Perth Voice Interactive

MAYLANDS Labor MLA Lisa Baker says she’ll be sinking her teeth into meat alternatives when she retires from politics at the next election.

Ms Baker, a tenacious animal rights campaigner during her 16 years in Parliament, announced in March that she won’t recontesting her seat, which is likely to be picked up by Bayswater councillor and former mayor Dan Bull, whose pre-selection was confirmed by Labor late last month.

Ms Baker says she’s planning “a huge future commitment to a very exciting new industry sector, called the ‘alternative industry sector’”, with a focus on protein alternatives.

Propelled

She says it’s a growing sector being propelled along by the climate crisis, including a growing recognition that if the Earth’s population hits 10 billion by 2050 as predicted there will be food shortages.

“We will run out of the right kind of protein needed to feed the entire human race,” Ms Baker said.

She also wants to challenge the way people approach food, but wants to ensure any transformation benefits Australian farmers and people working in the food and agricultural industries.

Ms Baker says her commitment to animal safety and welfare have helped shaped many of Labor’s commitments, including a landmark 2015 document which shifted the party’s wholehearted support for live animal exports.

Labor’s platform that it took into the 2022 election recognises “strong economic, jobs and animal welfare reasons for transitioning from the live export trade to domestic processing of animals”, which she says she ensures is updated every year.

Ms Baker has held regular animal welfare which she says were aimed at “focusing the government’s attention on what the community was thinking about animal welfare,” and to “lobby for improvement”.

She was also proud to have championed a $2 million animal welfare grant for rescue groups, as well as anti-puppy farming legislation passed in 2021 which “is the best of its kind in the world”.

Ms Baker also led the push for historic anti-gay convictions to be quashed and the victims to receive an official apology from Parliament.

“It is pretty amazing to think that that was not that long ago, that it was a chargeable offence for two consenting adults to have sex with each other in our state,” Ms Baker said at the time.

Campaigns

She says that along with other campaigns in support of the LGBTQI community and women in the workplace, it came from a strong background in the social justice sector.

“I have been working with the vulnerable and excluded my whole life,” she said.

Ms Baker said locally she’d advocated for improved public transport and support for local businesses, and had seen much change within her career.

“I had the massive Tonkin Highway gap project, the Bayswater redevelopment, I’ve had the Morley/Ellenbrook line, I’ve had massive redevelopments that never would have happened under a Liberal government,” she said. 

by BRIANNA WALSH

PERTH lord mayor Basil Zempilas wants a major new music or dance event to put his city on the map.

At this week’s council meeting, Mr Zempilas successfully put forward a motion calling for event promoters to pitch a “multi day music/dance festival”.

“We’re all aware that as a city we’re in the search of a permanent, lock-it-in-the-calendar, come back every year event,” Mr Zempilas said.

He says while the state government did a great job with one-off events such as the Cold Play concert or the World Wrestling Entertainment showcase, they didn’t always hit the spot for tourism.

“If you’re a visitor, you can’t plan to come back to Perth for that event because you don’t know when it’s on until it might be announced.

But an event which puts us on the map and generates revenue opportunities and vibrancy for our city, I think is a real possibility, and I’ve got to say my eyes were open to this particular possibility through the success of the Fred Again event back on Easter Saturday.”

Breaking into a couple of his own dance moves, Mr Zempilas said his idea for a dance/music festival appeared to be pushing the right buttons, even prompting an enquiry from the organisers of the major Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California.

“We accept we’re not going to get the Australian Open Tennis or Formula One Grand Prix and the South Australians have outplayed us over the last couple of years by beating us to two new events, Gather Round and the LIV Golf, so it’s clear we’ll have to create our own.

“If we can get 35,000 people at Langley Park for one act, imagine what we could do with, for example, six big names over a number of days – so let’s create a Perth Dance Festival over the Easter long weekend and make Perth the home of this sort of hugely popular event in the southern hemisphere.”

He said it had generated more responses than any of the other ideas he’d floated since being elected.

The plan got enthusiastic backing from Mr Zempilas’ deputy Clyde Bevan, who said the city couldn’t just sit idly hoping events might pop into its lap.

