Perth Voice Interactive

PERTH council is planning to send a delegation of Whadjuk Noongar elders to meet a tribe of casino-owning first nation Americans in 2021 under a new indigenous cultural exchange program.

The Sycuans are a small band of about 130 people who form part of the Kumeyaay Nation, which straddles the US and Mexico border.

They own the Sycuan Casino Resort outside San Diego, one of Perth’s eight sister cities.

Perth council’s new First Nations Cultural Sharing Plan mixes up the usual grip-and-grin cultural exchange between white, suited councillors, sending local elders to Sycuan country after hosting a visiting delegation of the Indians in Perth.

During the trips it’s intended the elders will share stories and cultural practices, give talks to the public, and act as ambassadors for their respective homes.

Last week Perth council’s commissioners voted to allocate $20,000 to the WA Indigenous Tourism Operators Council to host the Sycuans on a 12-day visit, timed to coincide with the World Indigenous Tourism Summit held in Perth next April.

WAITOC CEO Robert Taylor says they’re excited to be hosting the delegates.

“The event is looking to bring together extraordinary stories of business and Aboriginal cultural success and provides a great opportunity for the Kumeyaay people to share in this rich cultural event,” Mr Taylor said.

The Sycuans do have an extraordinary business story: in 1972 their chairwoman Anna Preito Sandoval led them to set up a casino on the reservation that had once confined them.

They used the profits to buy back huge tracts of ancestral land and updated their dilapidated housing, where indoor plumbing was almost unheard of. Sandoval died in 2010, proud of lifting her people from poverty, but sad to see the wealth undermining culture and tradition.

by DAVID BELL

THE ad-happy commissioners running Perth council have set a precedent allowing more giant billboards in the city.

On October 29 commissioners Len Kosova and Andrew Hammond approved an 11.5-metre LED sign on Hay Street facing the Mitchell Freeway, ignoring a recommendation from planning staff it would blot views of the Parliament House district, and concerns from Main Roads it might distract drivers.

Previously, Perth’s elected councillors have been wary about billboards, not wanting to turn the city into an ad-ridden Blade Runner megalopolis (the 1982 film was set in November 2019, so the approval came just in time for us to be living in the future).

Public space

The council’s signage policy, updated in 2017, only calls for commercial billboards where they’ll face “public space” with lots of pedestrians and where it will increase “vibrancy”.

In the lead-up to the vote, AD Billboards shot commissioners a letter from its own planning experts, which said the Hay Street sign would add “interest and vibrancy to the city’s night skyline”. The letter pointed out there were other signs facing the freeway.

It also cited the precedent of a sign commissioners approved in October last year at 190 Aberdeen Street in Northbridge, which was similarly opposed by planning staff.

The commissioners had felt the billboard would “add vibrancy and amenity to the city”.

A list of conditions were attached to the Hay Street approval. The minutes haven’t been released yet, but standard conditions require the ads to stick around for at least 45 seconds so they’re not flickering at drivers, they can’t have anything that’d be confused for a traffic signal or warning, and have to default to an entirely black screen if there’s a malfunction or unauthorised content.

That’s likely in response to the April 2018 incident where hackers displayed porn on two small screens in Yagan Square.

by DAVID BELL

Baysy opts out

IN less billboard-friendly Bayswater, the encroachment of ads has been staved off with the help of the State Administrative Tribunal.

It recently affirmed the council’s decision to reject a whopper 18.5m tall LED sign on Wicks Street.

In February, Bayswater council said no to landowner Bayswater Industrial Estate’s plan to put up the two-sided sign, which would’ve been a big earner since it faced both directions of traffic on Tonkin Freeway.

The land isn’t zoned for advertising, and in any case the sign was too big; 84sqm on either side was far larger than the 22sqm allowed by council rules.

BIE appealed to the SAT, but the tribunal sided with the council in a double-whammy smackdown delivered October 31.

The tribunal found signs weren’t allowed there under council rules, and added that even if they had erred on that point the billboard would have been an eyesore and a risk to traffic safety.

“This section of Tonkin Highway is a moderately complex road environment which requires decisions about multiple manoeuvres in a high speed environment,” the SAT’s judgement found.

INDEPENDENT bookshops are thriving in Perth and won’t be heavily impacted by internet giant Amazon’s new Perth distribution centre, says Elizabeth’s Bookshops co-owner Harry Schmitz.

The Amazon “fulfilment centre” in Belmont will open by the end of the year and mean faster book deliveries for WA customers, but Mr Schmitz says it will mostly affect the few remaining High Street chain bookstores like Dymocks.

“There is a strong revival of independent bookshops in the USA – despite Amazon’s gigantic strength in North America,” he says.

“This development appears to be related to the ‘retail experience’ which customers enjoy in a traditional bricks-and-mortar local bookshop.

“Amazon’s biggest negative impact in the last six years has been on the “chain” bookshops (in the USA and Australia), less so the independents.”

When Amazon launched its online Kindle Store in 2007, market analysts predicted the e-book would kill off High Street bookshops within five years.

But Mr Schmitz says that since 2014 the e-book market share has plateaued at 15 per cent, and in some cases declined.

He doesn’t believe Amazon will be be able to slash prices as deeply in Australia as it did in the States.

“Amazon’s cost structure in Australia will be significantly higher than in the USA, especially in cost of labour, transport and postage. Therefore, I expect that Amazon’s prices in Australia to be closer to recommended retail than their US prices. If Amazon has not killed independent bookshops in America – then there is every reason to believe it will not do so here.”

Elizabeth’s has outlets in Perth, Fremantle and New South Wales.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

THE demolition of two old buildings on King William Street was refused by Bayswater council on November 5.

