Perth Voice Interactive

A CENTURIES-old tradition was revived at Mary Street Piazza last Saturday (June 9) when 12 orators got on their soapbox for an ad hoc speaker’s corner.

Town Team Movement convenor Jimmy Murphy organised the event at short notice, after posting on his Facebook page that he was thinking about holding a public speaker’s series and being inundated with responses.

“I thought, this is cool, I won’t muck around, I’ll do it straight away.”

He had a free Saturday and lined up 12 speakers.

“It actually worked out really well,” he says. “I loved every minute of it as we laughed, cried, sympathised, disagreed, agreed, considered, perhaps viewed another perspective…We were together out in the open in a friendly, kind environment. “

There were a diverse range of speakers, including real estate agent Gia Le discussing courage and acting in spite of fear, musician Randa Khamis talking about “the value of inner peace” and entertainer Magnus Danger Magnus telling us why pears are better than apples in his oration “Why the pear is the superior fruit.”

Mr Murphy, a Vincent councillor and event organiser behind the Leederville and Mt Hawthorn street festivals, says the idea started “as a one off thing. But it was an experiment and it worked really well, so there will be more.

“I’m kind of secretly hoping someone else might organise the next one,” he laughs, saying he’d be happy to hand over the database of interested speakers.

by DAVID BELL

ONE of Perth council’s most senior employees is leaving to become CEO of Gold Coast Tourism, midway through the state government’s investigation into the city.

Annaliese Battista was the city’s director of economic development and activation, and  in internal emails she described lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi’s “poor” conduct towards staff.

On December 23 2017 she implored CEO Martin Mileham to “take action” over an unsafe workplace caused by poor councillor conduct, citing the lord mayor as the worst offender.

At the time the lord mayor had stood down pending a decision on her drawn-out legal battle over undeclared gifts.

Ms Battista wrote to Mr Mileham; “it is critical to address these conduct issues prior to Mrs Scaffidi’s return to duties on Monday, 8 January 2018, given her poor conduct is clearly the most sustained and persistent and therefore presents the highest risk to staff safety and well-being” through workplace stress.

When Mr Mileham took stress leave saying elected members were bullies, Ms Battista was made acting CEO by a majority of councillors not aligned to the lord mayor – Lexi Barton, Jemma Green, Reece Harley, Steve Hasluck and James Limnios.

Previously Ms Battista had raised concerns internally about how the city was handling one of the lord mayor’s properties – the Grand Central hotel.

A leaked email she sent to the CEO showed she was concerned that the heritage listing of the building – opposed by Ms Scaffidi’s husband Joe – was being repeatedly delayed.

She said it could appear that it was being given “special attention” and there had been an “unreasonable delay” in listing it.

Ms Battista had mostly worked in PR – the RAAF, Western Power, Subiaco council and then the WA Local Government Association – before her stint as marketing manager at Perth council and promotion to director.

She’s due to start at Queensland’s peak tourism body on August 6.

by DAVID BELL

AFTER providing cheap rehearsal space to bands for 25 years – including the likes of John Butler and Paul Kelly – Dream Studios in Mt Hawthorn will close this Sunday (June 17).

Located at 369 Oxford Street, the building was bought in April 2017 for $1.53 million and in December the new owner submitted an application to turn the rear section of the building into a carpark. The front will be medical consulting rooms for a hearing specialist.

Dream Studios owner Jo Poole says the studio’s been around for “half my life” and it’ll all be over come Sunday.

It used to be the old site of the Hip-E Club – now down the road on Newcastle Street – and was one of the few rehearsal spaces not tucked away in an industrial zone.

The studio had a grungy charm, with walls clad in decades of overlapping graffiti, and it was a cheap option for young bands.

“We had dreams and aspirations,” Mr Poole said. “It was never about making money.”

Over the years the rehearsal rooms have been graced by thousands of musos, including John Butler, Paul Kelly, 28 Days, Drapht and the Syllabolix crew, and the Volcanics.

One musician who used to practice there and loved the price and atmosphere said, “$60 [got you] all the graffiti cocks you can stand to look at on the walls”.

In 2013 the “Dream” nearly became a nightmare after Vincent council staff discovered the business didn’t have the right planning approvals to operate.

They wanted to shut the place down, but councillors relented and let them stay open.

The site’s zoning allows for up to five storeys, but the new owner didn’t apply to build upwards.

by DAVID BELL

AFTER 17 years of awards and showcasing local electronic music, Perth nightclub Ambar will close next month.

