MT LAWLEY locals Ellie Glen, Sam Evers and Calim Carty are holding a counter-rally against right-wing group Reclaim Australia in Perth this Saturday.
The trio are hoping for around 250 supporters, as the two sides face off across Parliament Place.
Reclaim Australia has called for Muslims to be prevented from settling in Australia.
“The rest of us need to get together and peacefully protest this immoral event which promotes hate and racism in our country,” Ms Glen says.
• Ellie Glen, Sam Evers and Calim Carty are holding an anti-racism counter-rally.
“We’re trying to be non-confrontational at all costs.
“They’re preparing for us to be really angry at them and I kinda want to not do that.”
“We want it to be really open and welcoming to everyone who supports refugees.”
Police will be attending the event.
A sign-making workshop last week saw the activists get creative, painting slogans such as “we’ll trade racists for refugees” and “all around the world everyone knows we all have ten little fingers and ten little toes”.
NO action will be taken against Perth city councillors for calling on lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi to step down in recent weeks.
Deputy mayor James Limnios had called for Ms Scaffidi to temporarily step aside during a state administrative tribunal hearing into her failure to declare travel contributions. Councillor Jemma Green said she should resign for the good of the city’s reputation, while Reece Harley said he’d step down if he was in her position.
After May’s council meeting Cr Harley and Cr Limnios met with the press to reiterate their positions, with Cr Harley pointing out that by speaking to journalists he risked being reported to a standards panel for breaching PCC rules.
The local government act says only the mayor can speak on behalf of the city, unless the role is delegated, but councillors are still free to offer their own opinions.
The rules at Perth city council are one step more severe, saying councillors can’t “provide comment to members of the media on council decisions and activities”.
At the last election Cr Harley proposed dumping the gag rule if elected lord mayor.
He said they got in the way of campaigning as he was restricted from commenting on a lot of council issues.
While the strict rules are on the books, it appears there’s a temporary detente in enforcing them.
With all the public criticism of the lord mayor’s actions, at the last meeting Fremantle resident Rahul Tanjung poked his nose north of the river to ask the CEO whether Cr Limnios’ comments suggesting the lord mayor step aside “breaches the code of conduct for all councillors”.
“The administration can confirm that officers are not investigating any potential breach and no complaint has been lodged in respect to the code of conduct,” came the CEO’s response.
INDIGENOUS suicide rates in WA are actually worse than official statistics show, says an academic who was recently tasked with providing crisis support to Kimberley families.
Gerry Georgatos says his research showed that almost 1 in 10 Aboriginal deaths was by suicide.
He will be presenting his findings to a state government inquiry on Monday. The standing committee launched the inquiry in March 2016 after Labor MP Josie Farrer raised concerns about a spate of suicides.
“In Western Australia we have a crisis – one in four of all Aboriginal suicides are in WA,” Mr Georgatos told the Voice.
• The Voice caught Gerry Georgatos in Forrest Place this week, just about to head into a meeting with the state government to discuss his disturbing findings about Indigenous suicide. Photo by Steve Grant
“Fourteen percent of the national Aboriginal population is in WA but more than 25 per cent of the suicides.
“The Kimberly has the second highest suicide rate in the world; eight times the national rate.
“Australian people should understand this catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”
A fly-in, fly-out suicide support team organised by Mr Georgatos was trialled in WA earlier this year, and may eventually be rolled out nationally.
NOONGAR elder Bella Bropho lodged an injunction in the Federal court to prevent Perth city council from evicting her and other homeless Noongars if they move back to Heirisson Island/Matagarup.
Located on the Swan River between East Perth and Victoria Park, the island is the main battlefield of an ongoing dispute between native title claimants, the Barnett government, and the council.
“It’s registered as a sacred site,” says Nyoongar man and activist Clinton Pryor.
The camp on Heirisson was originally set up as a protest against the forced closure of remote Aboriginal communities, and gradually became a semi-permanent refuge for over 100 Perth homeless people.
Police and council rangers repeatedly raided the settlement earlier this year; dismantling tents, confiscating property, and issuing move-on notices.
Activists are up in arms about the raids, claiming federal native title laws supersede local government anti camping by-laws.
“They’re going around picking on the homeless people,” says Mr Pryor.
“The City of Perth is watching that island. If anyone camps there they get kicked out.
“In our culture it’s a woman’s birthing ground. Women have been having children there for 40,000 years.”
“There’s no need to spend millions of dollars to build a damn park,” he said in reference to a sculpture park the council intends to build there,
Ms Bropho and other senior elders told the council they were opposed to the sculpture park idea.
“At the end of the day if the Government wants something they’ll do it,” says Ms Bropho. “But we must have it in writing that we said no to it.”
“Our right to the land hasn’t been extinguished. There’s no paperwork to say our ancestors gave away their rights in their time.”
A PERTH bar and restaurant will give visitors with disabilities an access plan after being taken to task by activists.
Swanky Petition in Perth, which was part of the $108 million redevelopment of the heritage-listed State Buildings, earned the ire of disability advocate Samantha Connor after a friend was forced to wait for a staff member to get out a temporary ramp.
It was so wonky the staffer had to hold it into place.
So Ms Connor took a lunch group to the venue to put the foodie hotspot’s accessibility compliance to the test.
She says it failed dismally, but she blames the city’s planners.
“City of Perth need to get their shit together improving inaccessible buildings. It’s not a case either or, it needs to be accessible. They need to talk to disabled people and form a group which advises them,” says Ms Connor.
Petition didn’t have handrails compliant with national disability standards, there weren’t adequately contrasted steps, tactile ground indicators were poorly placed, and the lift was turned off at the weekend, she groaned.
