Perth Voice Interactive

ESKIMO JOE guitarist Stuart MacLeod says the $1.4 million cut to digital community radio in the federal budget will put non-commercial stations in Perth under severe pressure.

Mr MacLeod, who in December was appointed general manager of RTR in Mt Lawley, says it means the station will lose at least $10,000 in government subsidies.

“It may not be a lot of cash for the big commercial radio stations, but for community stations like us it is a crucial amount of money,” he says.

“We are already having to put tens of thousands into the digital side of things, so every cent of funding we can get is vital.

“We got digital funding for the past three years and the expectation was for it to continue, but it was unexpectedly cut in the budget.”

Community Broadcasting Association of Australia CEO Jon Bisset says the $1.4m ensured community radio stations in Australia’s capital cities could broadcast digitally.

The association has started an online petition calling on the major parties to reinstate the funding after the election.

At the time of going to print the http://www.keepcommunityradio.org.au petition had collected 18,000 signatures.

Mr Bisset says the cuts come in the wake of commercial TV and radio broadcasters benefiting from immediate licence fee reductions, starting at 25 per cent, and with more reductions under consideration.

“Excluding community broadcasters from digital broadcasting threatens the whole community broadcasting sector’s key role in Australian free-to-air broadcasting,” he says. “This is particularly concerning given the planned reforms to media ownership, which are likely to result in a less diverse media landscape and less opportunities for community voices to be heard.

“For over 40 years, Australian governments have been committed to community radio standing alongside commercial and national radio services on available free-to-air broadcast platforms. Now, we see that position under threat.”

Mr MacLeod says most people listen to radio in their car, and for a while digital has been standard in new vehicles rolling off the production line.

“Digital radio is the way forward and community radio stations need to be onboard with it,” he says. “It’s true that internet services like Pandora are coming online, but they don’t give that uniquely local content that community radio provides.

“Our shows are diverse and champion alternative issues that the mainstream shy away from, including gender equality and LGBTI.”

Perth-metro community radio stations broadcasting digitally include Noongar, Sonshine, Curtin and Capital Community.

There are around 444 community radio stations across Australia, with most relying on volunteers, sponsors and donations.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

STIRLING city council has joined 20 other Australian councils, snubbing companies that deal in coal, oil, or gas.

The council voted to amend its investment policy last week, to give preference to financial institutions that do not deal with the fossil fuel industry.

The unanimous decision follows a year of campaigning by 350 Australia, a grassroots organisation aiming to have atmospheric CO2 reduced to 350 parts per million.

NASA scientist James Hansen, backed by scientific consensus, says unless we reduce CO2 levels from the current 400 ppm to 350, there will irreversible climate consequences. Michael Fab, the coordinator for 350 in Perth, says Stirling was more receptive to the campaign because most of its investments are already fossil-free.

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM

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VINCENZO MULE, 52, is the man charged with the abduction and aggravated sexual penetration of two young children in North Perth on April 19, during school holidays. A suppression order on Mule’s identity was lifted this week by the magistrates court. Mule is remanded in custody and is due back in court June 29.

THE newly formed Sixth Avenue Residents Action Group has had an early win, convincing WA government departments to change plans for their street that would’ve seen “the needless removal of more beautiful trees”.

The WA education department and Constable Care wanted to install a “Safety School” at the corner of Sixth Ave and Guildford Road, which is like a little model town map that teaches kids about road safety.

But the plan would’ve meant buses rolling down quiet Sixth Ave to drop kids off, and resulted in the axing of a big bird-filled street tree.

Carla Jordan started a petition and collected 100-odd signatures to save the trees and oppose big buses. Ms Jordan says Sixth is a “quiet no-through road with residential housing”.

Within a couple hours of the Voice getting onto the story and publicly posting a request for residents to meet for a photo, we took a call from Constable Care, informing us the plans had changed.

CC’s David Gribble says the education department is now on board with a revised plan to save the trees, and buses will now come off the busier Peninsula Road rather than quiet residential Sixth Ave (it’s an outcome the Constable had preferred from the start).

There will also be no more trees removed from the site: a few had to go to make way for the road network and a poisonous cape lilac and a diseased oak were taken as well.

The new plan still has a couple of speed bumps, needing to steer its way through Bayswater council and get a rubber stamp from the WA planning commission.

by DAVID BELL

NEDLANDS and Subiaco residents transitioning to the expanded Perth city council are being wooed with whispers of lower rates and better services.

The transition is part of the Barnett government’s City of Perth Act, the only bit of the premier’s wide-ranging council amalgamation vision that survived.

In an FAQ, Perth city council says “service levels will be maintained throughout the transition, and ultimately improved in the long term.

“We are optimistic we will also be in a position to reduce operating costs, which will naturally provide a flow-in benefit to the city’s ratepayers”.

Last year a ratepayer would have saved anywhere between $100 and $150 if they’d been in Perth instead of Subiaco.

Subiaco mayor Heather Henderson has previously said her residents south of Aberdare Road would be detrimentally impacted by going into Perth, and services and rates could be affected.

The Subiaco Post newspaper also reported Ms Henderson saying she was wary of discussing the Act with Ms Scaffidi following a corruption and crime commission investigation which found the lord mayor had engaged in serious misconduct, and the council ousting its CEO earlier this year. Ms Henderson was more circumspect this week, telling the Voice that Subi would work to “make sure the transition is as seamless as possible, and ultimately it will be the residents who determine their level of satisfaction with their new local government”.

