Perth Voice Interactive

OXFORD STREET traders will bring their wares out into the street next month when the road is closed to cars on Sundays from 3 – 9pm.

The $12,000 Vincent council trial aims to make the area more pedestrian friendly, and Curtin Uni experts will research the impact the closure has on pedestrian numbers, demographics and business turnover.

Delicious food

Acting Vincent mayor Ros Harley says “Leederville’s lively, unique businesses will spill out onto the footpaths and road offering delicious food, retail and entertainment on the street.”

For the St Patrick’s Day parade on March 12 the city will extend the closure to include early morning.

The street’s usually only closed off for the popular St Paddy’s day and Light Up Leederville festival, but the council is trying to create a laid back atmosphere so people “linger longer”, a sentiment precinct groups have been pushing in other town centres, like Beaufort Street and North Perth.

Merchants are allowed to display goods or signs on the street for free (but need a permit via the Vincent website) and there are spots for hire to set up a barbie or a stage, or whatever takes your fancy.

Fremantle council experimented with closing its Cappuccino Strip in April 2016 and while the cafes and restaurants liked it, the move brought complaints from surrounding businesses who said the traffic snarls turned people away from the port city.

Oxford Street has alternative routes east and west of it, so should be less messy to close off, and we haven’t heard any grumbles about the trial closure yet.

by DAVID BELL

TWO-TERM Liberal MP Michael Sutherland’s tenure is in peril, with the bookies predicting a Labor win in Mt Lawley.

At the time of going to print, Labor’s candidate Simon Millman was $1.65 and Mr Sutherland $2.05.

Mr Sutherland’s margin at the last election was about 9.6 per cent, but pundits reckon at least five per cent of that will be knocked off outright, because a lot of people at the last state election cast a protest vote against an unpopular federal Labor government led by Julia Gillard.

“If I don’t get 47 per cent of the primary vote I’ll be playing lots of tennis at the Mt Lawley Tennis Club,” Mr Sutherland says.

He says Labor’s likely to reap the benefits of smaller party preferences, with the drippings from the cabbie-backed Micro Business party likely to flow Labor’s way, along with a majority of Greens and Animal Justice Party votes.

That leaves Mr Sutherland with a sliver of the sliver of votes that the Australian Christians get—they nabbed less than one per cent of the vote in 2013.

Mr Sutherland fears if people lodge a protest vote against Liberal the seat will tip.

“Our polling says I have a very high recognition rate, and there’s a very high performance satisfaction rate. Most [voters] think I’m going to win,” he says, and that complacency might cost him.

“If enough people think ‘oh, Michael’s going to win,’ and they park a protest vote, I’ll be packing bagged lunches for Michelle,” he says, referring to his wife.

“Everyone who wants to park a protest vote in Mt Lawley has to know it’ll be more serious than they think.”

While the Liberals have copped some flak for the preference deal with One Nation, Mr Sutherland doesn’t think that’ll cut into his vote too much.

He reckons the people who’d be mad at that were probably already on Team Red or Green.

There’s no One Nation candidate in either Mt Lawley or the Perth electorate, but Perth Liberal MP Eleni Evangel says she does “not support One Nation or their policies”.

In a Facebook post she said she had “no time whatsoever for intolerance or discrimination of any form. “A significant proportion of this electorate are born overseas, or are the children of migrants, myself included.

“In this democratic nation people must be free to live according to their own beliefs regardless of where they are born, and to celebrate their ethnicity, sexuality, and religion.”

by DAVID BELL

WITH high rise city living removing us even further from nature, ECU researcher Danica-Lea Larcombe is looking at whether indoor plants can bridge the void and improve the health of apartments dwellers.

The classic Australian dream of buying a quarter acre is changing with the number of people in high rise apartments doubling over the last 20 years.

Ms Larcombe says that green space in Vincent is dwindling.

“I saw all these older houses with their gardens being demolished and they were being replaced with high rise apartments, but they didn’t have any greenery,” she says.

Natural world

She is trying to find out if having indoor plants in apartments can offset the decreasing contact with the natural world by looking at “human skin microbiota” (bacteria).

“You get given real or fake plants in exchange for looking after them for one year, doing some surveys, giving a snip of hair and swabbing your skin,” she says.

There’ll also be a control group with no indoor plants for the duration of the study.

Throughout, people will be given tests to see how stressed they are, work out what microbiota are present, and see if any correlations emerge.

She’s currently looking for people in Cockburn, Vincent, Northbridge and Perth who are living plant-free in an apartment above the third floor.

If you fit the bill, email d.larcombe@ecu.edu.au.

by DAVID BELL

A REPORT on accountability and transparency at Perth city council has recommended it changes from a “traditional” to an “open government” approach.

The report, requested by councillors last year during the furore surrounding lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi’s undeclared travel, reviewed local governments around Australia, and suggested Perth transition from a management approach, which provides accountability through elections and reporting, to one which promises ongoing community engagement and scrutiny.

“Community consultation has been primarily to provide information and/or input with no, or very limited opportunity for stakeholders or the community to be involved in the decision making process”, the report stated.

The report also noted that local governments around the world use online tools to facilitate openness best practice.

Overdue

The review was initiated by deputy lord mayor James Limnios, who commended the administration for their work, but suggested it was overdue.

“This report is brilliant and a great start, but it doesn’t say where to next,” he said.

Perth council CEO Martin Mileham said the report would be reflected in its community plan, and subsequently issued a press release saying the council was striving towards a goal of leading the local government sector in transparency and accountability.

Some of the transparency measures implemented by the city since January last year include:

• Discontinuing the practice of accepting bulk ticket and hospitality packages for sponsorship arrangements
• Publishing online travel and gift registers
• Preparing reports for all conferences attended in an official capacity
• Uploading audio recordings for council meetings
• Council approving all travel paid for by a third party
• A register of interests for councillors and staff

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

IT’S been a long, uphill, red-tape ridden battle but residents around East Perth train station could finally pop the champagne this week after getting a commitment from the Liberal party for a $300,000 pedestrian crossing on East Parade.

Liberal Mt Lawley MP Michael Sutherland says it’s been a saga trying to bend Main Roads’ ear into giving them the crossing: “I was corresponding with them on an ongoing basis, they baulked and baulked. I was sick and tired of all the to-ing and fro-ing,” he tells us. He wasn’t the only one lobbying for it, with former MP Alannah MacTiernan also having a go at talking them around.

“They don’t like slowing down traffic, they don’t like traffic lights on major roads,” he says.

Mr Sutherland says it was hard to make a case that there would be enough people to use the crossing, because it was so dangerous without one: “It was a chicken and egg type thing: They’d say ‘there’s no people crossing there,’ but when you talk to people they say ‘we’re too scared to cross because we’re going to get killed!’”

The impending completion of the new Perth stadium across the river has sparked action on a crossing, with a huge chunk of fans expected to get there via the East Perth train station (also getting a $25 million upgrade) and then have to cross busy East Parade.

Mr Sutherland says he implored them to go for an extension of the bridge from the train station, but that’d cost millions, so instead they’re doing the $300,000 crossing.

The lights can be synced to the one further up the road where East Parade hits the freeway so as to not add any further delays.

by DAVID BELL