Perth Voice Interactive

Thanks to Luna Palace Cinemas, we are giving readers the chance to win an in season double pass to this years Cunard British Film Festival!

Exclusively at Luna Palace Cinemas, the Cunard British Film Festival is back for its fifth year with a blockbuster line-up featuring a spread of British cinematic delights from sweeping romances and beloved book adaptations, to intriguing music documentaries and pulse racing thrillers – all featuring a variety of British cinema royalty, as well as the next wave of British talent lighting up the screen.

The Cunard British Film Festival presented by Palace Cinemas and Luna Palace Cinemas comes to Perth from October 26 to November 15 at Cinema Paradiso, The Windsor and Luna on SX.

You can find more information about the festival here.

Fill out the entry form below for your chance to win.

Terms and Conditions: Competition closed Tuesday, 16 October with winners announced in the 21.10.17 edition.

MALE candidates outnumber female candidates two to one at the upcoming local government elections.

And the gender imbalance in mayoral races is even more pronounced, with women only making up 25 per cent of nominees.

Joanne Fotakis is running for Vincent’s north ward and says women can be deterred by male-dominated politics and the criticism they face when putting their hand up.

She says the adversarial culture can discourage women, as well as the extra scrutiny female politicians face and the misogynistic comments that often get made about them.

Ms Fotakis says when she was growing up there was never any suggestion that a girl might be interested in entering politics.

She says there’s also a “confidence gap” between the genders that acts as a “self-imposed barrier”.

Research from the US shows that women are less likely to judge themselves capable of running for local office.

When it comes to encouraging women to run for university politics, male candidates typically only need to have it suggested to them once and they’ll decide to toss their hat into the ring, but women need to be encouraged multiple times before nominating.

Uphill battle

Vincent mayor Emma Cole says she’s been keen to get more of a gender balance on council and has encouraged both Ms Fotakis and fellow north ward candidate Alex Castle to run after seeing their work for the Leederville Connect and Mt Hawthorn Hub community groups.

Ms Cole says women need a lot more encouragement to get involved in politics.

Ms Castle, also running for north ward, says women candidates face additional scrutiny over their looks and get questioned about whether they can still perform parenting duties if they run for office.

She’s had one of her flyers stuffed back in her letterbox with derogatory commentary about her appearance scrawled on it, and been asked many times (sometimes by well-meaning friends) if she’ll be able to handle being a councillor as well as being a mum. Blokes rarely get asked about whether they can be good dads as well as being on council.

Ms Cole, elected mayor in February this year, says she’s even had a well-meaning but confused person ask her “what’s it like being the mayor’s wife?”

Ms Fotakis says it’s an uphill battle but worth the effort to get more women on council, saying “there are numerous studies that show gender diverse and representative teams are more innovative, effective and perform better than those with limited gender, age or cultural diversity.”

“We need more women in local government and in leadership positions…”

by DAVID BELL

AFTER being a Stirling councillor for a quarter of a century, Rod Willox is calling it a day.

“I’ll be turning 80 in January, and I’ve seen men hang on too long,” he says.

A retired colonel who went on to work in medical science, Cr Willox says he’d prefer to stand down “on a good note, on my own terms”.

“You’d be surprised how many people don’t want me to go: I’ve had some really very flattering emails and phone calls, and people saying ‘surely you’ve got another term in you’.”

But with 12 grandkids and a desire to spend more time in the garden (and maybe learn oil painting) he says it’s time to go.

Cr Willox, who was made an AM in 2003 for services to local government along with his work for veterans, says it’s been a “satisfying” time since being elected to council in 1993, ushering through projects like the Beaufort Street activity corridor plan, the Mount Lawley heritage protection area, the North Road redevelopment (turning it from a speedway into an accident- free street), and pushing for underground power for Inglewood and Menora (he says “I advocated for it over a number of years, so much that Colin Barnett got sick of me).

He’s contested numerous council elections but he says he’s never seen anything like the mudslinging going on in the Osborne and Hamersley wards in the lead up to this year’s elections. New candidates have waged highly negative online campaigns against council incumbents.

“I never have seen anything like this,” sighs Willox.

“There’s never been any unpleasantness or dirt. It’s always been a gentlemanly process.”

Vitriol

At one election, his opponent even called him early in the morning after the vote was in to congratulate him for winning.

He believes the vitriol this time around is because councillors are paid a fair bit of cash, whereas previously it was considered a voluntary role.

