Perth Voice Interactive

WITH trees being clearfelled for subdivisions across the city, Bayswater council is calling on the WA Planning Commission to help stop suburban deforestation.

This week Bayswater councillor Giorgia Johnson tabled a notice of motion requesting their CEO write to the WAPC to retain “worthy” trees when land is subdivided.

The city hopes the new rule can be included in the WAPC’s subdivision guidelines, which are currently being reviewed.

It could be tricky to implement, but deputy mayor Chris Cornish said one solution would be for the WAPC to treat tree removal as “development”, so you couldn’t do it without getting approval first.

This would prevent someone from clearing their block ahead of seeking approval.

In June last year the council brought in new rules for residential projects valued over $100,000, requiring anyone developing a block to provide at least one “standard tree” (at least four metres tall) for every 350sqm.

The requirements are relaxed if the owner retains existing mature trees (if you kept a particularly impressive old tree, it’d reduce the total you had to provide by two, encouraging people not to clear a block moments before submitting an application).

But that rule doesn’t apply to anyone subdividing their block, as subdivisions are handled at a higher level of government by the WAPC.

That meant that in 2016 the privately-owned block next to the Bayswater wetlands was able to be legally clearfelled to make way for the Skipper’s Row housing subdivision.

The WAPC had given the subdivision approval, and even Bayswater council staff were caught off guard when bulldozers showed up and trees were knocked down.

by DAVID BELL

AT the same April 30 meeting, Bayswater council voted to allow trees on private land to be added to the city’s significant tree register”.

The register currently only protects trees on public land, with 23 listed so far.

Under the new rules landowners will be able to nominate trees on their own land, and once it’s on the register you’ll need planning approval to remove it.

Landowners will not be able to nominate trees on land they do not own.

Cr Cornish said the intent was for a tree to stay on the register even if a house changes ownership and wanted that enshrined.

Cr Filomena Piffaretti, Michelle Sutherland and Catherine Ehrhardt voted against Cr Cornish’s motion.

A LOOMING federal election and echoes from Christchurch helped push up numbers at this year’s Palm Sunday Walk for Refugees in Perth.

More than 15 church and community groups took part this year, marching from St George’s Cathedral in the city.

This year’s marchers called for “a reform of the whole detention system,” said Uniting Church social justice consultant Jeff Brice.

“Offshore detention is problematic and inhumane,” Mr Brice said.

Currently there are 906 refugees still in offshore detention on Manus and Nauru according to the Refugee Council of Australia.

Fremantle councillor Sam Wainwright, who’s running in the federal election on the Socialist Alliance ticket, says the Morrison government’s anti-refugee policy is “rooted in racism”.

“It is based on the notion that ‘real refugees’ should go somewhere else,” Cr Wainwright said.

“The mistreatment of refugees remains a blight on Australian politics. (We can demonstrate that) a humane, just and legal policy is possible.”

Under current policy, asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat are subject to offshore processing on Nauru, unless their boat is turned back.

Despite the increase in numbers at this year’s march, some within the movement feel it’s not enough.

RRAN member Monty Hill de Monchaux said the walk was too gentle to generate change.

“The messaging could be stronger – more explicit about what’s wrong,” says Mr Hill de Monchaux, who favours an open borders policy.

by ASTRID DAINTON

ONE man’s vigilance has hopefully ended untold litres of drinking water being wasted at Robertson Park in Vincent.

Over the last few months leaks have been mysteriously springing up in the park, leading to huge pools of pristine water at the Palmerston Street side.

Chris Hair lives across the road and is a long-time member of the Friends of Robertson Park.

He first noticed the unofficial “return of Lake Henderson” in early February, when a pond appeared in the middle of the grass.

Mr Hair got onto Vincent council staff: they located the leak and fixed a pipe, but the next day the water started bubbling up at another spot in the park.

“Over a couple of weeks it then popped up at another location, and then another, and then another,” Mr Hair says.

