Perth Voice Interactive

THIS trophy made of Emu Export beer cans. Claims of anti-social behaviour and drug use. Yelling. Swearing. And the bang of a roller-hockey puck hitting timber.

The cocktail has led to WA’s newest sporting league being asked to reconsider its future at the Bayswater Bowling Club, its home of just five months.

The Street Roller Hockey League is also facing fines of up to $5000 because neighbours complain game play noise is excessive and they’re being “audibly molested”.

“I want to be able to open my window to let in the sea breeze and have a barbecue in my backyard but I can’t do that because the noise is incessant on five days a week and on weekends,” a neighbour of Frank Drago Reserve told councillors this week, at a council meeting convened especially to discuss the issue.

Dobbed

Some locals have dobbed the league in to the WA liquor commission for being too rowdy, prompting an investigation.

Bowling club president Steve Lay says normal exuberance has been blown out of proportion by people with an axe to grind.

“Someone has decided to attack them and make false claims of drug-taking, anti-social behaviour, irresponsible service of alcohol, drinking on unlicensed premises, public drunkenness, smashing bottles in streets when they’re leaving and other unbelievable accusations because they want this shut down,” Mr Lay says.

“These are unsubstantiated accusations. I was there on the night and wasn’t as big and bad as it’s been blown out to be.

“Most of them left at 9.30pm and they were all told to use taxis or take the train. Just because they might have been laughing and having a good time, doesn’t mean they were drunk and disorderly.

“This is a group of 20 to 30-year-olds who have nothing but the best intentions. They’re fun-loving, respectful people with good manners and are seeking fellowship and friendship. They’re trying to do something good in the community and someone is making up lies and claims of lawlessness because they don’t want them around.”

Liquor commission spokesman Gary McHugh says it’s investigating the matter, but won’t have anything to report for a “couple of weeks”.

Roller hockey league founder Eamonn Lourey says the group will spend $3000 replacing the rink barrier with thicker timber and insulation to soften noise.

He’s also looking into other cost-effective ways to reduce sound, such as planting shrubs and trees. “We weren’t aware of being too loud until late January so we haven’t been able to try fix the problem until recently,” he told the Voice.

He says the league has been good for Bayswater, and the bowling club: “We all go out for coffee, have breakfast out, and if we were to move to an industrial area away from housing, like some locals suggested in the meeting, there would be no benefit to local businesses. I want this to be part of the Bayswater fabric.”

The group has invested $50,000 on its home rink which, if all goes well with sound mitigation, will be the league’s northern hub. Expansion plans include a southern hub. The March to June season will involve more than 108 teams.

Mayor Barry McKenna told the meeting the league had saved the cash-strapped bowling club from closure despite the council waiving $52,000 in interest on a $300,000 loan. He conceded the council was “partly to blame” as now-abandoned plans to redevelop the reserve had delayed new leases.

A new lease for the bowling club, which could be discussed later this month, will likely include a clause against foul language and noise.

The council was advised earlier this year the league had broken “environmental protection noise regulations” by up to a dozen decibels after 7pm.

It’s keeping its noise monitors on site, and staffers will step if there’s another breach, Cr McKenna says.

“If there is a breach, and the league fail to comply, then they will have to cease what they’re doing to trigger the monitors, and if they don’t they’ll face prosecution,” he says.

by EMMIE DOWLING

A YEAR to the day that Bella Bropho’s group of activists set up camp at Matagarup (aka Heirisson Island), the island has become a refuge for the homeless.

Ms Bropho came to the island March 1, 2015. There had been other protest groups there, but her main goal setting up the First Nations Refugee Camp was to fight the forced closure of remote communities.

Today it’s largely a camp for people with nowhere else to live, with numbers hovering between 40 and 60 and sometimes more. Ms Bropho’s brother Herbert and Nyoongar man Clinton Pryor invite people sleeping on the streets of Perth and Northbridge to come down to the island, offering a safe place to sleep.

One man the Voice spoke to said his first night at Matagarup was the best sleep he could remember. Living out of a tent, he says it’s a far better option than sleeping on the streets of Northbridge where, in scenes reminiscent of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, large groups of teenage kids pour from trains on Friday and Saturday nights looking for trouble. He says homeless people are often their first targets.

Homeless shelters also aren’t a good option: drugs are too easy to get hold of in them, he says, making it tough to recover from addiction. He prefers Matagarup’s no drugs and no alcohol policy.

We also met a mother and son. During the day she goes into the city to “caj” (cajole—beg) for cash for food. She cops some abuse from people in passing cars but also receives donations of gear and supplies. Ms Bropho warmly welcomes the new arrivals.

“It’s a sanctuary for them, a bit of protection from the harm out there,” she says.

“That’s why Clinton and Herbert went [to the city] to try to at least get the word out to everybody: there is a safe place, and that is Matagarup.

“I lost two sisters to the streets of Perth, and a younger brother. Living the lifestyle like that, you wish to god you wake up in the morning and get to live another day.

“It’s a dangerous place, you get mobbed or harassed by police. It’s not happy, it’s survival.”