“Fred Again was a huge success; it proves that new events can be inviting, exciting and vital to our culture and lifestyle in the city,” Cr Bevan said.

Councillor Catherine Lezer was the only one to speak against the idea, saying it could clash with the city’s other aspiration of attracting more residents.

“Given we only have one really big venue, which is Langley Park, all of those residents will be epically impacted,” Cr Lezer said.

“The access to their residences are very hard during these events.

“If it was Easter, as you’ve suggested, how are they going to do Easter Sunday lunch.”

But councillor Liam Gobbert said he was one of those residents and wasn’t phased.

“I’m a resident in the city and you don’t live in the middle of a city and expect cows mooing; that’s a level of noise you expect in a regional area,” Cr Gobbert said.

“We want noise, life and vibrancy in the city and I can only sit with anticipation to see what the city staff can present for our consideration,” he told the chamber.

A report to the council made no mention of how much a major new music festival might set the City back.

by STEVE GRANT

COULD this be the ultimate citizen science experiment? Imagine engaging non-geeks in discussions about tracking microbats or radio stars—all over a pint of beer in a local pub.

That’s the aim for the Pint of Science Festival, which is holding two events at the Paddington Ale House in Mt Hawthorn on May 13 and 15, with topics ranging from animal adventures, the secrets of sand and even the “wonderful world of porous materials”. 

Relaxed

Pint of Science media manager Zac Arkley-Smith said the festival aims to educate and inform people about scientific matters in a relaxed and familiar environment. 

“Science moves in small steps, and it’s important to raise awareness of these steps to ensure this work can be recognised,” Mr Arkley-Smith.

It comes after a particularly difficult decade for the science community, with cut-backs to budgets, attacks on climate change researches and even the axing of the science portfolio in the former Abbott government.

Mr Arkley-Smith says that at a political level it’s clear science isn’t sufficiently prioritised.

“We’re trending downwards – holding science as centre to policy decisions – particularly with the climate debate.”

Conservation Council of WA citizen science program manager Kelly Sheldrick will be giving one of the talks at the Animal Adventures session on May 13 about microbats which can weigh as little as three Smarties.

Ms Sheldrick said bioacoustics can be used to address how the South West’s unique micro-bats are faring in response to environmental pressures, including this year’s long, hot summer.

“WA’s dry summer contributed to major insect loss leading to bat’s being unable to sustain themselves and their young,” Ms Sheldrick said.

But they have a trick up their wing.

“Some micro-bats are also able to self-abort and most species only have up to one pup per year.”

Perceptions

Ms Sheldrick hopes her talk can change perceptions about bats, which might be needed to give them a more secure future.

“Bats are often referred to negatively, particularly in literature; this stigma contributes to a lack of awareness and funding,” Ms Sheldrick said.

Also on the bill for Animals Adventures is a talk on how to find turtles in a big ocean and exercising farmed fish. 

On May 14 Down to Earth and Up in Space will feature talks on porous materials, secrets of the sand and radio stars behaving like planets.

Doors open 7pm and tickets can be purchased for $8 each at pintofscience.com.au

by TILLY KITCHEN

HE mentioned to his friend Lisa that he would attend his local Anzac Day ceremony, held under a pine tree grown from a Gallipoli Peninsula seed, as he had for many years. 

He liked to be among his local community in sharing a simple ceremony. 

Pre-Covid, tea and Anzac biscuits were served in the adjacent Historical Society building, earlier the Police Station. 

He could find no notice of the event on the internet but was told by a locally based City employee that it should be held as usual, starting time 8.30am.

Lisa said that she would attend and bring her friend Di.

Running a few minutes late, he neared the park. 

It was apparent to him, because of the few cars parked in the street and the absence of a crowd, that there would be no ceremony. 

In this he was mistaken.

As he entered the park he could see 15 or 20 people standing in an arc around the cenotaph.

Something was happening.

Lisa and Di, having realised that there would be no ceremony, and that others had turned up in expectation, conducted one of their own making. 

Those leaving disappointed returned. 