Council workers eventually discovered the bursting pipes were a pre-1970s sprinkler system still connected to the mains.

Across the street a valve had rusted through, allowing fresh drinking water into the old sprinklers, which had been superseded by bore reticulation.

Mr Hair reported the leaks to the Water Corporation, but it took two months and nine lakes before workers finally got down to temporarily crimp the pipe and stop the leaks.

Water Corp Perth regional manager Gary Monaghan said a permanent fix will be carried out next week.

Mr Monaghan said work crews responded to three reports, but initially thought the problem was the council’s reticulation system,.

Mr Hair said he made it clear in his reports the water was from a Water Corp main.

“In response, it refused to fix it, and given the size of the leak, there must have been many thousands of cubic meters of water lost over that period,” he said.

Mr Monaghan said Water Corp took reports seriously.

“Thankfully, Robertson Park is a rare situation, and it is fantastic to see the City of Vincent, who has gold status under the Waterwise Council Program, being so determined to find the cause of the mystery leak in its reticulation.

“We thank Mr Hair and other members of the public who report leaks. We manage more than 15,000 km of water mains in the metropolitan area, which means reports from the public are vital.”

by DAVID BELL

UNDERPAYMENT by 7-Eleven franchisees to its employees has revealed widespread workplace exploitation of temporary migrant and working holiday visa holders in Australia.

A new report by the Migrant Workers Taskforce has twenty-two recommendations to improve the protection of vulnerable visa workers, including criminal sanctions for serious cases of worker exploitation and educating Australian employers about the rights of migrant workers.

Short-term migration contributes $34.9 billion to the country’s education sector, making it Australia’s fourth largest export industry in 2018.

Enforcement

Data from 2016 shows that working holiday visa holders contributed $3.3 billion in tourist spending across the country.

Graham McCorry, an industrial and workplace relations consultant with Labourline, welcomed the findings of the taskforce report, but says the recommendations will fall flat unless they are enforced.

“The problems are not with exploitation; it’s with the enforcement,” says Mr McCorry.

“Unless you have every second person in the government enforcing the law, it’s just too big a problem.”

Mr McCorry is currently advising a former worker from a Fremantle cafe who has filed a case with the industrial magistrates court against the restaurant.

The worker, on an 857 visa, is alleging underpaid wages and discrimination in the workplace.

Australia’s complex National Employment Standards means fighting a legal battle can be incredibly long and complicated, even for native-English speaking Australians.

Mr McCorry’s role in the case started in April last year, and is scheduled to finally go to trial this month.

“It takes too long, and you won’t be able to do it on your own,” says Mr McCorry.

“That means you’re going to need a lawyer or somebody who’s entitled to practise in the courts and knows what they are doing.

“Only a lawyer would be able to translate the wording and explain your rights.”

The Taskforce report states that temporary migrant workers may be more likely to face exploitation due to “limited English language skills, lack of awareness of Australian workplace laws and fear of visa cancellation, detention and removal from Australia.”

Mr McCorry has advice for workers to better protect themselves: “Firstly, document everything,” says Mr McCorry.

Evidence

“Collect evidence to avoid the ‘I said, he said’ five or six years down the track.

“We’ve got [the Employment Law Center of WA] where people could go and pay $25 or so and get advice on what they are entitled to, and what they are not. It’s funded by the government.”

by KAVI GUPPTA

Protecting your rights
• Ask for a Fair Work Information Statement when you start a new job
• Keep your own records of hours worked and wages received
• Record the name and ABN of the business you work for
• Ask for offers and conditions of employment in writing
• You are entitled to receive a pay slip within one day of being paid
• You can ask your boss about minimum wages and entitlements – or you can check with the Fair Work Ombudsman on 13 19 94

A PERMANENT green light crossing is on the way for busy Charles Street near Kyilla Primary School, following a push for better safety from parents.