Yolk Property wanted to work with a clean slate at 9 and 11 King William Street, but Bayswater council staff listed four reasons why they thought councillors should refuse the demolition:

• It would have an “undue impact on the amenity of the area”, leading to a “loss of a continuous streetscape, social and historic values and traditional character of the Bayswater town centre”;

• The demolition would remove the “heritage contribution” of the two buildings;

• It was “inconsistent with the orderly and proper planning of the locality,” noting they don’t really want a vacant lot in the strip; and,

•  Yolk hadn’t demonstrated that the buildings would prohibit them from building on the rest of the block (the city’s heritage policy allows demolition of lower-priority old buildings if there’s no other way to develop the site, but there’s 578sqm behind these two).

Councillors debated a bit over which of the four reasons they thought were valid, and some voted for different combinations of the four, but ultimately returned a refusal.

Deputations

Nine people gave deputations against the demolition, including Angie Maher of community group “Respect Bayswater’s Heritage Heart” and Lynn Deering, president of the Bayswater Historical Society.

One of the buildings is a hodge podge of later additions. The council resolved to tell Yolk that demolition of the later, non-heritage parts would be considered in any new development application, and Yolk was “encouraged” to look into a new design that would conserve and incorporate the old parts.

The Voice contacted Yolk, which said it would consider its next move over the next couple of days.

The area will soon be under control of the state government, which is taking over planning authority to “maximise development opportunities” during the Metronet-inspired Bayswater train station upgrade.

by DAVID BELL

WITH the Morrison government announcing a review of Australia’s threatened species legislation in order to reduce “green tape”, a WA Labor MP has warned the greatest threat to our dwindling wildlife is the government itself.

According to the national environment and energy department, the Perth’s CBD is currently home to 54 listed threatened species, although it’s a complicated picture. Many bird species on the list are only occasional visitors, while the territorial range of other animals has shrunk so much since European occupation that Perth’s no longer considered home.

For example, early settler George Fletcher Moore wrote in letters to his brother about dingoes accompanying the area’s original Whadjuk inhabitants, but it’s been decades since one was spotted anywhere except the zoo – and that doesn’t count.

Mammals

Mammals that have made it onto the list include the woylie, chuditch, Australian sea lion and western ringtail possum, which is registered as critically endangered.

You’d also be lucky these days to enjoy the bloom of the cinnamon sun orchid, dwarf hammer-orchid or tall donkey orchid, while there’s estimated to be just 550 of the shrub Selena’s synaphea in a handful of fragmented communities.

Fremantle federal Labor MP Josh Wilson pointed out that when recently confronted by a landmark UN report which found 1 million species around the world were at risk of extinction, prime minister Scott Morrison tried to defend his government’s record by citing non-existent legislation.

He’s since been churchmouse-quiet about what he might have really meant.

Other slips under his watch have included an attempt by treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s office, when he was environment minister, to find out if he could override scientific advice and amend the listing of a threatened grassland, which could have benefited a Cabinet colleague involved in a company being investigated for illegal clearing.

In May this year, SBS reported that the worst destruction of threatened species habitat across the country over the last two decades occurred in 12 mostly Coalition seats, with agriculture minister David Littleproud’s Queensland seat heading the list with a 43 per cent decline.

The WA seat of Durack, currently held by former environment minister Melissa Price, was seventh on the list.

Mr Wilson says it’s been tough for threatened species under the Morrison government.

“Australia is considered to have one of the worst extinction rates in the world,” Mr Wilson said.

“We have the highest rate of vertebrate mammal extinction, koala populations are declining, and the Morrison government doesn’t have a plan to protect iconic Australian fauna and flora.”

Current environment minister Sussan Ley says the “green tape” reduction review would deliver greater certainty to business, farmers and environment groups.

Economy

Ms Ley says the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act had been a world leader in environmental protection, but needed to be adapted to reflect changes in the environment and the economy.

“This review is not about ideology,” Ms Ley said.

“The one thing all sides of the environmental debate concede is that the complexities of the act are leading to unnecessary delays in reaching decision and to an increased focus on process rather than outcomes.”

Last week a new website was launched for the review, giving the public the opportunity to make “brief comments” at any time during the review, though they wouldn’t be considered formal submissions.

Later this month a discussion paper is due which will invite formal submissions.

Keep up-to-date at https://epbcactreview.environment.gov.au

by STEVE GRANT

ELECTED councillors often aren’t up to the task of choosing a CEO and might need an overseer, Perth chair commissioner Andrew Hammond has suggested.

At the final day of public hearings for the City of Perth inquiry, Cmmr Hammond said he’d seen examples where the choice of CEO had caused havoc.

“[It led to] poor performance appraisals, or contracts not being renewed because the person involved just simply wasn’t liked, or that they – in a country context – sent their kids to a private school in Perth instead of the local school,” Cmmr Hammond said.

Councillors might be biased against a CEO who’d rightly reported their suspected misconduct and could withhold their pay rises or sack them outright.

“That is a problem,” he told the inquiry.

Cmmr Hammond, formerly CEO of Rockingham, said councillors should still have the say on the CEO, but with guidance.

“[Local government] is one of the only industries where your performance is judged and decisions made potentially by people that know absolutely nothing about the industry of which the CEO’s involved with,” Cmmr Hammond said.

Inquiry commissioner Tony Power, who will be advising the state government on needed reforms, seemed to take particular interest in Cmmr Hammond’s ideas, making a rare interruption to ask if councils would benefit from “experts to assist” and “guidelines” in hiring CEOs.