IT’S easy to miss the main bedroom of this Bedford home, and like me, many have says the real estate agent.
It’s not because this Grand Promenade home is small, in fact it’s the perfect size for a family, with four bedrooms and two sitting areas.
It’s because like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, you go though a study nook to discover an easily overlooked door.
Timber floors
Once you do, you’ll find a generous space with two spacious walk-in-robes and an ensuite with a spa bath, separate shower and a double vanity with white stone bench top.
There are three more bedrooms and a second bathroom upstairs, along with a pleasant sitting area, perfect for kids to play on wet days, or to swat up for exams in their high school years.
Back on the ground floor, it’s family life in lights, or at least light-filled, with a heap of massive windows and glass doors in the spacious family/dining/kitchen.
White and semi-off-white walls contrast with the golden, yellow-flecked floating timber floors.
The well-appointed kitchen has white stone bench tops, a generous island bench, a huge oven and dual fridge recesses.
This kitchen is just the shot for large gatherings and family get togethers because there’s also a scullery with a second sink and walk-in-pantry.
Pull back the doors onto the covered, compact alfresco and bring the party indoors, or take it outdoors.
There’s a patch of grass for the dog to roll on and vertical garden beds filled with flowering plants which create a pretty ambience.
Built in 2016, this pleasant home is in the Inglewood Primary School zone with great access to transport, shops, cafes and restaurants.
And Morley Galleria and the Beaufort Street strip are a short drive away.
by JENNY D’ANGER
61A Grand Promenade, Bedford from $799,000 Natalie Hoye 0405 812 273 Acton Mt Lawley 9272 2488
ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20) Work is proving to be a universe full of wonders. It’s as if something has clicked in that has been missing for ages. Perhaps you get a knack that has been defying you. Perhaps all the discipline you have been engaging in starts to bear fruit like it was springtime. Stay away from power plays.
TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 20) Venus is moving through Scorpio. This helps you to fall in love with complicated feelings that generally defy your comprehension. Though you feel like you are being dragged through the occasional undercurrent, you are learning to appreciate the depth that comes with emotion.
GEMINI (May 21 – June 21) Relationships are becoming an even more riveting place than usual. There are fiery arrows of truth flying in and out of range. Even if you get pricked, and it hurts, the fact that it is truth that is grazing you, makes the whole experience deeply pleasurable. Transformation requires such courage.
CANCER (June 22 – July 22) It is your false pride that needs to go. There is no hiding the fact. It is preventing you from opening up. We all have an ego – and every ego likes to protect itself. The cost of this version of self-protection is great. We miss out on the glories that come with openness. Drop your guard.
LEO (July 23 – Aug 22) The Moon charges you up and makes you feel lusciously whole, early in the week. You are both Sun and Moon; heat and coolness. Though it’s difficult to approach all the emotions that the Scorpio Sun is bringing to the surface, you can see the benefits of diving in. Go in for real.
VIRGO (Aug 23 – Sept 22) Mercury is in Sagittarius. This is firing up your sense of adventure. Suddenly the world beyond your comfort zone looks very attractive indeed. It’s the interesting interactions you are having with the wide variety of people passing through your life right now, that are setting you on fire.
LIBRA (Sept 23 – Oct 23) Mars is proving vexatious. When you slip past assertion and fall into aggression, everything goes pear-shaped. When you fail to say appropriate ‘no’s’ life tends to trample all over you. The middle ground in this particular adventure is a tricky one for Libran’s. Keep bravely experimenting.
SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 21) There’s a veritable party going on in your section of the heavens. Venus is moving close to Jupiter. Life is adding expansion to delight. This potentially leads to a decidedly interesting conclusion. If you habitually defy positive outcomes, you are going to have to recalibrate. Fill your cup.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 – Dec 21) Mercury has moved in to join Saturn in Sagittarius. This should amp up your hunger for knowing. When one’s hunger for knowing becomes as acute as water would be to a person stranded in the desert, life provides all sorts of unexpected glimmers of wisdom and hope. Embody this gift.
CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 19) Life is giving you the nerve to follow your inner light like there is no tomorrow. It’s the Leo Moon shining on your head from a uniquely creative angle early in the week that sets this up. Though it will be tempting to prevaricate, it would be best if you don’t. Give yourself some real fun.
AQUARIUS (Jan 20 – Feb 18) This is a great time to wonder where your emotional roots are. As much as you like to fly off into open skies looking for freedom, you also crave being able to come back to a place, or to people, that are deeply nourishing. Your emotions are asking you to listen to them. Come back home.
PISCES (Feb 19 – Mar 20) Get into gear by putting your empathy and compassion into action. Being yourself implies expression. Paint your painting. Dance your dance. Sing your song. Be all the colours you imagine and know yourself to be. Don’t fall for your ever-doubting mind. Follow your fabulousness.
THIS year’s Pride Parade is going to be bigger than ever, with a new route that takes it through the heart of Northbridge.
The parade, which is on Saturday, November 25, now also goes past both of Perth’s main LGBTIQ+ venues, starting at the Court Hotel and sashaying past Connections Nightclub for the first time on the way to the brand new Yagan Square where the after party will kick on.
The theme for this year’s parade is #FREEDOM.
Pride Parade, 19th November 2016.
Corporate Australia is getting behind the parade for the first time this year.
Australia Post, Bank West, Qantas, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Synergy have all jumped on the bandwagon to be part of the vibrant LGBTQI march through Northbridge on Saturday, November 25.
Bank West has more than 100 people walking in the parade, and Synergy has made an electric car especially for it.
Perth’s academic fraternity is also showing its support: “The unis are involved this year, ECU, Curtin and UWA; we are waiting to hear from Murdoch,” says PrideFEST festival organiser Jess O’Connell.
For the first time, Fiona Stanley Hospital staff are allowed to parade in uniform.
Organisers are still waiting to hear from the controversial, but always entertaining, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
The parade kicks off at 8pm.
Afterwards revellers will kick on at the After Party, where there’ll be roving entertainment, street performers and live music, as well as DJs. It’ll be fully licensed and there’ll be a swag of food trucks to quell the munchies.
It kicks off at 5pm, and if you’ve noticed as others have that that’s before the parade, don’t worry, there’s pass-outs so you can join the revelry and hop straight back into the dancing afterwards.
But from all reports that clamour should be the joyful celebrations of marriage equality supporters when the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the results of the national plebiscite on marriage equality this coming Wednesday.
With almost 80 per cent of the nation’s voters making the effort to have their say (that’s 12.6 million of us), pre-vote polls suggest that the Yes campaign can expect a resounding victory.
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised a members bill legislating same-sex marriage by the end of the year, although this week conservative powerbroker Eric Abetz flagged that its passage through Parliament might not be quite as smooth as supporters might like. He suggested the draft bill was “seriously inadequate” and conservatives are now drawing up their own version which would include opt-out clauses so that people couldn’t be punished for refusing to marry or recognise a same-sex couple.
But Mr Abetz might bear in mind the groundswell of support for marriage equality from the Coalition’s traditional support base; business.
• Alcoa were out strutting their LGBTIQ+ cred at last year’s parade, but that’s nothing to what the business community has planned for 2017.
Australian Marriage Equality has signed up 841 corporations, 496 local businesses and 223 regional businesses to support its campaign since Qantas CEO Alan Joyce and 19 other high-profile chief executives wrote an open letter to Mr Turnbull earlier this year urging him to legislate same-sex marriage.
And the PrideFest parade is proving to be a great opportunity to further publicly express their support, says organiser Jess O’Connell.
She says Qantas, Shell, Synergy, BankWest, PriceWaterhouseCooper and the ANZ are a few that are either organising their own floats (we’ve been told to keep an eye out for the latter’s efforts, which follow a powerful and sensitive advertising campaign urging Aussies to “hold tight for equality”) or sending staff out to join the parade.
