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A POCKET Park on Progress Street, Morley will get a $65,000 makeover.
Bayswater council is collaborating with local group The Morley Momentum to turn the 130sqm block into an attractive public space with seating, decking, festoon lights, greenery and a footpath. It’s estimated the makeover will be finished later this year.
VINCENT voters have been sluggish in this year’s council elections.
With the mayoral position and north ward vacancies filled without a contest, just 20 per cent of south ward voters have bothered to return their ballot papers.
In the 2017 election 26.69 per cent voted.
Although voters have been apathetic, sign stealers have been active.
Along with candidate Josh O’Keefe’s signs being stolen (“Election signs slashed,” Voice, October 5, 2019), Adina Lieblich has also reported missing signs as well.
Ms Lieblich says one of her signs, and one of fellow candidate Ashley Wallace’s, turned up 22 kilometres away in a bin up at Hillarys.
Bayswater’s three wards have had an average of about 26 per cent of votes returned, while the blanket of election signs across Stirling so far sees their average return around 23.5 per cent
It’s too late to post a vote, so the only way now is to show up at your council headquarters before 6pm on October 19 and hand the form in.
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STIRLING voters are staying away in droves from today’s local council election (Saturday October 19), despite the mayor being elected by popular vote for the first time.
At the time of going to print, about four out of five Stirling voters had still not returned their postal ballot papers.
In the lead-up to the election the city launched a digital advertising campaign to entice younger people to vote and talked up the chance to have a say in who will be mayor.
But it’s not engaged voters, with council ward return rates between 20-25 per cent four days out from the close of polls.
Stirling’s governance manager Jamie Blanchard said there had been a delay in the WA Electoral Commission sending postal ballots out.
A WAEC spokesperson confirmed the Queen’s Birthday long weekend had delayed the delivery of 1.5 million postal vote packages.
“It is a fact that the City of Stirling packages were amongst the last printed and lodged and hence completed packages for local governments lodged earlier started to be returned to the central processing centre before those for the City of Stirling,” the WAEC said.
“The commission also notes that the school holidays were a week earlier in 2017 which meant some electors returning from holidays were able to return their packages earlier.”
Mr Blanchard noted there was still time for voters to deliver ballot papers in person at the city’s Cedric Street administration centre on election day.
At the last local government election in 2017 Stirling had the highest voter enrolment in WA, but one of the lower participation rates at 32 per cent.
At the time of going to print return rates in other Voiceland councils were also low – Bayswater (about 25 per cent), Vincent (20 per cent). Perth isn’t holding an election while its councillors are suspended.
by DAVID BELL
BAYSWATER council has added two electric bikes to its fleet.
The new treadlies mean staff could nip up to Officeworks or Donut King and back without a grunt of carbon dioxide, let alone the nasties that spew from the exhaust of a stinky car.
”Our bikes are recharged using solar panels already in place at the Civic Centre, so there is no additional energy cost,” says Bayswater CEO Andrew Brien.
“Staff will have the option to book an electric bike instead of a car when they take short trips around the local area. Not only does this make economic sense but it’s great for individual health and fitness.”
POLICE have charged a “ride-share” driver with the indecent assault of a female passenger.
Police say on October 5 around 11pm, the driver told the woman, who is in her 20s, that the rear passenger doors were broken so she had to ride up front with him.
During the trip from a southern Perth suburb to Northbridge, police allege the driver indecently assaulted the woman.
The 51-year-old man is from Southern River and is due to face the Perth Magistrates Court on Monday on four counts of indecent assault.
But the investigation’s ongoing and detectives are urging anyone with information on it to call 1800 333 000 or make an online report at http://www.crimestopperswa.com.au
“SERIOUS consequences” are in store for witnesses who forged documents, gave dishonest testimony or withheld information from the inquiry into the City of Perth.
After 40 days of evidence, 23 witnesses and 4000 pages of transcripts, inquiry lawyer Philip Urquhart wrapped up the public hearings last week warning those who’d tried to frustrate the inquiry they might be referred to “regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies”.
Manipulated
Mr Urquhart said the inquiry had heard evidence of “manipulated” elections with sham leases and fake companies, conflicts of interest, phoney expense claims, and staff turning a blind eye to dubious tender processes.
He said commissioner Tony Power will now write the inquiry’s final report, which will be handed to the local government minister; those facing adverse findings will get a chance to respond.
The inquiry been repeatedly criticised over the 40 days of public hearings for spending millions to uncover name-calling and mean text messages.
