the former chalkie decided to open her own gallery, despite having no idea what that would entail.

“It developed on its own with the help of [still curator] Allison Archer,” Ms Turner says.

Turner Galleries have held numerous highly successful exhibitions featuring international, national, and local artists, including the recent stella show of local artist Leon Pericles’ works.

It’s also sponsored 57 artist residency programs.

“Bringing eastern state and overseas artist to WA and taking our artists east, and to Taiwan,” Ms Turner said.

The current Artangels program of exhibitions will be the galleries’ finale, with the curtain coming down today (Saturday, November 23).

It features German/Australian artists Helen Britton’s and David Bielander’s The Rage of Dekoration + A Room Full of Lies, and Erin Coates and Anna Nazzari’s Fauna Flesh Flora.

Pieces from both exhibitions are being snapped up for the WA and South Australian art galleries.

“It’s a high note to finish on,” Ms Turner says.

by JENNY D’ANGER

MOUNT Lawley MP Simon Millman has urged Parliament’s upper house to pass a bill ending imprisonment for fine defaulters.

A 2014 report found the current law sends about 1100 people to prison a year for unpaid fines. While the fine is cleared at a rate of $250 a day, it costs $345 a day to keep them in prison. One in every three women who entered the prison system in 2013 was there for fine defaults.

The new legislation passed the lower house this week without dissent, the proposal being to release “all offenders in prison for fine default” if and when it makes it past the upper house.

Christmas

But with the legislative council bogged down in debate and amendments over WA’s euthanasia laws, it seems unlikely any affected prisoners will be home for Christmas.

The new laws will allow people experiencing hardship to work off their fines through community service, work out longer-term repayment arrangements, or garnish their earnings or savings.

This is an edited extract from a speech Mr Millman delivered in parliament across November 13 and 14, when the bill passed the lower house:

“Imprisoning people without due and proper cause is something that we should not do. That is what our history tells us going back 800 years.

“This government’s vision is for a fairer criminal justice system.

“It sees us cracking down on meth dealers and serial killers. But our criminal justice system also needs to have the right degree of compassion.

“Our prisons should be for murderers, rapists and drug dealers, not for single mums from disadvantaged backgrounds who cannot afford to pay fines.

“In fact, the imprisonment of people for unpaid fines is, in my view, a failure of our justice system.

“People are being imprisoned without hearings or trials.

“In the list of concerns of the Aboriginal Legal Service, family violence is so much more pertinent when one has regard to the State Coroner’s report in 2016 in response to the death in custody of Ms Dhu, a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman who had been imprisoned as a result of failure to pay $3500 worth of unpaid fines.

“That is the price we are putting on a life—$3500 in unpaid fines.

Died

“She was imprisoned for that and died in custody. She was a victim of family and domestic violence… the Law Society of Western Australia, that eminent organisation, in its briefing paper from April 2019, said: ‘The Fines, Penalties and Infringement Notices Enforcement Act 1994 (WA), has a discriminatory and disproportionate effect, leading to the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’.”

Hillarys Liberal MP Peter Katsambanis raised concerns about offenders thumbing their nose at the criminal system, but said he’d follow party line and vote in favour of the bill.

But attorney general John Quigley said imprisonment was still an option, however remote.

“It is important that imprisonment be available as a means of enforcement for the cohort of debtors who have the means but not the inclination to pay—those recalcitrant few who thumb their nose at the system and accrue fines with no intention of paying them back, having ignored all other attempts at enforcement,” Mr Quigley said.

A BAN on wheel clamping in Stirling is a step closer.

On Tuesday (November 19) councillors unanimously backed a draft local law that would outlaw wheel clamping and regulate the detention of vehicles across the city.

The draft law will go out for public comment until January 31, then come back to council for the vote.

Stirling is the first local government in WA to draft a law banning wheel clamping.

“The current penalty imposed for vehicles detained is disproportionate to the crime,” says mayor Mark Irwin.

Private

“Private businesses have the right to protect parking on their private property but we as a council feel that wheel clamping is not the right method.

“Other states such as Victoria and New South Wales have had a wheel clamping ban in place for some time and we would like to see this introduced within the city of Stirling.”

The proposed law would not apply if parking facilities are controlled by access gates and a driver must pay a fee to leave, if a government officer has the power to detain a vehicle, or if there is an agreement allowing the vehicle to be detained.

If approved by council, the law would go before the state parliament’s committee on delegated legislation.

To have your say on the draft law go to http://www.yoursay.stirling.wa.gov.au/wheelclampinglaw