The business community’s involvement was an unusual phenomenon in a national vote, though it wasn’t a full-blown referendum (which have seriously gone out of flavour in Australia; there were a staggering 13 in the first 20 years after Federation but we haven’t had one in 18 years and this year marks the 40th anniversary of the last successful one).
Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome says corporate support was the key to the likely success of the vote.
“There’s obvious benefits for businesses in Australia in terms of the bottom line to be associated with a reform that’s increasingly popular, particularly amongst young people,” Mr Croome said.
This is the powerful tagline on this year’s AIDS day billboard campaign, featuring photos of six ordinary-looking people living with the condition.
It is the first campaign of its type in Australia and WA AIDS Council’s Mark Reid is hopeful that featuring people confident enough to go public about their condition will break down some of the stigma surrounding the disease.
“The major issue that we still deal with is the issue of stigma that still exists,” he says.
“This issue stops many people being completely honest about their HIV status and hinders their ability live happy, fulfilled lives.
“This affects personal, familial and work relationships.
“I am excited that this year for the first time in Australia we are running a world AIDS day billboard campaign…we are aiming to do more work to break down the stigma and discrimination that we find ourselves facing in 2017.
Reid has been involved with the WA AIDS Council for over 20 years and on Saturday, November 4, he was only the second inductee into the Proud hall of fame at the PrideFest awards ceremony.
Before joining the council he was the community centre coordinator at People Living With HIV in Perth, and during the early days of the HIV epidemic — when paranoia and stigma was at its worst — he bravely lived as an openly gay man and raised awareness about the condition and educated the Perth community.
Hall of famer Mark Reid
“The challenges are from the early days of the HIV epidemic when we were dealing with the deaths of so many people and the toll that was taking on the community and then the biggest achievement has been the advances in treatment that have enabled HIV to move from being a death sentence to being seen in Australia as a chronic, manageable illness,” he says.
“There is a suite of different options for support for people living with HIV in Perth today and it has evolved over the years, just like the epidemic has evolved, and to stay relevant all organisations working with people have had to change and adapt to remain relevant and to be able to give the best quality of support for people.”
Reid was also behind STYLEAID, a WA fashion fundraiser which ran for over 20 years and raised about $1.6million for the WA AIDS Council.
“It was always one of the best black tie parties in town and we are now developing the event to bring it back in a brand new way in 2019 which is really exciting,” he says.
Reid now works as an HIV peer education officer for the council, but despite being a hall of famer he’s not resting on his laurels, and wants the government to introduce legislation supporting marriage equality.
PREMIER Mark McGowan has this week apologised to hundreds of people who were charged under old anti-homosexual laws, and introduced legislation to allow people to have their record wiped clean.
Laws against homosexuality were officially on the books in WA until 1989, but the height of the police crackdown was during the 50s and 60s when they would try to entrap gay men, or barge into a gay-friendly venue like Roo on the Roof in Fremantle and arrest everyone.
Even though it’s no longer illegal, some older people still have convictions against them, and even if they’re spent they can still cause issues with background checks and when travelling overseas.
GLBTI Rights in Ageing said the apology and legislation were highly significant.
“Laws which criminalised homosexual acts effectively criminalised whole generations of gay men,” said GRAI chair June Lowe.
“These discriminatory laws therefore had a deleterious effect on all gay men, not just those who were convicted and charged.
“State sanctioned discrimination affected all aspects of gay men’s lives: having to be secretive for fear of losing work or housing, or potentially being rejected by ones friends or families, and many lived (and some still do live) in fear of reprisals and endured the stress of internalised shame.
“Sadly, these discriminatory laws also negatively affected the heterosexual society, in that they reinforced uncompromising attitudes which marginalised gay men. Our society is still grappling with the residual effects of this mind-set: we are all made poorer by prejudice.