And it has been expensive.
The state government has already stumped up $3.5 million for the inquiry itself, while Perth ratepayers have forked out $1.6m to pay for commissioners where it would have cost them $430,000 for their lord mayor and councillors over the same period.
But even from a hard-nosed accountant’s perspective, the changes springing from the inquiry stack up pretty quickly to make it a cost-saver.
According to the accountant appointed by the inquiry to look at the council’s books, if staff wages had kept pace with similar organisations the city would save $11m each year.
New CEO Murray Jorgensen has already cut half of the city’s managers, who were paid between $120,000 to $160,000, while a director’s position ($300,000+) has also disappeared, trimming the annual staff budget by a tidy $2.5m a year.
The inquiry also heard that contract expenses were manipulated so favoured companies would get the work, even though they were more expensive. That means, for example, that every pump repair and sprinkler replacement the city undertakes is more expensive than necessary, with Mr Urquhart saying that wasn’t a standalone example.
While Mr Jorgensen’s six-part crackdown on tendering processes includes hiring a senior procurement specialist and conducting fraud, corruption and misconduct training, the potential savings could still be substantial.
Scrapped
Clothing allowances, which were reluctantly reduced by councillors from $13,000 each a year to just $3000, have been completely scrapped by the commissioners.
The dining room has also been scrapped, with the inquiry hearing some councillors brought in friends and family to dine at the luxurious Friday meals, which were meant to be reserved for official city business, saving $500,000 a year.
stories by DAVID BELL
“WE have been conflicted hundreds of times.”
It finally dawned on Perth’s councillors in 2016 that they’d breached conflict of interest rules by accepting pricey VIP tickets and swank showbags for events propped up with ratepayers’ money.
But the Voice had been banging on about the apparent conflict of interest for more than 10 years.
Council house always batted away our questions by arguing it was “standard sponsorship practice” so councillors could make sure events were really worth funding.
In 2009, then-CEO Frank Edwards even challenged the paper to complain to the CCC when we raised the pricey tickets councillors were receiving for being on the Perth Theatre Trust board.
But a report from the Public Sector Commission in February 2016 about the Healthway ticket scandal, where state government employees were showered with VIP tickets by companies seeking sponsorship, had councillors worried they’d be next in the spotlight.
Cr Jim Adamos sent a message to his council allies in March: “You need to understand this. This is a huge issue … we have voted and accepted tickets. We have been conflicted hundreds of times.”
“This is no joke,” lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi texted.
The city stopped accepting tickets, and the Power inquiry has been forgiving of freebies taken up til then.
But even after the ban, some councillors received free tickets.
In September 2016, Cr Adamos contacted the Perth Fashion Festival directly to arrange tickets to two of their events. He declared the tickets as worth $69 each in the council’s gift registry, but counsel assisting the inquiry Philip Urquhart said their real value was $160 to $180; together well above the $300 limit on which all gifts are declared forbidden.
Former councillor Janet Davidson also got a free fashion festival ticket in 2016 which council staff valued at $49.88, but it was really worth $160. Ms Davidson told the inquiry she couldn’t remember how she got the ticket.
Ms Davidson argued governance staff had told councillors they could vote on festival funding in 2017; she even moved a motion to increase the sponsorship from $230,000 to $255,000.
Cr Reece Harley accepted and declared a ticket to the PFF in 2015 before the ban and voted in 2017.
He told the inquiry he hadn’t seen it as a conflict of interest because the fashion festival wasn’t his cup of tea and shouldn’t count as a “personal benefit”.
“It was – I didn’t want to say a chore – but [it] felt like I was attending to represent the city, to be there and to fulfil my duties,” he said. Cr Harley, who owns a single suit, didn’t go anyway.
He voted against Cr Davidson’s motion to increase the funding.
Only lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi excused herself from voting that year — she’d had a recent reminder about conflicts of interest via the state government’s case against her undeclared travel and gifts.
PIERS VERSTEGEN is director of the Conservation Council of WA. As a long time campaigner for the environment, he was initially skeptical about the tactics used by Extinction Rebellion members, who’ve promised to use civil disobedience and disruption to urge action on climate change.
LIKE many people committed to action on climate change, I initially perceived Extinction Rebellion with a degree of healthy skepticism.
Surveys show that 85 per cent of Western Australians support stronger action on climate change, yet have heard a predictable chorus of complaint about the tactics that Extinction Rebellion have employed to draw attention to these issues.
