Perth Voice Interactive

YEAR 3 students at Bayswater Primary School have set up a community grow cart to help cut down on food waste.

The students’ garden outside their classroom and a community garden at the school are just starting to pump out a diverse range of fruit, veggies and herbs as the winter rains set in, with everything from pomegranates, sweet potatoes and thyme to flowers that attract the pollinators.

“We aim to teach students about where food comes from, good nutrition and healthy eating habits and we want to foster respect for the environment,” Year three teacher Freya Kreibich says. 

“Later in the year, the students will be using their understanding of the produce to create healthy recipes, which they will also cook,” she said.

The cart is also creating community, with families that have a little left over after harvesting their own gardens helping to stock the shelves.

“The school community has embraced the Community Grow Cart with great enthusiasm and it has been incredible to see how adults and children alike are enjoying sampling from it,” Miss Kreibich said.

“The community has taken it to another level too, by donating homemade produce.”

by WADE ZAGLAS

VINCENT Mayor Emma Cole says despite gloomy talk about Leederville’s economy, there are green shoots emerging, such as a proposed boutique hotel.

“It’s a very sad thing to see some long-established businesses close, but at the same time there are some businesses who are working hard to keep ahead of the trends, collaborate with each other and diversify themselves,” Ms Cole told the Voice.

Ms Cole says the city is also looking at boosting density in the suburb to bring in more workers and inner-city residents to support businesses.

She says the council, working closely with the Leederville Connect and its Town Teams, is also looking at creating a shared alfresco space between Newcastle and Oxford Streets.

“We will make sure development is sensitive and doesn’t impact the character of Leederville that we all love,” she says.

Ms Cole says she is hearing from businesses across the city that times are tough.

“People don’t have a lot of disposable income at the moment. Local businesses are having to work harder but there are signs of strength and innovation and the city is keen to support local businesses and keep people coming through the town centre.”

In an attempt to do this the city’s Business Advisory Group has agreed on three key priorities; people, place and policy.

The BAG will look at ways to support entrepreneurship, activation and ensure policy and legislative frameworks support businesses through “red tape reduction”.

Broad sketch

“It’s a broad sketch to inform economic development strategy,” says Ms Cole. “It will help us really flesh out these concepts and look at how the city can grow and expand economically.”

She says the council recently changed its planning policy so existing business could try out new income streams with less red tape.

“If you’re a record shop and you want to introduce coffee, for example, you can do that as an ancillary function and you won’t get hung up on costly issues like applications or further parking requirements.”

BAG member Cr Jimmy Murphy says the retail future of the city is going to see a lot of change.

“I think we are going to see more of these shared retail spaces and retailers sharing costs,” he says.

“This will mean more short-term rentals so the council could potentially look at making it easier to get short-term rentals.”

He says although there’s been a bit of negative media about business in Leederville, the neighbourhood is actually doing quite well.

“That’s if you’re comparing apples with apples,” he clarifies. “It’s all relative. Overall, Perth is in a dire recession.”

Long-established haunts that are closing their doors include Oxford Street favourites Elroy Clothing, Oxford Street Books and Black Plastic, and the pain is also being felt in Mt Hawthorn, where popular cafe Academy will now only be doing functions until its lease runs out; it costs less to leave the cafe closed during the day.

Owner of nearby business Network Video, Melanie McInerney says Academy is not the only business struggling at the Mezz, and her store is only open because she chooses not to take a wage.

by MOLLY SCHMIDT

A NORWEGIAN cycling initiative that reconnects the elderly with young people and the great outdoors has been launched in Perth.

“Cycling Without Age” encourages younger generations to take old timers out for a scenic ride in special trishaw bikes.

Dorthe Pedersen founded the program after seeing a man in Copenhagen offer his nursing home neighbours a ride on a rickshaw.

It made her think about her own elderly neighbours and how they were “seeing the same four walls” too often.

After witnessing this “act of kindness”, the former health and aged care worker thought it would be a great idea to roll the program out in communities across Norway.

“I thought it would be a great way for individuals to influence daily life within a Nordic welfare system,” Ms Pedersen says.

Since founding the program six years ago and introducing it to over 40 countries and 50,000 people worldwide, she has seen some remarkable results for the passengers and the cyclists.

She has seen elderly people reduce their reliance on sleep medication and receive a significant boost in their moods and energy levels.

The founder has also seen families reconnect and mental health improvements for the cyclists who ride passengers around.

Ms Pedersen fondly recalls an early participant who began walking again after spending roughly nine years bed-ridden, and vividly recalls how the program helped improve the lives of an Alzheimer’s patient and her daughter.

Ms Pedersen also loves how the program unites different community members and generations.