• Maylands MP Lisa Baker, Rainbow Rights’ Katrina Montaut, Attorney-General John Quigley, Rainbow Rights’ Jonathan Mann, Sue Harris-Martin and Gary Martin, whose partner passed away before his name could be expunged. Photo supplied
“For these reasons, the premier’s apology and the introduction of the Expungement Bill has enormous healing potential, for all gay men and also for the wider community. Acknowledging that historical discriminatory laws were wrong and taking steps for reparation invites everyone to let go of past hurts and hurtful behaviours and work towards a society that celebrates diversity.
“Recent debates on marriage equality have demonstrated that there is still much work to be done before we can lay claim to being an unprejudiced country. The LGBTI community has struggled for decades for recognition as equal citizens and these progressive actions by the WA government are a tribute to their persistence.
“We unreservedly welcome the premier’s apology and the expungement bill. These are of great moment in the history of LGBTI rights, moving us closer to ensuring legal and cultural safety for everyone, irrespective of their sexuality or gender identity”.
In a speech to parliament last year, Maylands Labor MP Lisa Baker led the push to have their records completely expunged and to ask for an apology to these men.
“I’m just so pleased that within our first 12 months of being elected that we’ve put this legislation before parliament,” Ms Baker said.
“For the 200 or more people who still carry the weight of a conviction, all these years later, for something which is no longer considered a criminal offence and never should have been considered a criminal offence in my view, they finally have a chance to clear their names once and for all.”
MOUNT HAWTHORN’S Rebecca Wheadon is back from the US after breaking a cycling world record at the Masters World Championships in Los Angeles.
The masters games are for competitors over 30s and she returns home a world champion, and a world record holder, with a time of 37.299 seconds in the women’s team sprint track cycling.
Wheadon and teammate Laurelea Moss also won the overall event, beating team America, who were favourites after setting a new record during qualifying.
Ms Moss is from Queensland and “Laurelea and I had never ridden this event together before,” Ms Wheadon says.
“We were relying on each other to have the experience and know what had to be done.”
• Rebecca Wheadon in action at the national championships earlier this year. Photo supplied
Along with years of training and extreme mental discipline and smart coaching, the win also had an element of technical bike science.
The bikes they use are single, fixed gear, which means that gear selection can only be swapped out wholesale outside of a race.
During the qualifiers—where they came second to the Americans—they noticed that the temperature controlled conditions of the wooden track at the Californian velodrome were quite different than what they were used to.
That makes for a softer riding surface and a slightly slower pace (by a fraction of a second).
So before the finals they switched out their bikes to ones with more appropriate gears that gave them an edge over team America.
“We knew what we were dealing with…we had a pretty good idea that we could win, we just had to make that judgement call on the gears.”
When she finished the race, Ms Wheadon saw the electronic scoreboard light up with “WR”—world record.
“I was in shock. I had to get off the track and my coach is going nuts and my teammates are going nuts, everyone’s going crazy, I’m confused—it’s the most bizarre feeling.”
Ms Wheadon had always been pretty athletic but like most people in her 20s, sport gave way to pursuits like night clubbing. She got into cycling after seeing champion Australian cyclist Anna Meares on television.
“I was watching the Olympics, the track cycling, just because it was so exciting to watch,” she says.
“It was the coolest thing ever. I didn’t even ride a bike, but the explosiveness of the sport and how dangerous it was, I thought it was so exciting.”
She went from riding a bike to work every day to getting a road bike, and then went to try out the velodrome at Midvale.
“I went out there once, and it’s like being on a roller coaster,” with a sharply angled bank as the track curves at either end.
She was hooked.
• Rebecca Wheadon (left) with teammate Laurelea Moss, just after setting a new masters world record. Photo supplied
Ms Wheadon won a previous world title in 2013 as an endurance rider, but has more recently switched over to sprint.
“I was really keen to win a title if possible as a sprinter. The sprint discipline is all about explosive power.”