Perth MP John Carey held a survey asking people what to do about Charles Street’s pedestrian-unfriendly stretch in North Perth, which separates the school from the residential blocks to the west.

Half of the 246 respondents were Kyilla Primary parents, and 80 per cent of all respondents wanted a 24/7 pedestrian-activated green light crossing.

The lights will replace the existing lollipop guards, who were only there during school drop-off and pick-up hours on weekdays.

The crossing is used extensively on Saturdays, when people attend the popular Kyilla Community Farmers Markets.

Jennifer Breheny’s daughter Harriett is in year 1.

“When the [lollipop] guys are here it’s good, but if you have a play after school, trying to get the kids across is a nightmare,” Ms Breheny said.

Kate Gotsis, mum of year 6 student Remi and year 5 student Lily, says “even the grandparents who want to cross to the other side of Charles Street to visit – they just can’t do it after 2.30pm”

The Voice stood on the median, briefly, to take a photo, confirming the traffic roars along that stretch.

Mr Carey says there’s no perfect solution and all options have their pros and cons so they did extensive consultation – letterboxing the area, holding a workshop, doorknocking, social media and then the survey. The crossing was part of a $250,000 election commitment.

It’ll now go into the design phase and Mr Carey says they’ll also need an education campaign to ensure people use the crossing safely: pressing the button and checking that cars are actually stopping before crossing.

by DAVID BELL

LABOR has pledged to create a $1 million “music hub” in Leederville if it wins the federal election on May 18.

The hub would be located at the YMCA headquarters, just off Oxford Street, and include a rehearsal space, soundproof studios, instruments and gear.

Perth federal Labor MP Patrick Gorman says: “Labor wants to realise Australia’s potential, to go from a music nation to a music powerhouse, and as part of Australia’s first national music policy, we will invest in music hubs in communities.

THE public toilet is art in a new Perth exhibition focusing on gay ‘beats’ – public areas frequented by men seeking sex with men.

Looking now anyone here? by artists Benjamin Bannan, Brent Harrison and Wade Taylor examines the function, aesthetics and architecture of public toilets that served as a refuge for male sex in an era when many people still had to hide their identities.

Late last year a toilet door with a “glory hole” drilled through it for sexual contact was accepted into the WA Museum’s collection as an item of historical significance.

The door had been salvaged from the demolished toilet block at Gosnells train station in 1998.

One of the door’s rescuers, Neil Buckley, also made the short film The Other Side of Glory around the same time, documenting beat culture.

Footage from the film will be part of the Looking now anyone here? exhibition.

Bannan, 22, had already been working on beats-related artwork when he heard of the glory hole story.

He contacted Mr Buckley to hear first hand from someone who was there at the height of the offline beat culture, and says he felt “a nostalgia for a time I never knew”.

Bannan says while chatting the video about the door came up.

The City of Gosnells had a VHS copy they’d converted to a digital file. The video was explicit, and after some internal debate the City decided not to accept it into their local history collection.

Bannan says it’s interesting to see “what museums choose to collect and what they don’t”.

The WA Museum accepted the door, but the Gosnells History Collection said no to accepting the tape, “such a pivotal object in relation to the door”.

He says it’s as if the official record keepers are saying “we’ll invest in your history – as long as it’s not confronting”.

“Part of my interest in reclaiming queer archives and queer histories, is that they haven’t been documented, they haven’t been kept for so many hundreds of years; It’s my generation’s job to reclaim those stories.”

In working the tape into the installation, Bannan says; “I felt like the work needed to be framed … in order to view the video, people enter a pseudo toilet cubicle, and kneel down and look through a glory hole to see the video”.

Another port in the cubicle turns the watcher into an object of consideration for other viewers, so the pseudo-toilet gives a false sense of privacy, upending any sense of the public and the private.

Looking now anyone here? runs at Paper Mountain, upstairs at 267 William Street, Northbridge from May 10-31.

by DAVID BELL