Owner Liam Mazzucchelli says the “business in its current format is not sustainable”, but they’d be going out in style with a huge wrap-up party on July 7.

Launched in 2001 the Murray Street club was Mr Mazzucchelli’s first venue under his brand Boomtick, which went on to include Villa, Jack Rabbit Slims and the Breakfest music festival.

On the Boomtick website he announced, “it is with heavy hearts but clear minds the decision has been made to close Ambar”.

Mr Mazzucchelli  said “There are a number of considered factors; tough economic times over the last 2-3 years, the way people consume music and the fundamental change in the landscape of late night entertainment.”

Synonymous with dim lighting and a slightly sticky floor, but an amazing sound system and quality DJ line up, Ambar’s won the Best Nightclub award in the Perth Dance Music Awards every year from 2003 to 2013.

DJMag ranked it the number 42 club in the world in 2006, putting it at number 1 in Australia.

KIDS could be playing soccer over the grave of a mysterious radioactive Land Rover rumoured to have been buried in East Fremantle after atomic testing in the 1950s.

Following the Voice’s story which proved a contaminated Land Rover was bought to Leeuwin Barracks after the Monte Bello tests (“Atomic riddle,” Voice, May 26, 2018) the Voice got a call from Melville handyman Kim Stewart.

Mr Stewart says that quite a few years back while working as a builder he was trying to sell a design to an elderly Willagee resident who’d been stationed at the barracks.

Bush

“I can’t recall how it came up in the conversation, but he said that he was part of the labour force that had been involved in burying the Land Rover,” Mr Stewart said.

“He was really upset about it, and said he was really angry that they’d then turned the area into soccer grounds.

“He said point blank that it was under the soccer ovals near the river.”

“I’ve got no reason to think he was lying; I was just some guy trying to sell him a building contract.”

That would fit with the recollections of former navy serviceman John Shotton, who told the Voice in 2015 that his mate Bob Smith “went behind the barracks, dug a big hole and buried it there”.

Back in the 50s the area now used as soccer fields was bush.

After stories about the Land Rover surfaced after Defence announced it was selling off Leeuwin, it ran ground-penetrating radar over a few sites identified by former servicemen but came up empty handed.

The department told the Voice this week that its testing was restricted to the Barracks site, meaning the soccer fields weren’t included.

The Voice was also contacted by local photographer Roger Garwood, who has his own quirky connection to the atomic tests through the “father” of the British atom bomb, William Penney, who was also instrumental in designing the US bombs that wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Subsequently he headed the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England,” Mr Garwood recalled. “My parents had a hotel, the Hinds Head, at Aldermaston. William Penney was a semi-permanent resident and in the evening, after dinner, he would sometimes teach me poetry.

“I must be the only person in the world who was taught poetry by the man who was instrumental in designing the bombs which effectively ended WWII.”

by STEVE GRANT

ANZAC Cottage in Mount Hawthorn is holding an open day to tell the story of life aboard the troopships that left Australia for the Great War.

When the first troopship departed Albany on November 1, 1914 it was less than three months since the declaration of war.

It was a huge logistical feat to get them underway; the navy didn’t have the dozens of troopships it would need at the start of the war. Many had to be requisitioned from civilian steamship companies and converted for wartime use.

The cramped conditions meant diseases like the flu would rapidly spread.

The ships were also threatened by the German navy – including ships like the famous cruiser Emden which roamed the Pacific and captured or sank 21 allied vessels until it came up against the HMAS Sydney – so troopships were escorted by British and Australian ships, and even the battlecruiser Ibuki, deployed by our Japanese allies.

The Scottish-built SS Kyarra was originally a steel cargo and passenger liner, but was requisitioned and converted into a hospital ship in November 1914.  The ship survived wartime service and was returned to private hands on January 4 1918, only to be sunk by a German U-boat off Dorset in May 1918.

To this day it’s still a popular wreck for divers to explore.

Troops wrote of sad, funny and intriguing experiences aboard the ships, and the Friends of Anzac Cottage will be sharing a few of the stories recorded by the “sometimes reluctant sailors”.

The open day is at the cottage, 38 Kalgoorlie Street, on July 1 from 1.45pm to 2.45pm.

It’s free entry with a gold coin donation for afternoon tea.

by DAVID BELL

KEEPING up with Fremantle artist Bello Benischauer requires mental gymnastics as he jumps from topic to topic, leaping between past, current and future works.

Meeting at his atmospheric studio in the Fremantle Arts Centre, the Austrian-born artist barely kept still as he enthused about Three Secrets, a play produced by his experimental theatre company.