“We’ve even had police officers come in to pedal these trishaws for the community,” she said.

Ms Pedersen is on a whirlwind tour of Australia and Perth, opening up chapters in most states and territories and numerous parts of Perth.

Check out the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/cyclingwithoutagewa to find out more.

by WADE ZAGLAS

A FORMER Vincent bus driver says the council mismanaged a community bus which it now intends to auction off, a move he labelled “opportunistic”.

Robert Stall worked as a casual driver for the council from 2011-2014 and says there was plenty of demand for the service. He can’t understand how the council let that drop off.

“On the day trips there could be anything between 15 and 20 passengers on the bus, depending on the destination on a particular day,” he said.

Mr Hall said all passengers were either senior citizens or Vincent ratepayers and enjoyed the opportunity to visit places without having to worry about driving or getting a lift.

The council says the lack of ramp made the bus too hard for people with a disability to use, Mr Hall says that wasn’t a problem before.

“The fact there was no disability ramp did not factor into the situation then – all citizens who registered for the trips had to be reasonably mobile, i.e no walking frames or wheelchairs, but some did have walking sticks,” Mr Stall said.

He says the casual bus drivers helped to keep the repair costs down, as they’d check oil, fuel, water, tyres, cleanliness and even dents before each outing.

“There was a check sheet for each and every outing which had to be completed and submitted,” he says.

According to the former driver, the biggest shame will be no longer seeing the enjoyment and happiness on passengers’ faces as they visit destinations like Wanneroo Botanic Gardens and the annual Christmas light displays.

by WADE ZAGLAS

THE Museum of Perth is celebrating after its volunteers passed a significant milestone in editing one of the nation’s most important online history databases.

The Trove database is run by the National Library of Australia and contains over 584 million old newspapers, diaries, letters, artworks and other resources.

Text recognition software helps make the database searchable, but often the originals aren’t in the best condition which can leave the resulting documents scrambled.

Editing

This is where volunteers like the Museum of Perth’s step in, editing the text to fix up mistakes or update archaic language and spelling.

When the Voice visits on a Tuesday afternoon, almost 50 heads are bent over keyboards and fingers tap quietly away in the historic Atlas Building on The Esplanade.

Executive director Reece Harley is beaming because his volunteers – many fulfilling their Centrelink requirements – recently notched up their two millionth line edit.

While anyone can log on and do text corrections, Mr Harley said his volunteers tend to have a keen interest in the history of Perth.

They enjoy researching the history of iconic buildings in the city as well as memorable events and “articles about early Aboriginal history”.

Newspapers get the most attention.

“Before the internet existed, newspapers were the main source of information,” he says.

“It used to be the bible – if it wasn’t in the paper it didn’t exist.”

With the rise of social media and the decline in print newspapers, Mr Harley said it was critical that such a database exists.

The Museum of Perth is currently exhibiting Reg Walters – An Artist at War, a collection of posters that depicts WWI through an artist’s lens.

Next month the museum opens Death and Disorder on the Swan, an exhibition that draws attention to the bodies of victims who have been shockingly dumped in the Swan River over the years.

by WADE ZAGLAS

VINCENT council will work with developers and home owners on their landscaping to try and combat the de-greening of the city.

The council wants to almost double its tree canopy by 2050, but a review of its Green Plan has shown that despite a rigorous planting program, it’s barely keeping pace with the clearing of vegetation on private land.

“During 2009 to 2014 we actively planted trees in the public domain, but an equal number were being lost on privately owned land, primarily to subdivision and redevelopment,” says Vincent mayor Emma Cole.

“Our Imagine Vincent consultation strongly highlighted that our community wants more green spaces and to protect and increase the number of trees in Vincent.

The revised Greening Plan will combat the deforestation by working with community members and offering advice on suitable choices of trees for private properties.

“We will provide practical advice, support and subsidies to residents and property owners to enable them to choose appropriate tree and landscaping species on their property,” says Ms Cole.

Since the original 2014 Greening Plan the city has planted over 1600 street trees, 25km of greenway (streets providing shady tree canopy) and over 2.6 hectares of native habitat through its eco-zoning program.

The draft plan will soon be advertised for community feedback with adoption slated for later this year.

by MOLLY SCHMIDT

A DEVICE which uses boat hulls to pump out the sound of feasting killer whales is showing promise as a cost-effective shark-deterrent.

EGO-360 Speakers CEO Christopher Bignell has teamed up with sound recordist Ken Eichenberg of Wavehouse Studios to create Project Noah WA, which they say may deliver a device that deters sharks without any marine life being harmed.

“It makes the shark feel surrounded, and they need to leave,” explains Mr Bignell.