The training sometimes involves more weights than cycling, with squats and deadlifts a big component to building up power.
She says the sprints always make her think of Gimli, the short but strong dwarf warrior from Lord of the Rings.
“Gimli’s got this throwaway line that sticks with me: when going into battle he says ‘Don’t underestimate me, I’m very dangerous over short distances’.”
It took her about two years of training to move from endurance to sprint, and in that time she doubled her deadlift weight which started off at about 80kg.
“Success in this sport is often the collective efforts of many people like coaches, partners, families and employers, so I feel really proud to be able to share our success with those around me.”
She’ll take a very short break, having had about 10 days off so far, then get back in training for the next state competition.
LEEDERVILLE’S pop-culture emporium Black Plastic has just about grown up and turned 30.
Owner Paul FitzRoy opened the shop in 1987, and instead of doing extensive customer research, he just filled his shelves with items he liked, including quirky cards, movie figurines and odd gifts.
Asked what the overall theme of Black Plastic is, FitzRoy replies “It’s me, I guess”.
It was touch and go in the early days when his shop was located outside of the main retail zone in Oxford Street, across from the Tafe.
• Black Plastic owner Paul FitzRoy with Darth Vader, and below in the 1980s. Photo by David Bell
He still has the outgoings book from those days, and in one of the early weeks he made just $26.
“In 1987 some days I was finishing the day up with no sales, or other days going home with $9.95 in my pocket,” FitzRoy says.
“I remember going in to my sister’s room asking for any coins laying around so I could pay the rent.”
Back then he was working at The Duck Inn in Subiaco, washing dishes and saving money to buy stock.
Over the years the shop has moved five times to different spots in Leederville.
“My card says I’m ‘deep in the heart of Leederville’,” he says.
“I love it, it’s an urban village feel.”
The business has gone in cycles: from the $26 weeks early on, then going great guns about six or eight years ago, during the boom times, and quieting down recently.
He used to do a roaring trade in movie posters, but they’ve fallen out of vogue.
“The shop’s evolved a lot over the years,” Mr FitzRoy says.
The name Black Plastic was chosen because “I always wanted to open a record store,” but for most of the shop’s life he’s not actually sold records.
Greeting cards and birthday cards are still doing a healthy trade, one of the sectors that hasn’t been taken over by internet sellers.
And there’s always keen Star Wars fans who want a sweet Boba Fett mannequin or Yoda figurine.
After 30 years surrounded by miniature aliens, six-inch Terminator figurines, and bobble-headed fictional serial killers, Mr FitzRoy says: “Why keep doing it? Pride, stupidity.”
He laughs.
“I still love it.
“I’ve made some incredible friends out of this shop and met some great people.”
The City of Fremantle wants other councils to buy into its plan to attract more people to inner-urban areas by offering them tiny houses, sometimes on tiny blocks.
The city has teamed up with the Planning Institute Australia, Property Council and Shelter WA to spruik its plan to other WA councils at a panel discussion at the Central Park Theatrette, on St Georges Terrace, on November 21 from 3-5pm.
Freo council’s planning boss Paul Garbett says the city is full of big houses, often with just one or two people rattling around in them, which creates issues for owners and renters.
“Lots of bigger and more expensive houses,” Mr Garbett says.
The council’s policy tries to balance increasing the population with safeguards to protect the character and aesthetics of each suburb, and greenery with a minimum of 70 per cent open space on a block. Parking remains the most contentious issue, as the council is saying it won’t provide on-street residential bays and some small developments may get away with a minimum of parking requirements.
Planning Institute of Australia Executive Officer Emma de Jager says current zoning regulations often stipulate a minimum sub-division size, and supports Freo’s small block plan.
• Freo councillor Rachel Pemberton’s drive to create infill with tiny houses – leaving a bit of room for some greenery – has been a key behind its success so far. File photo
She says they can be made economically attractive and a good long-term investment if the council gets the rules right.