Perth lawyer Prue Hawkins also visited the venue and baulked at trying to get up the steep ramp in her wheelchair.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Michael Schumacher or some complete dick who can’t drive a wheelchair, it’s dangerous,” she later said.
Development director Kyle Jeavons says an access working group was consulted, but various building code, heritage and structural requirements would not allow for independent wheelchair access to certain areas.
“The disability discrimination act trumps the heritage act,” Ms Connor told the Voice, arguing that non-compliant steps outside the building had no bearing on its heritage.
But Ms Hawkins describes the disability act as “legislation without teeth,” and echoes Ms Connor’s sentiments about better consultation with Perth’s disability advocates.
RESIDENTS living behind a mooted seven-storey development on Charles Street, North Perth, fear authorities are going to create traffic chaos in their tiny laneway.
The development at 330 Charles Street, near the corner of Angove Street and opposite the Doll House strip club, will have nearly 90 apartments and three commercial tenancies.
One of the residents living to the rear, who didn’t want to be named, said originally Vincent council ruled out using the laneway that services a dozen or so properties based around Vine Street.
But when Main Roads arced up about sending the development’s cars onto Charles Street, the council’s planners did a backflip and recommended using the rear lane instead.
“The lane is just 4.2 metres up the top, and my understanding is that it should be a minimum of six metres,” the resident told the Voice.
• Residents fear a development on this Charles Street site will cause traffic chaos and rob them of their privacy. Photo by Steve Grant
“The council said that it could be progressively widened as the area is redeveloped, but I don’t think it’s right to be approving developments based on something that might or might not happen in the future.”
A three-storey childcare centre had also been flagged for the precinct, with traffic possibly heading up the laneway.
“The lane will not cope, it already breaks up in winter.
“We know North Perth is close to Perth and we know it has been set for high density, but given there is a surfeit of apartments, we wonder whether this development is necessary.”
A similar project next door at 318 – 324 Charles Street was approved by the metro west development assessment panel a year ago, but there’s been no sign of activity on the site.
The resident says while not thrilled about that development being approved, it had decent green space at ground level to mitigate its size.
But the developers of 330 Charles want to put all their green space on the roof.
“The development is tiered back from the lane, but they’ve put the residential open space at the top, and rather than have it at the front of the building, it’s at the rear, so it will look straight into this residential area,” the resident said.
“We will lose our privacy.”
The homeowner says the developers are proposing more car parking than her group, the Vine Street Community, would like.
She was also unhappy with the council’s consultation, saying after the group made a submission, they didn’t hear back.
She said mayor John Carey had been helpful and after they heard the original development application had been sent back for further refinement, he’d promised them another look before it gets forwarded to the DAP.
FORMER federal Perth MP and hockey great Ric Charlesworth was awarded an Order of Australia for distinguished service to sport and Parliament this week.
“It’s a delightful honour,” says Mr Charlesworth. “You don’t really anticipate these things and it kind of surprises you.”
He was among 565 notable Australians to be recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours.
• Tim Hammond with Ric Charlesworth. Photo by Steve Grant
Kookaburras
Mr Charlesworth was part of the Kookaburras hockey team which won a silver Olympic medal in 1976, and went on to coach the Hockeyroos after an illustrious political career.
He represented the Federal seat of Perth for the Labor party between 1983 and 1993, and has now endorsed Tim Hammond for the upcoming election.
“We would like the run of Labor candidates in Perth to continue,” says Mr Charlesworth.
“I think [Hammond] is a very capable fellow. Clever, hard working, and that’s what you want. The people of Perth deserve a good representative.”
Mr Charlesworth notes that Perth has become a more marginal Labor seat after the recent electoral redistribution.
FEDERAL Labor’s Perth candidate Tim Hammond has promised a Shorten government would roll out a fibre-to-the-premises broadband to the electorate.
Approximately 26,000 homes and businesses would benefit from faster internet speeds in Bayswater, Inglewood, Maylands, Bedford, and parts of Menora and Mt Lawley, he says.
Labor reckons these suburbs have some of the worst internet speeds in the country, relying on an overloaded copper network.
They’re also among the few suburbs not on the three-year rollout plan for the Turnbull government’s fibre-to-the-node NBNs.
“Only Labor will fix Malcolm Turnbull’s NBN mess and deliver the vital infrastructure of the 21st century to the people of Perth,” Mr Hammond says.
An NBN Co map shows fibre-to-the-node is already available in several regions around WA, including a clutch of suburbs just south of Perth, and larger areas across Rockingham, Mandurah and the South-West.
Mr Turnbull has scoffed at Labor’s plans, saying under the model he introduced, more homes have been connected in six months than Labor managed in six years.
“The truth is that Labor completely mismanaged and bungled the NBN,” Mr Turnbull said.
A PERTH volunteer has recently helped to develop a website for Myanmar’s Gender Equality Network.
Anna Greble has been volunteering in Myanmar as part of an 18-month assignment as a communications, advocacy and publications mentor with Australian Volunteers for International Development since December 2015.
GEN was formed in 2008, and is a network of over 100 different organisations seeking to bring about gender equality in the South East Asian country.
Ms Greble’s work at GEN has involved developing a website, and focussing on communication and advocacy strategies: “GEN has been moving from strength to strength in the past few years and is really developing a very good name for itself in Myanmar, so I am hoping that I will be able to use this to draw out some clear and strong messages.”
BAYSWATER mayor Barry McKenna shares a tale with Matthew Tian, Lana Brekic and Elizabeth Marshall at the re-opening of the Morley Library this week, while mums Chunli Li, Sanja Brekic and Nicola Marshall listen in.
The library was originally in the Morley shopping centre, but got nudged out when supermarket giant Aldi decided to move in. It’s now at the Len Hansman Community Centre across the road, a move that cost the council $776,000 and threw out a masterplan for the area.
Perth Voice Interactive 