For those who say they support the aims of the protesters but complain their tactics go too far, or who suggest there is a better or more effective way to achieve change, I ask you to genuinely consider the following.
First, please say what you think the better alternative is, and then consider why, if it is more effective has it not been successful to date?
If you know of a more effective strategy, are you personally working on it, or supporting others to implement that?
If the answer is no – why not? If the answer is yes, how is that working out?
Unpaid
I am profoundly thankful to the countless people who together invest an astonishing effort towards a myriad change-making strategies, almost entirely in an unpaid capacity.
Legal work, petitions, media, policy development, education, behaviour change, research, lobbying, divestment, persuasive writing, social media, community organising, election campaigning, and the list goes on.
Despite this effort, from the privileged position of somebody who is paid to work on such things, there is an uncomfortable reality we must face.
While absolutely essential, on their own these efforts are not working at the scale and speed required.
I have been engaged in this work in various ways for most of my adult life. During this time WA’s carbon pollution has increased by about a third and continues to rise.
Our governments have worse policies on climate change than when I started.
Last week, we revealed that the Browse Basin and Burrup Hub LNG project promoted by Woodside Petroleum and the McGowan government would release three to four times the pollution of the Adani coal mine if it were to proceed.
These realities are unfathomable. And meanwhile, scientific evidence of climate change becomes every day more desperate and urgent and terrifying.
And yet at the same time we have made incredible progress.
Renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels; successful community-led campaigns have held back fracking and coal expansion in WA; councils, universities, and churches have divested from coal, oil and gas; thousands of students have engaged in strike action and peaceful demonstrations; and polling shows an overwhelming majority support stronger action.
People here in WA are awakening to the reality of what is occurring in our own backyard. Farmers are feeling the impacts of a changing climate and our community is waking up to the outsized climate damage being done by WA’s biggest polluters in the LNG industry we are host to.
But so far, these things haven’t changed the fundamentals of the equation.
Our government remains firmly captured by the interests of fossil fuel multinationals who pay no tax or royalties, and employ the least people in WA of any sector.
Suffering a kind of Stockholm syndrome, decision-makers have adopted the bizarre belief that we can burn our way out of a climate emergency.
Presented with evidence that action to tackle the problem will create thousands of jobs and deliver a huge boost to the economy, and in the face of ever more dire warnings from scientists, our governments continue to look away, mesmerised and paralysed.
And so, we must be open to trying something different. Something that sounds the alarm in a way that is loud enough, or annoying enough to wake us up from our collective slumber.
So, I chose to suspend my skepticism about Extinction Rebellion.
Rather than criticise, I instead take my hat off to anyone involved.
They are showing us that we have options.
We do not need to paralysed.
We are capable of regaining control of our collective destiny.
I deeply admire those who are prepared to forego their liberty and even their dignity if that is what it takes to get some sort of reaction out of a political and economic system that is sleep walking over a cliff.
I thank them for doing it.
Like chemotherapy, it is not without its side effects, but maybe, just maybe, it will actually help to shift something.
I certainly hope so.
SWEET REMEDY is the cupcake equivalent of the shop in Chocolat.
The Leederville cafe sells every type of cupcake imaginable and they’re all made fresh in-store.
When I visited during lunchtime on the school holidays there was a fun atmosphere and kids were decorating their own creations.
For $6.50 parents can buy a vanilla dream cupcake and a decorating bag, and let their kids go wild.
And if they need to burn off some energy after all that sugar, there’s a play area out the back.
There was just one person serving but he did a great job, paying close attention to customers’ needs.
Sweet Remedy even has a fully-loaded ‘cupshake’ for those wanting their hit in drink form.
The cafe specialises in cupcakes and barista-made coffee, but also sells light meals including toasted jaffles, bagels, wraps, paninis, gourmet pies, croissants and toasted sandwiches for kids.
I was there for the cupcakes, but did the sensible thing and ordered a toasted mexican wrap ($9.95) for some savoury balance.
The tasty wrap was crammed with cheese, sour cream, beans, capsicum, avocado, corn and salsa. It was a solid build-up to my coconut paradise cupcake ($5.20). Just like in Chocolat, it has just the right amount of everything.
The dense cupcake was soft and moist, and topped with buttery icing, toasted coconut and a Raffaello chocolate.
Pure heaven.
I washed it down with a refreshing lemongrass and ginger tea ($4).
