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  • Cleaver in transition

    Cleaver in transition

    CLEAVER STREET between Newcastle and Carr will continue its transition towards a medium-density, inner-city precinct, despite the objections of some of its residents.

    At this week’s full council meeting, Vincent approved the construction of four three-storey dwellings which will break with the tradition of deep setbacks along the street.

    The development at number 34, which is not in a heritage area, will sit between an old single-storey home and two-storey apartments.

    Eight neighbours complained about the proposal, saying the bulk would result in a three-storey boundary wall, the reduced street setback impacted on Cleaver’s aesthetics, and they’ll now be facing a row of garages and carports.

    Council officers said this portion of the street was changing towards higher density, with a number of properties capable of supporting multiple grouped dwellings.

  • LETTERS 5.5.18

    LETTERS 5.5.18

    Another one of Jason Chatfield’s rejected New Yorker cartoons. You think he’d get the hint by now.

    Royal let-down
    THOUSANDS of kids around the world are starving and living in poverty and hardly get a mention in the media.
    All we get is that another royal baby is born.
    The royals are living in luxury and seem to have only one talent, which is to breed like rabbits at the taxpayers’ expense.
    I don’t know how these people can sleep at night knowing what poor people put up with on a daily basis.
    R Dixon
    Arkwell St, WIllagee

    A bit fishy
    I FULLY support marine protection areas as in a few decades not many desirable species of fish will be left.
    Why do some companies need super trawlers?
    Presumably small boats do not pay their way anymore.
    It also means that the product density of desirable species is already far too low for insatiable human beings.
    Yet Australia has a 25,750km long coast line and there is not enough to go around to keep a 26-million population happy.
    Very strange indeed. Are there too many fish eaters amongst us?
    So what do I see in a fish and chip shop? Hake from South Africa and NZ.
    In supermarkets I notice prawns from Vietnam, tuna pieces from Indonesia and blue whiting from China.
    Some of these functionaries must be making good money.
    So everyone is catching for all it’s worth, since there is no end to the ever increasing number of consumers, yet it is widely reported that fish stock numbers are falling.
    Otto Mueller
    Windily Road, Murdoch

    Don’t follow the herd
    IF people respect animals it contributes to our community wellbeing, bringing so much joy and prosperity into our lives.
    The Live Export sheep trade continuing out of Fremantle Port is a very sad sight.
    WA produces an excellent product through exemplary animal husbandry, space per animal, nutrition and dedicated ram selection, ensuring flocks evolve strongly and healthily.
    I am guessing the majority of overseas consumers who buy live lamb might not have a fridge.
    If we could manufacture a really cheap refrigerator that would suit the needs of overseas consumers, it could help to transition those markets into buying chilled lamb.
    And situating the halal abattoirs closer to production areas so our sheep don’t travel too far.
    Nikki Wilkins
    Perth

    WE love receiving letters so whenever you have something to say feel free to drop us a line. Send your letters to: The Editor, Perth Voice, PO Box 85, North Fremantle, WA , 6159. Or email them to: news@perthvoice.com. Please remember to include your name, address and a daytime telephone number. 

  • Rally for Workers

    Rally for Workers

    SALLY McMANUS is secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. In this week’s SPEAKER’S CORNER, she calls on people to attend a May Day rally for Change the Rules, a campaign fighting for more secure work and fairer pay for Aussie workers.

    THERE’S a conservative government in Canberra that’s walking hand-in-hand with big business intent on cutting the pay and conditions of working people through attacks on unions.

    This is as true today as it was 20 years ago when the Patrick dispute was fought in Fremantle and at ports across Australia.

    That dispute moulded a generation of trade union activists.

    Right from the start the dispute was significant—the Howard Government was looking for its Thatcher miners’ strike moment.

    It thought it could take on the strongest union and win—and then crush the rest of us.

    Demonise wharfies

    They tried to demonise wharfies in the media and there were several skirmishes before we woke up to the news that security guards with dogs had locked out the Maritime Union of Australia Patrick workforce across the country.

    I was 26, an organiser in Sydney. I along with thousands of people across the country were to spend long hours over six weeks on the community picket lines, all playing a role in what was a national drama.

    This was before mobiles, email and social media. We collected names and numbers by hand and created spreadsheets and what was called a phone tree.