Ms de Jager says homes could be built for as little as $50,000 (similar to what you can get away with on a granny flat), although was hesitant to predict what price a small home/land package might fetch on the market.
“Even though these developments are considered at the affordable end they must have great design and sustainable attributes; the environment is a key consideration,” Ms de Jager says.
Under Freo’s plan, tiny houses would need a minimum 1.5kw photovoltaic solar panel system and a sustainability star rating above the National Construction Code.
Each little home will need optimal climate orientation, material recycling and energy efficiency, and 30 square metres of outdoor living directly accessible from a habitable room.
Shelter WA’s Robert Gough says one of the effects of the policy would actually be to help homeless people.
He says particularly young people are vulnerable to Freo’s high rents and limited housing, which meant they often ended up couch surfing with friends and relatives, or had to move away from the city.
“The existing privately-owned blocks will allow owners to get better use out of their yards,” Mr Gough says.
He says Freo’s move to link the tiny housing developments to public transport would help people with lower incomes.
No 123 from ABC
I SERIOUSLY object to the ABC managing director refusing to disclose the salaries of the top employees to our elected government.
This is outrageous as they are employees of the taxpayers who pay their wages and any employer is entitled to know how much these people are being paid by the ABC.
Why the secrecy?
Are they ashamed of the amount they are paying, and the little most of them do to actually deserve it? Ruby Joan Bales Fantail Drive, Bibra Lake
Copping a spray
I am amazed to see the councils still spraying glysophates around our suburbs.
Any research done on this poison shows the detrimental affects to human beings not to mention our poor pets, I believe the recent spraying was followed by an epidemic of doggy diarrhoea at the vets.
This poison causes so many issues to health.
Any poison that completely kills plants is dangerous. Tracey Donovan Windfield Road, Melville
Love and marriage
REVEREND Professor David Seccombe has concerns about marriage equality (“No equality in same-sex vows”, Speaker’s Corner, Voice, October 14, 2017).
He argues, among other things, that “marriage equality won’t achieve equality because the relationship of two people of the same gender is different from how marriage has always been understood”.
Yet marriage has been understood in many ways over the years.
For example, there was a time when the state regulated who Indigenous Australians could, and could not, marry.
Happily, Australian culture has moved on from this.
Cultures are not static but dynamic; they are flexible and respond to historical and social changes.
I take reverend Seccombe’s point that Christians in Australia do not speak with one voice.
Thus, not all Christians see same-sex intercourse as a sin against God.
Regardless of this, Australia is a secular society—we should not base our laws on religion.
I will end with a statement from Curtin University’s Centre for Human Rights Education.
“The Centre for Human Rights Education actively supports equality before the law, and equality in terms of social recognition, a core human rights value. We therefore decisively and proudly support marriage equality in Australia as we affirm that marriage equality is a human right”.
This, I believe, wraps up my view nicely. Anne Pedersen Centre for Human Rights Education Kent Street, Bentley
Broad shoulders
THE NBN was connected to our house three years ago; I was amazed when the job was finally completed to see three big boxes.
One outside the house and two inside. With no further thought to the boxes until recently when one of the boxes started buzzing and a light flashing.
I rang Telstra to report the fault only to be told by an overseas operator that it was a battery in the box needed replacing.
Next question when will Telstra replace the battery?
To be told it was my responsibility, just unplug it and get a new one. I rang a battery company who were very helpful, a serviceman came to our house and changed the battery the cost $91.
It is my advice should other households have the same problem ring a battery supplier.
Is it any wonder that a lot of households do not have a landline only a mobile phone. Frank Granger Melville Beach Rd, Applecross
Congratulations, Anne Pedersen! You’ve won our letter of the week competition and a $50 lunch voucher from The Terrace Hotel Restaurant, 237 St Georges Terrace. If you would like to be in the running for letter of the week, make sure you email us your ripper at news@perthvoice.com.
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