“When I first came onto council, it cost us,” rather than earning a wage, he says. “Then they brought in some sitting fees, just babysitting money.”

With councillors now getting far higher sitting fees, Cr Willox believes this can “attract the wrong sorts” and that’s led to the caustic electioneering in some wards.

Five candidates have nominated to replace him in Lawley ward, and he believes former councillor Paul Collins is the best option.

He previously served alongside Mr Collins and says he’s a “very impressive fellow. I’ve said to him a few times—Paul we need you back.

“He’s by far the best councillor I’ve come across”.

Cr Willox says the Lawley ward will need a strong voice as right now the area “doesn’t get our fair slice of the cake, that’s my view,” with a lot of the city’s funds directed towards the beachside wards.

For 15 years now he’s been trying to get the club rooms at Hamer Park and Inglewood Oval redeveloped.

He says they’re ancient and need restoring or replacing, and it’d also make sense to switch the adult team over to Inglewood Park, where they can have their post-game parties away from residential homes (who’ve long complained of the rowdy sessions), and bring the junior teams over to Hamer Park, where they’d be quieter neighbours.

He says it’s a sensible move but “it’s been deferred and deferred” while projects in the beach wards get money pumped into them.

“I’m sorry to go while it’s unresolved,” he says.

But overall he thinks the city’s in a pretty good place compared to his early days on council when it was highly factionalised between Team Red and Team Blue.

The city was almost unworkable back then, he says.

“People sat at different tables at meal times.

“It was adversarial. But within two years that was sorted out, and now we work pretty well as a council without factions…the city’s well managed and we’re debt free.”

by DAVID BELL

VETERAN Stirling councillor Terry Tyzack says he’s concerned and disappointed by the “significant involvement of both major political parties” in the local government elections at Stirling and Bayswater.

“…councillors cannot serve two masters and this is a retrograde step reminiscent of the practices of the Burke era,” he says.

“The introduction of political agendas into local government decision making is not in the best interests of ratepayers.”

There’s a fair few Liberal and Labor party-aligned candidates running this time round, and the Liberal party’s Perth Division recently put out a newsletter to members urging them to support Team Blue candidates in Stirling (Jeremy Quinn), Bayswater (Ben Reale-Cornel, Michelle Sutherland and Mark Whitehouse) and Perth (Keith Yong, Judy McEvoy, Michael Sutherland and Natasha Tang).

But Bayswater councillor and Liberal party member Brent Fleeton says he’s fed up with the insinuation that political party membership is a negative thing.

“I reckon this broad subject is too often cast in a negative light, with some disgruntled suspects throwing shade at any active local who dares enter the arena after raising their colours as a member of a political party,” he wrote in a post on his councillor Facebook page.

He’s not up for election this year but he said he was sick of “passive digs in the local paper and on Facebook aimed at people who are members of a political party”.

Cr Fleeton says party membership can make you better at the job and only through “getting the help from our state and federal representatives of both political persuasions do we have any hope at all of solving some pretty serious issues we have locally”.

He says “We are linked with state politics due to the very nature of our job. We are governed by state legislation, our operations and costs are subject to changes in state legislation, and we often rely heavily on state funds. In turn, our state is heavily reliant on the swings in federal politics and of course the money from Canberra.

“If you think political parties and the politics that comes with them have no place in our council chamber, you need to realise the only way your local government can get anything serious done is through the major parties.

“It might be highlighting that a certain suburb may be missing out on its fair share of love in the budget, it might be inviting a federal MP to attend a sporting club so the volunteers can show firsthand if they had some extra funding from Canberra they could get more local kids involved in sport, or it might be an idea to reform the way the city operates in its basic service delivery to reduce costs to make rate capping achievable.”

by DAVID BELL

YOU might be tossing out electioneering pamphlets by the handful but the state library is hoping people donate a few to be preserved in the historical election collection.

State library CEO Margaret Allen says election material might be short lived but it has lasting significance, and donations of today’s flyers will help “future generations…see the changes in our society”.

The current collection’s got material from the 1961 Perth Road Board election, when one candidate’s flyer proudly proclaimed “It’s a man’s job…vote Martin Lynch”.

In 1962 candidate CN Harris wrote his slip in Italian: “Un Sindico che parla la vostra lingua” (A candidate who speaks your language). The 1967 election saw the town decked out in “We Want Wardle” stickers. Material can be donated in electronic format via serials@slwa.wa.gov.au or posted to the state library at 25 Francis Street, Northbridge.