    It was my job to activate the phone tree to alert the thousands of people on our list if we thought trucks were coming to try and break the picket.

    I would call the first five people on the list, those five people would call five people each and so on. Everyone needed to know the five people they had to call on the list and the list grew every day.

    If everyone played their part we could activate the entire network in an emergency.

    The emergency did come at 5am one morning. The police tried to break the picket here in Fremantle and Melbourne and failed. Now it was our turn.

    I got the call: “The trucks are coming”. I leapt out of bed and made my five calls and then I was down at Port Botany picket.

    There were only 17 of us. How could we stop the trucks?

    Then a stream of cars arrived…then there were 50 of us…then the police came.

    As the calls went out it grew to 100, 200, 300. Soon 1000.

    Everyone linked arms and faced down the police. Eventually the phone tree delivered 3000 people who all answered the call and we managed to turn those trucks away.

    Today, we’re at another critical juncture. Our Change the Rules May Day rallies across the country are calling for better and stronger rights for working people.

    In WA, wage growth is at a record low, unemployment is at a 16-year high, youth unemployment is 17.1 per cent—the highest in the country—40 per cent of working Australians face insecure work and household incomes are falling.

    Unfair laws

    Working people across WA have had their pay and conditions stripped by unfair laws that allow big business to terminate enterprise bargaining agreements, contract out to labour hire, use exploited workers on work visas and to engage in wage theft.

    Maintenance workers at Griffith Coal had their EBA axed in 2016, which triggered a 40 per cent pay cut, and Murdoch University launched a bid to terminate a pay deal in favour of an award that could allow for staff wages to be slashed by up to 39 per cent.

    Thousands of workers across the country are hitting the streets as part of the Change the Rules campaign to call for more secure work and fairer pay.

    This will be the largest mobilisation of working people since Your Rights at Work Campaign over a decade ago and we want you to be a part of it.

    I will speak in Fremantle on May 6 at the Change the Rules rally at Esplanade Park, between 10am and 2pm.

  • Italian spritz

    Italian spritz

    IT’S spritza time!” shouts Mario Tolardo as he glides around tables, squirting soda into huge glasses of bright orange aperol.

    The theatrical service from the co-owner of Spritz Spizzicheria and the occasional honking of horns on the busy Scarborough Beach Road, lent an air of Rome to our recent lunch.

    And the food lived up to anything eaten in Italy, including the cavatelli alla Norma ($24).

    Perfect al dente

    The pasta was perfectly al dente with a wonderful chewy springiness, and the braised eggplant and baby tomatoes enriched the sauce, which clung like a parting lover to the doughy morsels.

    D’Angerous Dave went for the vegetarian caprese pizza with extra anchovies ($26)—a huge dish dotted with goats cheese and fresh basil leaves.

    “It has a really good mix of herbs and is lovely and fresh,” he opined. “And the dough is nicely chewy.”

    A pom is never happy unless there’s chips ($8) involved, and Dave was delighted with Spizzicheria’s hot and crispy offering, which came with a invigorating mustard aioli.

    My brother John had the fettuccine seafood ($28).

    “Delicious,” he declared. “The seafood is good and there’s plenty of chilli on the lips.”

    His wife Sally reckoned her five cheese ravioli ($24.50) was fantastically rich and creamy, but thought she’d been given a kids’ portion.

    “It’s really yummy and the pancetta is really crispy, but there’s not enough,” she wailed as she eyeballed her empty plate.

    As spectacular as the aperol looked, we decided to try the Vermentino ($36), an Italian wine recommended by the waiter.

    As promised it was crisp and dry with a clean finish.

    Spizzicheria doesn’t offer dessert, but it does own Affogato Gelateria next door.

    Sal and I had a panna cotta ($7), a smooth creamy ice cream with a tinge of hazelnut, while John went for the goats cheese and honey ice cream.

    “I was very surprised how good it was,” he said.

    by JENNY D’ANGER

    Spritz Spizzicheria
    148 Scarborough Beach Rd, Mt Hawthorn
    Open Wed–Sun
    12 noon–10pm

  • This Boots is made for singin’

    This Boots is made for singin’

    AS a teenager Ruby Boots didn’t run away, but she did walk at a brisk pace to distance herself from her “conflicted” Girrawheen home.