His small, portable lime green speaker looks like something you might take on a picnic and it’s hard to imagine it scaring a fully grown shark – until he turns it on.

Amplifies

“These speakers produce sound frequencies of a speaker 10 times the size and 10 times as powerful. They push sound waves into a surface and the surface amplifies from its basic resonance. So, stick this on any surface and it’ll become your speaker,” he shouts over the unbearable noise as he turns mate Carl Richards’ front room into a pod of screaming killer whales.

Mr Bignell and Mr Eichenberg starting testing the Noah- SharkOmni when this year’s Margaret River Pro surf competition was cancelled after two shark attacks in Gracetown.

“We put five speakers in the hull of the dive boat and went out to Bunker Bay. We recorded the sound and found it was the same under water as it is above; really irritating, really disorientating,” says Mr Bignell.

“There were 20 sightings of sharks the week before in Bunker Bay. We didn’t see any.”

Previous models have failed because sharks have been able to trace the sound back to the speaker and aren’t fooled, but Mr Bignell says his model uses omni-directional sound.

“Sharks don’t have ears, they have little hairs from their mouth to their gills that pick up sensation. They sense lateral sound, which is straight direction, and omni, which is all directions,” says Mr Bignell.

The pair are now researching whether sharks will only respond to the sound of local killer whales.

They got the inspiration from the Gulf of Mexico, where killer whales started turning on sharks as fish numbers diminished. The sharks had been feeding on seals, but after the orca attack they disappeared from the area for two years.

“But we aren’t trying to scare them off completely,” he says.

“This is where we need more research. You might only need to give it a two-minute burst. And whatever is in the area has gotten well out of there. This is absolutely harmless for the sharks. All it’s going to make them do is leave their immediate area.”

Mr Bignell says repelling sharks will help WA’s tourism industry.

Mr Richards runs a charter boat and says he’ll be using the speakers.

No nets

“We don’t need to kill sharks, we don’t need to set up nets that are going to kill other marine animals, but setting something up to scare sharks away is perfect.”

Mr Bignell says they are gathering funds for further research through crowd funding campaign at Projectnoahwa, but the Noah- SharkOmni is already available for purchase, complete with sounds of four ochres surrounding and killing a great white shark off South Australia.

by MOLLY SCHMIDT

LABOR would create 1400 more university places in the Perth electorate by abolishing a cash freeze imposed by the Turnbull government if elected, says deputy Opposition leader Tanya Plibersek.

Ms Plibersek made a flying visit to WA this way to inject a bit of enthusiasm into a campaign that’s been struggling to get momentum without an effective opposition; in both Perth and Fremantle by-elections the Liberal Party has decided not to run.

Last December the federal government hit unis with a $2.2 billion freeze on commonwealth grants, arguing they were putting too much of the money into administration and advertising.

But Ms Plibersek says that effectively put a cap on student places, and using modelling by the Mitchell Institute, Labor is saying reversing those cuts will boost local places by 1400.

“The limit on places means thousands of Australians will miss out on uni,” Ms Plibersek said.

“We believe that everyone with the ability and dedication should get the chance to study at uni.”

Ms Plibersek and the party’s Perth candidate Patrick Gorman also hit out at the Turnbull government over new childcare subsidy rules.

Visiting a childcare centre together, Mr Gorman said they got feedback that families were pulling out because the new system disadvantaged them so much there was no incentive to continue working.

“There were some parents going to start up a new small business in Perth, and because of the way the system was framed it was a disincentive to go to childcare,” Mr Gorman said.

Ms Plibersek says one in three families will be worse off under the new rules.

She also criticised the system roll-out, saying it was no wonder 200,000 families were yet to sign up, because it was too difficult.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole can attest to that; she spent 15 minutes on hold waiting to find out why the government’s forms were demanding information about her partner’s business details, but not her own.

by STEVE GRANT

VINCENT council’s 2018/2019 budget promises “things that really matter to our community” says mayor Emma Cole.
Covering six main priorities, the budget focuses on sustainability, community safety and amenities, the arts, council accountability and efficiency.

“In this budget, we’ve done our utmost to make sure that every decision we make and every dollar we spend gets us closer to where the community wants to be,” Ms Cole said.

One of the big-ticket items is the $627,000 North Perth Common, due to begin this year.

The common will feature circular public lighting installations, interactive lighting that changes as people walk past and the main road will be narrowed and raised to make it more pedestrian friendly.

Other key commitments are $428,000 for solar photovoltaic panels for City of Vincent buildings and $300,000 for three hundred trees to be planted and eco-zoning in local parks.

“The natural environment contributes greatly to our inner-cirty community,” Ms Cole said.

Rates will go up 2.7 per cent.

by WADE ZAGLAS