Perth city council’s by-laws ban camping on the island, a rule disputed by Ms Bropho who says the by-laws are overridden by state and federal laws, including the Aboriginal Heritage Act of 1972.

Council raids to confiscate tents and camping equipment have apparently not occurred since last August.

The PCC continues to ignore our requests for information.

by DAVID BELL and MATTHEW DWYER

WITH a flood of Aboriginal activists and supporters fronting Council House to look for confiscated belongings, Perth city council has agreed to hold open days to let people reclaim impounded items.

Five truckloads of camping goods and other items were taken from Matagarup/Heirisson Island during the PCC’s attempt to “decamp” people from the island last year.

The law states the council can only hold items for seven days: it’s had them for months. Now it’s agreed to let people inspect goods themselves as a step in retrieval.

Activists are doubtful they’ll get their belongings back intact. The first to inspect her goods, Diane Niyati, couldn’t even find her belongings amidst the storage, which resembled a rubbish dump.

Following court mediation the PCC paid her $966.70 in compensation, which has sparked more claims from folk whose goods were taken and not returned (“PCC ordered to pay,” Voice, February 12, 2016). 

We asked the PCC what its plan was to deal with other cases where goods were missing or destroyed, and whether it’d force everyone to go through the court process individually for compensation.

But under the stewardship of senior communications officer Michael Holland, the PCC has simply stopped responding to any inquiry that has even a tinge of controversy about it.

Our inquiry was lodged Monday but went unacknowledged. Mr Holland—formerly a journalist before ditching the craft to take up PR—was happy however to send us several emails about how great the city’s new library is.

Inspection dates for confiscated goods are March 16, 17 and 18, and if the goods aren’t intact more court action is expected to follow.  “We’re going to go in in a group, as much numbers as we can, to go and see our personal belongings,” activist Bella Bropho says. “We want to see the ‘A1’ conditions that [former CEO] Gary Stephenson told us about, and see that they’re in good nick.”

by DAVID BELL

A 10pm check-in curfew, clean home assurances and public liability insurance are likely be included in WA regulations aimed at curbing issues with new short-stay accommodation providers.

East Metro Liberal MLC Alyssa Hayden this week met with staffers at Perth, Stirling and Bayswater councils to talk about policing complaints.

The parliamentary secretary is compiling recommendations for regulations to be presented to WA tourism minister Kim Hames next month.

She says there’s a need for councils to enforce rules for stays shorter than three months, but warns against going overboard.

There’s no need to follow Peppermint Grove council in banning homeowners from using home-sharing sites such as Airbnb and Stayz, she says, and Bayswater should not worry about applying so many rules to a policy it’s considering.

“A check-in time at 10pm would prevent disruption to neighbouring residents,” Ms Hayden says. “Other things are providing clean, quality accommodation and sufficient parking.

“But I think the big one is making sure homeowners know that if they don’t have public liability insurance they could face losing everything. Someone might hurt themselves, or die, on their private property and they’ll be liable for that and may end up being sued.”

She also suggests strengthening by-laws for strata properties: if landlords state 25 per cent of units can be used for short-term stays, long-term tenants won’t be able to complain because they “know what they’re getting themselves into”.

Complaints to councils include security issues, with strangers getting access to supposedly secure complexes, and constant rowdy, “holiday-mode” behaviour from visitors.

Bayswater councillor Brent Fleeton, a Liberal Party member, says the free market should be left to work it all out with as little interference from government as possible: he has a similar view with passenger services like Uber.

“I support this Liberal state government allowing private property owners to rent out their property free from unfair intervention because the benefits far outweigh any costs,” he says. “The market has spoken, it wants Airbnb.”

Bayswater’s draft “short-term accommodation” policy is likely to be discussed next month.

It restricts guest numbers and allows staff to take action against troublesome tenants.

It also dictates property owners must supply a “management plan” outlining house rules, such as banning anti-social behaviour and evidence of a plan to deal with complaints.

by EMMIE DOWLING

THE Supreme Court is to decide whether Maylands gets a 1000sqm Dan Murphy’s liquor barn that can sell liquor.

Woolworths already has permission from the local development assessments panel to build its grog palace but was last month refused a licence to sell alcohol.

Woolworths is appealing the WA liquor commission’s refusal, and if it fails it is unlikely to proceed with the long-planned $3.5 million development of the old Peninsula Tavern site.

While locals are happy for the old tavern to be redeveloped they’re opposed to the Dan Murphy’s element of the proposal: 1000 opposed it in a 2015 survey.

Local Labor MP Lisa Baker, a long-time opponent of the proliferaiton of liquor barns in Maylands, is confident the appeal will fail but isn’t happy locals are unable to put their case to the court without stumping up around $100,000 in legal fees.

“So this is the strategy that Woolworths considers acceptable?” she asks.

“To threaten communities and then out-spend them on legal warfare. This is not a shining example of corporate citizenship. Woolworths should hang their heads in shame.”

Coles went down the same legal path in 2010 with its plans for a 1250sqm First Choice outlet on Guildford Road, which was also opposed by locals. The outlet did not proceed.

by EMMIE DOWLING