    “I left home early,” she tells the Voice, but refuses to elaborate, as she sips coffee in Melbourne airport.

    The 36-year-old singer-songwriter—aka Bex Chilcot—now lives in the US and is back in Perth for the release of her second album Don’t Talk About It.

    Like most artists the road to success has been a colourful and nomadic one.

    At the age of 20, Chilcott banged on doors in Broome until she landed a job on a pearling lugger.

    Ruby Boots (aka Bex Chilcott). Photo supplied.

    Pivotal moment

    She then went overseas and got a job on a trawler in France, but was fired and tried her hand at busking in the UK.

    It proved to be a pivotal moment, providing Chilcott with the confidence to pursue a career as a country singer/songwriter.

    She cites The Waifs, Janis Joplin, Patty Griffin and Linda Ronstadt as influences, and the title song of her new album is a country rock tune about family secrets and lies.

    But the “back bone” of the album is I Am a Woman, a comment on the treatment of women and their bodies, Chilcott says.

    “These kinds of incidents are so ingrained in our culture and are swept under the carpet at every turn.”

    Akin to a gospel hymn, the song is a gentle reminder that things need to change.

    “As tempting as it was to just write an angry tirade I wanted to respond with integrity, so I sat with my feelings and this song emerged as a celebration of women and womanhood, of our strength and our vulnerability, all we encompass and our inner beauty, countering ignorance and vulgarity with honesty and pride and without being exclusionary to any man or woman,” she says.

    “My hope is that we come together on this long drawn-out journey.”

    You can catch Ruby Boots at the Rosemount Hotel in North Perth on Friday May 11. 

    by JENNY D’ANGER

  • ASTROLOGY May 5 – May 12, 2018

    ASTROLOGY May 5 – May 12, 2018

    ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20)
    Everything that has happened over the last few years has ultimately opened you up to a whole change in outlook. As Chiron moves in and Uranus moves out, so upheaval mellows out and healing begins. With Mercury also in your sign, this is a time of contemplation, of insight.

    TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 20)
    The Sun is shining brightly on your field of play. Jupiter in Scorpio is directly opposing him. You are standing between your desire for a simple life, and the fact that complications abound. There are tangles to untangle and knots to undo. Attend to reality. Genuine simplicity will follow.

    GEMINI (May 21 – June 21)
    The Capricorn Moon at the beginning of the week provides you with a reminder to knuckle down and do what needs to be done. This will alter your mood and bring you back to the delight and capacity to receive love, that comes with Venus’s boundlessly positive presence in your sign.

    CANCER (June 22 – July 22)
    The Moon starts the week in Capricorn, moving people towards independence and self-reliance. This is a good reminder at this time. To get your roots down, you need to rely on your own talents and energy. Yours is the starter motor for the projects that mean most. Others will join later.

    LEO (July 23 – Aug 22)
    The Capricorn Moon at the beginning of the week gives you a timely reminder to trust yourself. It’s the inspirations and ideas that surface in your alone moments, when all the static of external noise fades away, that mean most. Once you have a dream then you must communicate it.

    VIRGO (Aug 23 – Sept 22)
    You want to feel at home, nurtured and safe. At the same time Mercury is in Aries, which is causing you to push against the very things you want. It’s going to take a stretch of insight to see these old patterns and loosen their hold. Intimacy is an adventure. It involves the ego being laid aside.

    LIBRA (Sept 23 – Oct 23)
    The Taurus Sun is keeping your feet on the ground. Venus is in Gemini, keeping you butterfly light, curious and playful. When intensity arises in your relationships, let the Sun bring you back to your physicality, your earthiness, your groundedness; then Venus will help you to find the dance.

    SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 21)
    Simplicity is a beautiful thing, but when the mundane dulls your senses instead of awakens them, it’s time for a change. You love breakthrough moments. Any intensity that gets pinned on you, is because this is what you keep going for. Sometimes you get there sometimes not. Get there.

    SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 – Dec 21)
    You are entering the waters of relationship tentatively. There’s so much to want in there – but there’s also the possibility of getting hurt. There’s no shortcut or easy way through. The presence of an ‘other’ at close quarters is bound to confront our ego. Be prepared to feel and learn.

    CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 19)
    Capricorn is getting crowded. Saturn is here. Pluto is here. Mars is here – and now the Moon pays a visit early in the week. She will shine a light on all the rest. Expect your emotions to run through you like a cleansing river. Don’t fear them. Welcome them. Shift direction, from the heart.