The internet provided material. 

An unadorned dedication to service and sacrifice was read. 

There was a minute of silence. 

The Last Post and Reveille was heard. 

Those there listened soberly, reminded of the horror and the human cost of war. 

He can recall no more moving ceremony. 

There are countless lonely war memorials across the nation. 

Could this initiative of two women in a Perth suburb bring about a movement of small, informal, Anzac Day ceremonies, independent of the institutions on which we now rely?

by PETER BYRNE

A PUSHBACK against preferential voting for in-house positions such as deputy mayor failed to get traction at Perth council this week.

Preferential voting was included in the Labor government’s recent reforms to the Local Government Act as a way to make elections fairer, but councillor Catherine Lezer says it’s overkill if councils are just putting together committees or choosing a deputy mayor.

“Given there’s only nine of us potential voters at City of Perth, the use of preferential voting is unnecessary and causes more administrative work than first past the post voting,” Cr Lezer said.

She says the change is supported by the WA Local Government Association which wanted Perth to put the issue before its next zone meeting.

A report to this week’s council meeting from CEO Michelle Reynolds says the local government department’s justification for imposing preferential voting on the basis that some council candidates were being elected with less than 5 per cent of the vote wasn’t really applicable to in-house decisions.

“When applied to the election of presiding and deputy presiding members of committees, where there are very few voting participants, the percentage implications are not as relevant,” she said.

Cohesive

“Especially given that the group of voters involved are in the process of building a cohesive council team.

“Options preferential voting counting can be time-consuming and create a greater margin of error for the administration.”

Councillor Raj Doshi wasn’t convinced and said preferential voting built a consensus for a candidate and there were no wasted votes.

“I for one an proof that without preferential voting and all the votes being exhausted, I wouldn’t be sitting in this position today and representing my community, so I vote against it.”

Lord mayor Basil Zempilas said despite the request being to support WALGA’s advocacy, he wasn’t sure about its ability to change the state government’s mind about the new rules.

“Having won one lord mayoral election under one system and one lord mayoral election under another system, you know, I’m pretty easy; whichever one they want to dish up we’ll have a crack at, eh,” he said.

Only councillor Bruce Reynolds supported Cr Lezer’s motion: “From what I’ve seen in most elections, generally the first preference has generally proven to be the best candidate for the role and sometimes the preferences result in someone who isn’t as qualified to get a position,” he said.

by STEVE GRANT

THEY came at the peak of Italian mass migration, and late last week Voicelanders Franco Smargiassi and sister Anna Martinazzo returned to celebrate where they took their first steps on Australian soil 70 years ago.

Ms Martinazzo says she was just nine years old when she arrived in Fremantle with her mother Consiglia and three siblings in April 1952, but didn’t get much of a chance to form an impression of her new home.

“I had been seasick the whole way,” she says.

“I think I had to be carried off the boat, I was so weak, and to this day I have a bit of anxiety about going on a boat, just in case I get it again.”

But her older brother has vivid memories of both the voyage and the town where he would be reunited with his father Giuseppe and eldest brother Cesario, who’d sailed a couple of years earlier to escape the grinding poverty of post-war Italy.

“We came through the Suez Canal and we stopped at Port Said,” Mr Smargiassi said.

“Port Said was important, because I was 11 and three-quarters years old, and I’d never eaten a banana in my life.”

His only other chance to try the exotic fruit had been in the town square markets of his hometown Vasto, but a single piece would have taken all his pocket money and deprived him of his one weekly treat – a trip to the local cinema.

Mr Smargiassi says times were tough in Italy and the family new hunger well – they survived on just 100 grams of meat a week, a few vegetables from a relative who owned a market and the occasional fish when his brother would help out on the docks.

But the tough times had made Italians good workers, and in Australia they were forging new careers and even industries, such as the fishing boats that operated out of Fremantle.

Consiglia and the four children joined Giuseppi who was renting a house in North Perth and working for the Doust building company, but a friend told him the rates of pay were better in country towns and the family moved to Pingelly.

