For the last 18 years, Oakwood Funerals has been supporting families in the Perth community and is pleased to announce the team will continue to grow locally as it joins the Chipper Funeral family.
This change brings the team together with the Chipper family, which they have been closely connected to from the beginning. Oakwood Funerals was founded by Don Chipper in 1999 with a vision of offering service, understanding and compassion with the focus on the little things that create stronger memories. The team have developed a reputation in the community for offering a new standard of service, a sentiment reflected in the many testimonials received from families following an Oakwood Funerals service.
“As families visit our locations, they will continue to connect with the same people they know and trust and we are committed to providing the same high level of service we always have. We know what this means for our families and we are always there when they need us most to help them celebrate a life they knew and loved,” said Jackie Thompson, Location Manager Rockingham.
“We will also continue to build our strong relationships with the local community through sponsoring local charities and fundraising support.”
To discuss arranging a funeral or find out more about prepaid funerals, please talk to any of our funeral directors on (08) 9330 8300 who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
BAYSWATER cafe Cool Breeze has set a new benchmark for reducing waste, handing over just one bin bag to the garbos after a busy weekend’s trade.
Owner Giorgia Johnson said after the ABC War on Waste series, there was a groundswell in interest in waste reduction from staff and customers at her Riverside Gardens pop-up cafe.
“Over a weekend we’d normally fill up a 240 litre bin,” she says.
This weekend it was just one bag she reckons was about the size of her dog.
She says two local companies have been instrumental in helping her cut down on waste.
• Cool Breeze Cafe owner Giorgia Johnson serves up Catherine and Jack Lax’s shake in a compostable cup. She’s cut her Cool Breeze’s waste output by over 80 per cent. Photo by Steve Grant
East Perth local Carly Hardy’s startup business Kooda provides subscribers with a bucket to fill with food waste.
When the customer hits the “I’m full” button on the app, Kooda staff come to pick the waste up, take it away, and turn it into compost.
For inner-city types with no backyard for composting or worm farming, it keeps their food scraps out of the bin and stops them from going to landfill and belching out greenhouse gases.
And if you have potplants to feed, Kooda can drop compost back at your house.
With far too many coffee grains to stick in her own garden, Ms Johnson says Kooda’s buckets massively reduce her weekly rubbish output.
She has also teamed up with inventor Daniel Grosso, who’s working on a Go2Cup that has been trialled by Cool Breeze Cafe over the past few months.
The sturdy Go2Cup can be returned to the cafe, where the company picks them up, washes them, and gives them back to the cafe for reuse. In the past few months they’ve stopped thousands of cups from winding up in landfill.
“About 80 per cent of our sales are in Go2Cups now,” Ms Johnson says.
Keep-it-cups—the ones you wash yourself and keep using—have also become popular. “Since the War on Waste program more people are using them…we might have had one cup a day [before], now we have 20,” Ms Johnson says.
MAYLANDS MP Lisa Baker is again rallying locals to oppose Woolworths’ bid for a liquor licence at the Peninsula Tavern.
Bayswater council and the Maylands Residents and Ratepayers Association also opposed the proposed 1200sqm Dan Murphy’s liquor barn on the Railway Parade site, which was rejected by the liquor commission in February 2016.
But Woolies’ subsidiary Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group appealed to the supreme court, which ordered the commission to review its decision at a new hearing on December 12.
• Lisa Baker is organising a community meeting to co-ordinate opposition to Woolies’ plans for the Peninsula Tavern.
Ms Baker is holding a campaign meeting today (Saturday June 17) at her Beaufort Street office, to co-ordinate the fight against the appeal.
“We reject the idea of a greatly expanded cheap liquor outlet because it will increase anti-social behaviour and have a negative impact on ‘at-risk’ people in Maylands,” she says.
“It will add nothing new to the amenity of our village—just more alcohol.
“The fight against big liquor discounters in our community is back on.”
LABOR has back-flipped on plans to move Perth Modern to the city, proposing a new school near Subiaco Oval instead.
Plans to make PM an inner-city high-rise were dumped after an outcry from the community, including Save Perth Modern, which obtained over 13,000 signatures opposing the move.
The new school, Inner City College, will be at Kitchener Park and have access to Subiaco Oval, which will be turned into a shared community facility, as part of the wider redevelopment of Subiaco Oval precinct.
• WA premier Mark McGowan and his Labor team unveil plans for a new inner-city school in Subiaco. Photo supplied
Perth Labor MP John Carey says the government’s change of heart reflected the community’s desire to “retain Perth Modern as is.”