    AQUARIUS (Jan 20 – Feb 18)
    Though you are in a position of influence, obvious or not, the general groundswell of events isn’t focussed on you. This can give you a chance to move forward unencumbered – unless you crave the very attention that could inadvertently divert or derail you. Be careful what you wish for.

    PISCES (Feb 19 – Mar 20)
    With the Sun in Taurus you feel like there is ground beneath your feet, that you are supported, held. This, beautifully, gives you confidence to create, to dream. The river needs good solid banks in order to be able to flow freely. Don’t over-think things. Stay with what you know to be true.

  • Great place

    Great place

    THIS federation-style home in Inglewood is warm and welcoming.

    At the heart of the three-bedroom house is the gorgeous light-filled open plan.

    With a nod in the direction of the tiled fireplace, the owner says: “The family room is where we spend most of our time. In winter I love the fire.”

    Inglewood primary school is almost across the road and the playtime sounds are a pleasant backdrop.

    “I sit in the courtyard and listen to kids laughing and playing,” the owners say. “I really like that.”

    The high-walled courtyard has a covered brick patio and a patch of grass for the kids to play on.

    For a relatively small space there’s a surprising number of trees, including a mature lemon, a pomegranate laden with fruit and a weeping mulberry.

    Inside there are plenty of reproduction touches, like the stained-glass front door, brick fireplace, ceiling roses and honey-gold timber floors.

    The spacious kitchen is dominated by a striking black, white and tan tessellated tile floor.

    There’s a heap of sage-green cupboards, a white ceramic sink and a huge pantry, making this an easy area to whip up meals for a growing family.

    The main bedroom, at the front of the home, is a generous space with a walk-in-robe and a black-and-white federation-tile en suite.

    One of the kids’ rooms has been painted Wedgwood blue and white, creating a soothing atmosphere, and the other a fresh spearmint green and white.

    From this Robinson Street home it’s a 25-minute cycle into the city, or there’s a bus stop outside the front door.

    The Beaufort Street cafe strip and the night food markets are a five-minute walk away.

    “Inglewood is just a great suburb,” the owner says.

    by JENNY D’ANGER

    16B Robinson Street, Inglewood
    from $649,000
    Natalie Hoye 0405 812 273
    Acton Mt Lawley 9272 2488

  • Get screened

    Get screened

    ABOUT two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they are 70 years old.

    And each year more than 750,000 people across the nation are treated for one or more non-melanoma skin cancers, including basal and squamous cell.

    The statistics are alarming, but there is some comfort to be taken from recent advancements in skin cancer treatment.

    Non-invasive radiation therapy has emerged as a popular option for patients who cannot undergo a general anaesthetic, where surgical removal of the cancer would result in considerable disfigurement, and for the treatment of larger areas.

    “Modern radiation therapy, coupled with careful treatment planning, now delivers an unprecedented level of efficacy and safety,” says radiation oncologist Dr Jeremy Croker.

    Radiation therapy typically involves a series of 10-minute treatments spread over two to three weeks, and side effects are generally rare and akin to mild sunburn.

    Ninety per cent of patients reported good or excellent aesthetic outcomes in a published review.

    In most cases the non-invasive treatment can completely remove the tumour while preserving the surrounding tissue, and is a popular choice for people who have skin cancer on their face.

    Radiation therapy can also be used to treat returning skin cancer, or after surgery when all the cancer has perhaps not been removed.

    GenesisCare, Australia’s largest provider of radiation therapy services, has three sub-specialised skin radiation oncologists, Dr Croker, Dr Jerry Freund and Dr Evan Ng.

    They are busy working with dermatologists across Australia to collect data to assist in the development of new research to treat dermatological conditions.

    “Radiation therapy has advanced considerably over the last decade and technology is improving all the time,’  says Dr Ng.

    If you are diagnosed with a treatable skin cancer, ask your dermatologist if radiation therapy may be a suitable treatment option.

    GenesisCare has WA clinics in Wembley, Murdoch, Joondalup and Bunbury.

  • Save the trees

    Save the trees

    THE weather’s cooled but some kids at Mt Hawthorn primary school aren’t looking forward to next summer. The reason? The school’s centerpiece 75-year-old Port Jackson fig tree has been axed.