His quality of his first home restoration caught the eye of the local newspaper and soon Giuseppi was in hot demand, and even bought a block of land with the aim of building an investment home.

But Ms Martinazzo says her father overcame the scarcity of building materials and laboured for two years on the house, but they struck a problem when it came time to sell.

“He had moulds and he made the cement bricks, and the house is still standing very strongly.

“An on the floor, he put terrazzo tiles, which is what you did in Italy.

“When it came to selling it, no one would buy it because of the terrazzo – this stuff on the floor.”

So the family made the decision to stay in Pingelly and for nearly 20 years Giuseppi was kept in permanent work.

They lived across the road from the local school, and Ms Martinazzo is proud that she and Mr Smargiassi’s names still grace the school as head boy and head girl of their final years – an impressive effort given they arrived in the country without a word of English.

Diaspora

Ms Martinazzo says nowadays she appreciates the opportunity to grow up in a country town, but back in her teens it seemed pretty boring and she jumped at the chance to move into the city, where she scored a job with a solicitor’s office that was looking for someone who spoke Italian to help service the growing diaspora. She stayed until she met her husband Gaetano who established a crane business which still operates today.

Mr Smargiassi says his brother-in-law and father were a great example of the Italian influence on Perth.

“You’ve come across the saying Veni, Vidi, Vici which became ‘we came, we saw we conquered’, and the Italians here were a bit different; ‘we came, we saw, we concreted’,” he laughs.

There’s no doubting Perth would be a far different place without its Italian influences, and Ms Martinazzo says it’s a better place for it.

“What I personally like is that it’s a welcoming place, not only just to the Italians, but so many other culture that have come here,” she says.

“In my mind the mixture works well and that makes for an interesting place, rather than the boring place that it used to be … meat and three veg.

“Now you can eat food from everyone and it’s become much more interesting.”

But Mr Smargiassi fears that globalising is robbing the city of some of its charm, that the richness of the cultures is being lost.

He says as an example, at the last Census, when asked about languages other than English used at home, the only option was to tick the one for Italian, but he says the Vasto dialect is distinctly different. A return to Italy a few years ago made him realise how few people remembered the dialect; there are predictions it will be gone by the next generation.

It prompted him to help found Global Chat Radio, which still operates out of Tuart College, as well as the WA Multicultural Association. Ms Martinazzo also volunteers at the City of Stirling’s Day Club where each week elderly Italo-Australians come for a lunch and play.

She says it’s partly in honour of the pioneering Italian migrants, as they were willing to take on whatever job was put before them.

“I admire the migrants for that,” she said.

by STEVE GRANT

YAGAN SQUARE in Perth is gearing up for a spectacular reopening celebration on April 27 and 28.

Illuminate Yagan Square promises an array of activities for all ages, including live performances, interactive attractions, and more than 50 free things to do from 11am until late each day.

More than 10,000 are expected to attend the opening, making Yagan Square the vibrant hub of Perth City for the weekend.

From toddlers to Tik-Tokkers, fashionistas to foodies, families, and friends, the festival will feature dynamic live stages, interactive attractions, and roving entertainment across five zones.

One of the highlights of the event is The Light Maze, a stunning illuminated walk-through installation near the digital tower. 

Created by renowned German architect Ben Busche, the maze features two-metre triangular dichroic panels that produce a dazzling array of colours, interacting with the reflection of those moving through it.

Families and children can enjoy a variety of free activities, including circus school, one-minute portraits, kids markets, magic shows, and more. The festival’s programing is family-friendly until 8pm, with two headline shows at the Amphitheatre each evening.

In addition to the entertainment, Second Life Markets will transform the iconic Horseshoe Bridge into Perth’s most extensive street markets on Sunday, featuring over 80 stalls with a variety of goods. 

Foodies will also be delighted with a range of pop-up eateries and existing Yagan Square eateries offering delicious treats.

Illuminate Yagan Square aims to unite people from all walks of life to celebrate the new Yagan Square. 

No tickets are required, and the event will proceed rain, hail, or shine. For more information and event updates, visit www.yagansquare.com.au or follow @YaganSquare on social media