The Act comes into full effect July 1 and the FAQ is on the front page now at the PCC website.

by DAVID BELL

STORIES from stolen generation survivors are recreated word for word in the one-man performance Hart.

Noongar man Ian Michael is the sole presence on stage, but brings with him verbatim stories of others affected by government policies that saw kids taken from parents through force or trickery, sometimes to never see each other again.

“When I first started writing Hart, I imagined trying to write a story like this, imagining it, and I couldn’t,” he says. “Verbatim theatre hits you at a deeper level because those words really came out of someone’s mouth and those are the feelings they felt.”

The stories came from interviews Michael and co-writer Seanna van Helten from SheSaid Theatre held with Noongars affected by the stolen generation (and as Michael points out, that’s just about every Aboriginal person).

Hart has played at Melbourne Fringe, South Australia and New Zealand, but this’ll be the first time Noongar stories have been told in Noongar country.

Despite the tough topic, those interviewed were pretty forthcoming.

“They want these stories to be told and I’m really lucky that I’m the person who gets to do that,” Michael says. “I didn’t want to open up wounds or trauma for people, but I’m very surprised and lucky that they wanted to tell their stories.

It’s not a story that’s frozen in the past, either: One of the men interviewed, Uncle Sam, tells his story “so younger Aboriginal people can see that this is still happening”.

Michael says many are familiar with films like Rabbit Proof Fence and that’s a good starting point, but that was set back in 1931 and people could think it’s all in the distant past when the effects continue: a generation stricken with trauma doesn’t get over it as soon as the policy officially ends, and Michael argues it continues in a different guise today with efforts like the Northern Territory intervention.

Today, the huge number of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care (at a rate 10 times higher than non-indigenous) is creating what some advocates call a “lost generation” of kids with no connection to their culture, one of the aims of later iterations of the stolen generation policy.

The play has its warm and funny moments, but with such hard subject matter “a lot of people are shocked and saddened and angry” after hearing what happened, Michael says.

Occasionally someone will come up to him trying to downplay the dark history, arguing it was all done with the best intentions or it wasn’t really that bad or people today shouldn’t be affected by it, but largely the shows have generated thoughtful conversations.

“I don’t think our country as a whole has a great understanding of what happened, and the continuation of what’s happened from those events.”

He says by the end of the play “this group of people have listened to me for 60 minutes”.

“That’s the beginning of change for me. Hart is the start of the conversation.”

It’s on at the Blue Room May 24 to June 11, tickets from blueroom.org.au/events/hart

by DAVID BELL

DEVELOPERS who “accidentally” kill verge trees may soon be “accidentally” slugged with a $5000 fine.

Councillors Sally Palmer and Chris Cornish are spearheading the push, saying too many trees are getting bowled over.

It’s amazing how often trees’ “accidental” removal makes it easier for developers to access sites and construct driveways.

“It’s not all developers, but you only need to have 10 per cent neglecting that ruling of keeping that verge tree and you could have lost 10 per cent of trees,” Cr Palmer says.

“Just having this bond makes them more aware of that tree value. The trees don’t just belong to that block, they belong to the whole street.”

The council will now keep a bond of $5000 “held in trust for a period of 12 months following completion of the construction” and hand it back only when ”the street tree has been protected and maintained to the satisfaction of the city”.

Cr Brent Fleeton was the only one to vote against the policy.  He says he’s not seen evidence there’s an epidemic of verge trees being knocked down and this only adds red tape.

He says fining those who destroy protected trees would be more efficient than setting up an unwieldly bond system.

by DAVID BELL

THE Voice has featured a fair bit about Mount Hawthorn’s ANZAC cottage in its pages over the years, but in June the cottage caretakers unearth the history behind the folk who built the house for a returning WWI soldier back in 1916.

The Mt Hawthorn Progress Association formed the idea amid a patriotic fervour as news came back of the disastrous landing at Gallipoli. They wanted to honour their fallen countrymen with something useful, and settled on building a cottage for a wounded soldier, Cuthbert John Porter.

“Mount Hawthorn is going to do something big,” the Westralian Worker reported in 1915. “It is going to erect a monument—a monument to the honor [sic] and glorious memory of those gallant and fearless representatives of Australia who brought imperishable renown to this young nation”.

While intentions were noble, nationalism and prejudice was also clear in the early association: along with its charitable efforts it encouraged white folk to buy from white folk. “Several housewives who thoughtlessly purchased their weekly cabbage from the heathen Chinese now give their patronage to one of their own race who has sons serving with the colors [sic],” reads an article from the day, unearthed in a history by Porter’s granddaughter Anne Chapple.

The histories include tales of moustachioed men like JH Beveridge (who donated the first £5 to kickstart fundraising for the cottage) and busy bee organiser Sid Gibson (who coordinated a huge labour force to build the cottage over just a couple of days).

Their stories will be told at the cottage at 38 Kalgoorlie Street Mt Hawthorn at 2.30pm on June 5, free entry and afternoon tea for a gold coin donation, and for more info get in touch with Ms Chapple on 0411 445 582 or chapan@highway1.com.au

by DAVID BELL