“Three characters touch on issues concerning their gender, expressing how they deal with pain, self-doubts and fragility caused by societal and cultural standards whilst remembering their childhood,” he says.

Benischauer wrote and directed the play and his partner Elisabeth Eitelberger was his dramaturge.

Actors Helah Milroy, Nathalie Boukpeti and Aska Siragusa share their character’s secrets with the audience as Mrs Woodmillars, Miss Good and Mr Love.

Woodmillars’ parents were alcoholics and so is her abusive husband.

“Starting to question her long forgotten ambitions, she tries to get rid of feeling responsible
for the fate of others,” Benischauer says.

Good is troubled and wonders why she feels so different from others, while Love has lived with his mother all his life but is now alone, “and unloved, not knowing how to face daily hurdles.”

Audience members are invited to sit, or move around for different perspectives, Benischauer says.

“Regardless of being seated as a spectator on the sides, or choosing to be in the middle of the action around you with overlapping monologues, everyone in the audience gets a different close-up story to take home.”

The play will be followed by a vegetarian meal, which Benischauer hopes will further break down barriers “as people start talking to each other about how they felt; what buttons it pushed.”

Three Secrets is on at the Pakenham Street Art Space, June 15 and 22, and at the Subiaco Arts Centre, June 27 and 28.

Tickets at ticketbooth.com.au

by JENNY D’ANGER

WORLD CUP RUSSIA 2018

AUSTRALIA’S Socceroos have qualified for a fourth consecutive World Cup, but getting to Russia 2018 hasn’t been plain sailing.

The Socceroos had to play 22 games to qualify after failing to secure direct entry. Then coach Ange Postecoglou shocked the nation’s round-ball fans by resigning. He’d taken them to the world stage but would be watching from the wings.

But the team’s there now, and under new coach Bert van Marwijk there is cautious optimism that Australia can reach the knockout stages for the first time since the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

The Socceroos lost all three group matches in Brazil in 2014, but the draw has been kinder this time and they will face France, Peru and Denmark in group C.

The French are strong favourites to top the group, but pundits reckon Australia are capable of taking points off the Danes and Peruvians to clinch second spot and a place in the last 16.

Ahead of Australia’s opening match with France this Saturday (June 16), we sat down with former Socceroo Richard Garcia, now assistant coach at Perth Glory, to discuss Australia’s chances:

Q. How far can the Socceroos go at Russia 2018?

“It’s a tough one to call, just getting there is a great achievement. But if we make it out of the group that would be fantastic. In 2006 we got through to the round of 16 with a win, a draw and a loss, but in 2010 that wasn’t good enough. So it’s very hard to predict what is required to progress, but I’m sure we’ll give it everything.”

Q. Do you think the Socceroos will play their usual attacking game?

“I think we’ll definitely play with that bravado and attack, because that’s when we’re at out best, and in any case, we probably don’t know how to play a restrictive, defensive-style game. It’s not in our nature. We definitely have great attacking players capable of hurting Peru and Denmark and I think we’ll be competitive in those games. Against France you might see us play a bit tighter and be slightly more cautious, but we will still have a go when the opportunity presents itself”

Q. Who are the key players for Australia?

“I think Mathew Leckie is pivotal to our chances. He’s been in great form and plays in the Bundesliga. He will be one to watch. The midfield will be a key area as well; that’s where you control the game. So guys like Tom Rogic will have to perform well to give us a chance.”

Q. What’s your prediction for the opener against France?

“I’ve got a feeling we might be able to nick a score draw, a 1-1 or something like that. Sometimes the bigger teams can take a while to get going in the tournament and if you catch them early you have a chance. Getting a point against France would be a huge confidence boost for the team and stand us in good stead for the remaining games. It’s a massive test in our opening game and hopefully we can do well and build on that.”

WORLD CUP RUSSIA 2018

THE Voice reckons Tom Rogic could be pivotal to the Socceroo’s chances of progressing to the World Cup knockout stages.

The attacking midfielder has been in scintillating form for Celtic this season, netting stunning goals in big games as the Scottish giants claimed back-to-back trebles.

Despite his gangly appearance Rogic has superb balance and agility, and has an uncanny knack of conjuring space in the final third and scoring goals from the edge of the box.

It’s a skill that can’t really be taught and is what makes the 25-year-old an enigmatic “game-changer”.

Rogic’s not much of a defender though and rarely lasts the 90 minutes, so he might not play against France when we’ll largely be on the back foot.

But he will undoubtedly feature at some point against Denmark and Peru, when we will require a touch of magic to breach stubborn defences.