“I’m proud that this government listened to community and responded; we are not embarrassed we changed our position, we listened to the community,” he says.
“We are still delivering on our commitment for an inner-city high school which is much needed for the city,” he told the Voice.
Mr Carey said more schools were needed in inner-city areas as the the estimated population growth in Perth city over the next 10 years was 50 per cent.
Mount Lawley Labor MP Simon Millman says the new school at Subiaco would help relieve enrolment pressure on inner-city schools like Mount Lawley High, which were bursting at the seams. Liberal shadow education minister Donna Faragher called, “on the government to not repeat their mistakes by rushing into a policy for a school at Kitchener Park.”
FORMER deputy lord mayor Rob Butler has backed Lisa Scaffidi’s claim that councillors were undertrained about what they were supposed to declare as “gifts” and “travel contributions” in their annual returns.
But former council CEO Gary Stevenson said the information was provided to them, “in a number of ways and different times”.
Mr Butler was called as a witness to the State Administrative Tribunal on Wednesday June 14, as part of the hearing to determine what penalty Ms Scaffidi will face after she was found to have breached the Local Government Act 45 times by not declaring gifts and travel contributions.
Mr Butler said when he became a councillor “you’re given virtually no information” about what kind of things you should declare on your annual return.
He said there was very little, if any, training: “There was no one there to help you.
“Only in 2014/15 did they give councillors a copy of a very comprehensive way to fill out that form, but that’s the first time I’ve seen that in 12 years.”
Mr Butler was also subject to press scrutiny in 2015 when it came out he did not declare a 2014 trip to Malaysia that was paid for by a local government there.
Mr Butler said he did not think to put it in his annual return because the city was well aware of his travel there (the whole trip being booked by city staff).
Ms Scaffidi’s lawyer Steven Penglis used that as an example of how Ms Scaffidi wasn’t the only one who didn’t realise she had to declare trips.
Department of local government lawyer Carolyn Thatcher interrupted Mr Butler’s testimony to check if he was aware that he had a right to remain silent so as to not incriminate himself.
Mr Butler was undeterred and pressed ahead with his testimony, saying he’d since had advice that his Malaysia trip didn’t have to be declared anyway since there’s an exception in the Local Government Act for travel contributions paid for by “Commonwealth, state, or local governments”.
However the local government department’s lawyers did have Ms Scaffidi dead to rights on one undeclared trip, proving she knew she was supposed to declare her paid travel to the Kagoshima medical conference in Japan 2011.
Emails shown to the SAT panel showed a message from former CEO Frank Edwards advising Ms Scaffidi the “travel and expenses would need to be declared”. She wrote back “got it, and agreed,” but she says when the time to lodge her annual return rolled around she had forgotten it.
“I feel absolute remorse” for not declaring it, Ms Scaffidi says. “I was extremely busy at the time. I am extremely sorry about it. I would hope people understand it’s a very busy role and it would have been great to have systems backing us up beside an email.”
Department lawyers also asked Ms Scaffidi if she’d been aware of the hot water former Cockburn Mayor Stephen Lee had got in back in 2008 for failing to disclose gifts, suggesting that should’ve been a trigger for her to realise she had similar obligations. She said she had not heard about that. The SAT will reconvene on June 21.
A SOUND wall installed at the Northlink highway upgrade doesn’t block out the din of roaring trucks, says Bayswater’s Houghton Park residents.
In March, Bayswater councillor Chris Cornish raised concerns that the planned wall was far too short to mitigate the sound of trucks that’d be routed along the upgraded highway.
At the time, Main Roads told the Voice they’d work with contractors John Holland to address the concerns, but as the trucks started to roll past this month, resident Charlotte McConnell says, “I’ve been gutted with what’s eventuated.
“From my kitchen window I can now see trucks rumbling past … when they started using that road I cried, I was absolutely gutted.”
Neighbour Kaveri Temple copped a double-whammy. There’s a gap in the wall at her back fence which acts as a funnel for both noise and dust, while out the front the wall’s too short and she’s now looking straight up the road into the traffic.
Over her back fence she has a clear view of the trucks rolling past.
• Bayswater councillors Chirs Cornish (left) and Sally Palmer (right) with Houghton Park resident Kaveri Temple and a truck roaring past in the background. Photo by Steve Grant
Main Roads spokesman Dean Roberts says the noise wall is “expected to reduce the average traffic noise levels in Redlands Street by approximately two decibels”, compared to the baseline figures they took before works commenced.
“Noise measurements and assessments will be conducted six months after the completed NorthLink WA opens to traffic to determine the actual level of noise being experienced. If, for some reason, the noise limits are not being met, appropriate action will be undertaken.”