On the way out I couldn’t help myself and snagged a gluten-free hazelnut fudge cupcake ($5.20).
The creamy frosting was moreish and dusted with decadent chocolate–delicious.
by ALEX MURFETT
The Sweet Remedy Cafe
255A Oxford Street,
Leederville
http://www.sweetremedy.com.au
SHAKESPEARE at the Pop-up Globe is like a cross between stadium rock and a football match.
Harking back to performances of the Bard’s work at the original Globe theatre in London in 1599, audiences are encouraged to shout and jeer and there’s plenty of bawdy jokes.
But then things take a modern, surreal turn.
In Midsummer Night’s Dream the fairies are traditionally dressed Maoris and the “mechanicals” wear fluoro vests and sing about being tradies.
Shakespearean English mixes with contemporary language to great effect, and a chunk of Maori wasn’t as incomprehensible as you’d imagine.
Antonio Te Maioha is chilling as Oberon, who plots with Puck to play a cruel practical joke on wife Titania (Renaye Tamati) after a quarrel.
Eds Eramiha’s Puck is a mischievous devil and Rebecca Rogers’ Hermia is pure millennial, asking her lover to carry her designer suitcases as they flee into the forest.
In Twelfith Night sea shanties are sung by French sailors with ridiculously large mustaches, including the females, and the audience laughed out loud as actors hid in fake topiary and wandered across the stage.
Johnny Light almost stole the show as the clownish and effeminate Sir Andrew Aguecheek, emerging from a “tree” in nothing but a pair of undies and a bit of greenery.
The Pop-up Globe is the world’s first full-scale temporary working replica of the second Globe, built in 1614, and is the brainchild of New Zealander Miles Gregory.
The Pop-up Globe will be at Crown Perth from October 9 and includes performances of Measure for Measure, Hamlet, Twelfith Night and Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Tix at popupglobe.com.au
by JENNY D’ANGER
THE beautiful, textural ceramics of ceramic artist Pippin Drysdale are timeless classics.
This is exactly what the 12th Duke of Devonshire, Peregrine Cavendish, thought when he bought a range of Drysdale’s pieces to sit along the priceless ancient Roman and Egyptian sculptures and Rembrandt and Veronese masterpieces in the private collection at his majestic home, Chatsworth House, in the Peak District of England.
Drysdale’s porcelain vessels, marbles and platters are aesthetically stunning and resonate with the viewer on a range of levels, including their evocation of striking Australian natural landscapes.
Ambassador
Drysdale has exhibited in New Zealand, America, Siberia, Russia, Germany and various other places throughout Europe. She recounts many trips she has made during her career with fondness, despite the huge freight costs and planning involved in the transport of her ceramics internationally.
“I sometimes feel I am a bit of an ambassador,” says Drysdale.
“It really humbled me to think that we have such exciting country,” she says of a trip she made to Katherine Gorge (out of Darwin), Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock and The Olgas as a 50-year-old.
The trip inspired her beautiful Kings Canyon installation, which resides at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The works embody her careful experimentation with colour, line and shape.
“I’ve always responded to journeys from an emotional perspective. [When I was] all the way up the Indus River, I came home with just so much emotion from there.
“I like to feel [my pieces] have a story,” she adds.
Drysdale has been making her world-renowned ceramics for more than 20 years, though she said simply surviving while she cemented her technique was a challenge.
In recent years the form and emphasis of her art has naturally evolved.
“Over time I wanted to become more and more minimal.
“[I] always had that horizon line… no more of that… it’s time to get into the traces of time.
“There was a yearning for me to move away from the pure form”.
The vessel and marble concept is one of the unique concepts in Drysdale’s art.
“The vessel which is like a womb-like interior, that represents the female. And the marble represents the male energy,” Drysdale explains.
She currently works alongside “thrower” Warrick Palmateer from her home studio in Fremantle and credits him for the “important part” he played particularly in the Devils Marbles series.
The processes, stages and skills in each of her pieces is phenomenal, involves throwing, refining, firing, sanding, glazing and various other stages in between.
“You can’t cheat any of the processes… there’s so many processes to be able to make the glaze work perfectly, not to have it too matte or too shiny.”
Drysdale was one of the 2015 recipients of the State Living Treasures award for her contribution to the WA arts sector.
Drysdale’s Kimberley Series 2019 will be exhibiting at Linton and Kay Gallery in Subiaco until November 3.
by ALEX MURFETT
Perth Voice Interactive 