    A large grassy area once shaded by the mighty tree is now a giant sandpit as trucks dump sand for the foundations of a new two-storey classroom.

    Local eco-advocate group Trees4Vincent petitioned WA education minister Sue Ellery to alter plans for a $3.5 million early learning centre to protect the tree.

    But despite a 1000-signature petition, she maintained the alternative ideas just weren’t suitable.

    Along with a lack of shade, the heat problem is compounded by a synthetic surface installed elsewhere to replace the natural grass which could no longer keep up with growing student numbers (currently around 850 and projected to grow to 950 by 2025).

    Parent Naomi O’Shea says temperatures are seven degrees hotter on the fake turf compared to real grass.

    • Mt Hawthorn primary Year 1 student Leah doesn’t want any more trees cut down. Photo by Jenny D’Anger

    Her daughter Leah, a year one student, has written an adorable letter to the education minister: “To Mrs Ellery…… I am a bit sad about the tree that  cut doone. Can you not cut doone ene moo treet,”
    she wrote.

    The huge Port Jackson fig was a favourite place to play and she loved to collect its leaves for her leaf collection.

    A massive old peppermint tree shading a concrete tunnel play area on Killarney Street was also given the chop leaving the area hot, dry and unusable in summer, Mrs O’Shea says.

    Green’s education spokesperson Alison Xamon says the education department needs to increase tree canopy cover on school sites, not detract from it.

    The education department tried in practice to replace trees that had been removed, but it had no formal policy to do so, she says.

    “On a site as small as Mt Hawthorn Primary School, the loss of canopy cover over the last 12 years has been astounding–more than 2,700 square metres,” Ms Xamon says.

    “While over 20 trees have been removed, including the huge fig tree, more have been heavily pruned.

    “Only four new trees have been planted in that time.”

    Planning and preparations for urban infill had been in place for a long time, Ms Xamon says: “We know that our school sites are going to reflect the density increases around them and that they can’t physically get any bigger.

    “Managing and maintaining the existing school canopy, and hopefully increasing it, while also accommodating a growing number of students, needs to be an issue that the Department of Education takes seriously.”

    Education minister Sue Ellery was contacted for a response.

    by DAVID BELL and JENNY D’ANGER

  • Raising the dead

    Raising the dead

    CONCEPT images for a planned redevelopment of the heritage listed East Perth girls school, and surrounding sites, have been released. But first, hundreds of bodies in the old graveyard will need to be exhumed before work can start.

    Sold by the state government mid-2017 for $5million the school was bought by local investor syndicate “Australian Development Capital” whose key player is the Perth-based Warburton Group.

    On Saturday WA lands minister Rita Saffioti announced the same group had bought neighbouring site 20 Bronte Street for an as yet undisclosed sum.

    The group plans to create a new mixed use East Perth precinct incorporating residential, retail and offices.

    The old school building has been flagged by the new owners as the potential site of a community hub.

    In a media statement Ms Saffioti said: “With this land sale, 20 Bronte Street, East Perth, currently a vacant block of land, will find new life with the iconic Old Perth Girls School as a mixed use, residential, retail, office accommodation and community space.

    • Early concept plans for the East Perth blocks bought by ADC.

    “The buyers have extensive experience with similar redevelopment projects, including a number of heritage properties within the Perth CBD.

    “The property development team has a strong understanding of the heritage values of the property, and will respect the building’s history and heritage as part of the repositioning of the site as a residential, mixed use and community hub.”

    There are potentially hundreds of bodies buried there. As a condition of the sale the remains will have to be exhumed and interred “in an ethical manner”.

    Most of the 10,000 or so bodies buried in the East Perth cemetery (in use between 1830 and 1919) are across the other side of Plain Street, and much of it has already been built over.

    In 2016 the Voice reported a push by local parents and Museum of Perth chair Reece Harley to return the building to its original use as an inner city school, but neither Labor nor the Libs were up for the idea.

    The nearest primary school for East Perth kids remains Highgate PS, but parents say it’s an arduous journey through hellish traffic to get there.

    ADC is the group behind the 101-room Sage Hotel on Hay Street in West Perth, and is also working on the Leadlight Hotel on the corner of Newcastle and Beaufort Street.

    by DAVID BELL