Mr Roberts added that temporary traffic management meant trucks were three metres closer to the noise wall than they would be when the new northbound carriageway is finished at the end of the year,.
Cr Cornish was fuming when the Voice told him that Main Roads had used the phrase, “perceived issues”.
“These residents have real issues!” he said.
“This just shows they have no appreciation for the problems they’ve hoisted upon the residents of the area. They’ve suffered for the last year or so and now Main Roads are saying they can suffer a bit longer, until they relook at the damage they’ve done.”
Ms McConnell is not reassured that the situation will be made good.
“I don’t have much confidence that they’re taking our needs as a community seriously … I don’t think this is going to be sorted out,” she says.
“I think they’re just palming us off. I think they’re hoping we just fizzle out and go away like good little citizens and stop annoying them.”
Even if the noise gets sorted, Ms McConnell has concerns about privacy given how measly the wall is.
“I can see, not just the tops of trucks, I can see into the carriage of some of them, and they can see back. Any trucker in a traffic jam can have a clear view through their windows. Our privacy’s shot to pieces,” she says.
Since the trucks have started rumbling past, she’s also seen cracks start developing in her ceiling. She’s hopeful that the survey carried out beforehand means she can be compensated for any damage.
Cr Sally Palmer says Ms Temple is subject to “deafening truck noise. Huge decibels all day and night…all the latest juggernauts, trucks, road trains, etc. galloping along the Northlink widened highway, just beyond her beautiful home.”
ENVIRONMENTAL campaigner Lisa Hills was dismayed to see hundreds of balloons released at Elizabeth Quay on WA Day, which coincided with World Environment Day.
She’s been campaigning to get released balloons classed as litter, which would mean offenders could be fined for letting them drift into the sky.
Ms Hills says burst balloons get washed into drains and then the ocean where they pose a threat to birds, turtles, dolphins and other animals.
• Balloons can be fatal to WA wildlife. File photo by Matthew Dwyer
Starvation
The brightly coloured pieces of latex are mistaken for food and end up blocking intestinal tracts, which leads to agonising starvation.
Manufacturers argue the balloons are biodegradable, but Ms Hills says that’s a long process that can take years, and in the meantime they can do a lot of damage to wildlife.
“I just think it is crazy that you can drop one cigarette on the ground and get a $200 fine, but you can release as many balloons as you want and it’s not classed as littering,” she says.
Recently her campaign received a boost when Cottesloe council banned releasing balloons on public grounds.
But she says, “the win was soon dampened on Monday [June 5], which was World Environment Day, due to BHP Billiton handing out hundreds of latex-filled balloons at the WA Day event at Elizabeth Quay.”
Balloons were visible in the sky from a couple of suburbs away, and Ms Hills says most people are unaware that balloons can land up to 500km away in the sea and damage the environment.
New WA environment minister Stephen Dawson said that, “while the McGowan Labor Government has no current plans to legislate to institute a state-wide ban, it supports efforts to raise public awareness of the unintended consequences of releasing balloons during celebrations.
Deposit scheme
“The McGowan Labor Government is concerned about the impacts of waste, including plastic, on the environment and will work to reduce those impacts, including by introducing a container deposit scheme in WA and supporting local communities who choose to ban the use of plastic bags,” Mr Dawson said.
EAST PERTH locals have rejected three proposals for the car park at 75 Haig Park Circle, with a potential 14-storey tower proving the least popular.
East Perth businesses and the Haig Park Circle Action Group argue that the 49-bay car park is needed to to support local business and stop the streets being clogged up by cars.
In 2001 there was a restrictive covenant placed on the block, “to restrict the use…as a car parking area and for no further use.”
In preparation of the covenant possibly being lifted and a development application, Perth council released three possible visions for the site.
The boldest was half the site being used as a 14-storey tower and half as public open space.
The other options were to develop more of the site and have a wider eight- storey building, or to have a skinny, lower-impact nine-storey tower.
• East Perth resident Gus Kininmont, and Aman Singh from the Haig Park Circle Action Group are some of the people concerned about losing parking in the area. Photo by Steve Grant
Of the 50-odd residents who responded, 80 per cent didn’t like any of the plans.
At the Perth council meeting on June 6, councillors voted to support “the development of the site for appropriate land uses including but not limited to public car parking”.
They don’t want the covenant lifted until, “suitable planning provisions are in place” for what will replace it.
Charles Foti, chair of the Haig Park Circle Action Group, said residents had felt left out and hoped they’d now have more of a role in the block’s future.
Aman Singh is a nearby property owner and in his submission to council said: “The Restrictive Covenant put in place by EPRA [now the MRA] was to ensure car parking in perpetuity. It offers sufficient parking, openness and a community feel. This was an important factor in deciding to invest in the area. The car park is important to local businesses and their financial viability in the area.”
He strongly opposed any of the three designs and said “design guidelines must provide the current number of car parking bays” if anything does go ahead.
Many of the submissions were in lock step: local resident Gus Kininmont wrote “The site is a car park that is required to meet the parking needs of residents and visitors to the area and to support local businesses. It was sold as a car park with a restrictive covenant and this should not change for subsequent owners”.
Perth Labor MP John Carey says, “I support the residents on this, it should stay as car parking”.
VINCENT mayor Emma Cole says state-controlled development assessment panels have failed locals again by approving a five-storey, 38-unit block on Wright Street.
The city spent months working on its Local Planning Policy after locals indicated they wanted to limit new building heights in the Highgate precinct to three storeys.
But at the DAP meeting on June 3, the specialist members appointed by the state government—Megan Adair, John Syme and Clayton Higham—outvoted councillors Matt Buckels and Josh Topelberg to approve the development.
“We are very disappointed,” Ms Cole says.
Previously Vincent council had been roundly unhappy with the DAP for allowing an extra couple of storeys on every development that came through, using discretion set into the Town Planning Scheme.
Under the help of new planning director John Corbelini, the city had consulted locals, tightened up the rules and put the three-storey limit in the Local Planning Policy.
• Artist’s impression of the proposed Wright Street development in Highgate.
Ms Cole says planning should involve some discretion, but feels Vincent’s policies haven’t been given “due regard” by the DAP.
The DAP committee deemed the applicant—Scanlan Architects—had “satisfactorily address[ed] the previous reasons for refusal” when the project was knocked back in December 2016 as a 40-unit development.
The eastern block is also 54cm lower than the previous design, coming in at 17.15m tall.
The DAP members discounted the three-storey limit and instead went by the R-coding, which would technically allow a bigger height.
Ms Cole, who moved a joint motion with then-mayor John Carey to call for DAPs to be abolished in 2016, says the decision hardened her stance against them
She says back then they were told DAPs weren’t the problem and Vincent just had to strengthen up its policies, which DAP is to give “due regard” to.
Planning decisions can only be appealed by the authority which makes the decision, in this case the DAP, or the applicant.
Third party appeals were abolished years ago, but there’s talk among some councils, including Fremantle, about bringing them back after the WA Local Government Association called for submissions late last year.
“This is a really good example of where, if we had a third party appeal right, the City of Vincent would be looking at exercising that right,” Ms Cole says. The city will discuss the issue at the next council meeting.
THE empty plate looked as forlorn as I felt and like Oliver Twist I was thinking, “I want more please”.
It wasn’t that I was hungry, but rather that the roast marinated field mushrooms ($21) were magnificent.
The chunky slice of toast was laden with mushrooms, rocket, capsicum, cucumber and hazelnuts.
There was an almost religious moment when I tried the house-made onion jam, and the romesco (a Spanish nut and red pepper sauce) was equally divine.
Then I cut into a slice of grilled kefalograviera cheese and I lamented that my fall-back staple—mushrooms on toast— would never be the same again, as the flavours melded in perfect harmony in my mouth.
I’d been hearing good things about Fez, in Mt Lawley, since new owner Urim Alimi took over two months ago.
He happily admitted to having little knowledge of the restaurant business: “This is my first, I was in industry, construction mostly.
“It’s a new beginning for me and I’m learning every day.”
The menu is a work-in-progress and while he’s already added eggs benedict ($15, or $21 with salmon) and a burger that was made from grass-fed beef ($21), he’s looking at a Moroccan style beef dish, and a beef or pork salad: “I’m not sure which yet,” he says.
The original wall mural of the ancient city of Fez was replaced by his predecessor with a gorgeous painting of what looks like a Celtic warrior princess with a massive golden eagle on her outstretched, gloved hand.
Fez’ cakes are made in-house: “And some are made by my family,” Mr Alimi says.
• Fez owner Urim Alimi is new to the industry, but showing himself to be a quick learner, with the cafe putting out magnificent food.
I opted for a peanut butter brownie ($7).
The massive slice was so rich and chewy I struggled, but so delicious I wasn’t about to be defeated and ate the lot.
And I washed it down with one of the best lemongrass and ginger teas ($4.50) I’ve had in a long time.
For the caffeine-addicted, I’ve heard good things about the coffee too.
Perth Voice Interactive 