Perth Voice Interactive

CASH-STRAPPED locals needing help with power bills will no longer be able to call on Stirling council’s financial counselling service.

Council executives say they have no choice but to close the 31-year-old service following state government cuts that slashed funding from $278,000 to $111,000 a year.

With two full-time staff and part-timers already stretched, reducing the service to one full-timer would have made it impossible to meet demand.

“This level of funding is not sufficient to operate a professional service along with the requirements for a vehicle, office accommodation, administration and reporting etc,” councillors were informed via a report this week.

Continuing the service would have seen the lone remaining counsellor “working in isolation” and dealing with ever-increasing waiting lists, not to mention client frustration.

In November WA local government minister Tony Simpson appointed a “consortium” of financial counselling service providers for the north metropolitan area, including Anglicare and the Spiers Centre.

The Spiers Centre, a not-for-profit organisation, is expected to pick up most of the slack from Stirling’s withdrawal. The council is supporting the group by offering council-owned office space at a discounted rate.

The new consortium will not provide services for people wanting to access WA’s “hardship utility grant scheme”.

Other councils have already closed their services. Cockburn and Fremantle nearly closed their centres but decided to fund the gap, with Cockburn down to one counsellor.

by EMMIE DOWLING

LOOK closely: those tiny lines in Joel Knox’s journal are sentences.

Each page, all 500 of them, holds a visual and written record of Knox’s most philosophical thoughts over the past five years.

Soon, the book will be turned into a 3D video game. Knox is one of up to 15 game developers using Level One, WA’s first gaming industry-focussed co-working space.

It was here, in a space on loan from SK Games on Fitzgerald Street, where he was able to come up with his video game idea.

He heard about the space late last year, when the space was being trialled: “It’s harder to do something like this on your own,” Knox says.  “You’re more motivated, and come up with better ideas, when you’re working side by side with like-minded people.”

Bible

Voice readers may have seen Knox sitting in a cafe, drawing in the leather-bound, encyclopaedia-like book he describes as his bible.

“I take an observation like two people sitting together at a cafe,” he says. “They’re on their phones and not talking to each other. So I write about how the world would be designed if no-one had to talk to each other: cafes would be smaller.”

The game, The Mindful Architect, would be about climbing a mountain by conquering obstacles — a metaphor for life he’s penned in his journal.

He’ll base 3D animations in the game on drawings from his book. Gamers would be able to navigate the virtual world through paths and the aim would be to try get to the top.

Kate Raynes-Goldie, director of games at FTI, the not-for-profit group behind the co-working space, says the gaming industry could become more profitable than mining in WA — if it got enough government funding.

“The aim is provide support and encouragement, and help them get exposure,” Ms Raynes-Goldie says.

The global gaming market is worth $91.5 billion, which is more lucrative than Hollywood.

The co-working space’s official launch is on Friday, March 3. For more information, visit levelone.org.au.

by EMMIE DOWLING

CORRECTION: We got Terry-towelled last week. In a Bayswater Brief we meant to run a photo of Bayswater councillor Terry Kenyon, but the Voice gnomes fished out from the files a photo of Stirling councillor Terry Tyzack instead. Apologies to the two Terrys (who are, as it happens, both also former mayors of their respective councils). We feel Terryble about it.

 

THE Greens are getting in early in their campaign for Perth, following Alannah MacTiernan’s decision to retire, and are the first of the three major parties to pre-select a candidate for the seat.

They’ve resurrected Tim Clifford who’d previously run for Stirling and are looking to build on their previous 10 per cent result in the capital city seat, and even perhaps snaffle it on preferences.

With a background in the military and mining, managing the effects of the post-mining boom is big on Mr Clifford’s agenda, as are the usual Greens policies of a clean energy economy and the jobs that go along with it.

“I spent six years working on a series of fly-in, fly-out rosters, and am now seeing the after-effects of the mining boom on workers and the economy,” Mr Clifford says.

He adds he’s “contended with WA’s rental market and the struggle to move into home ownership amidst a housing shortage and inflated prices”.

Growing up with a single mum looking after four kids in the country, he says without safety nets the family would have fallen into poverty and missed out on education and career opportunities.

Labor’s most likely candidate is Mount Lawley lawyer Tim Hammond (Voice, February 20, 2016) while the Liberals are yet to announce who they’ll send in following Joe Ferrante’s tilt in 2010 and Darryl Moore’s bumpy campaign in 2013.

by DAVID BELL

WHO would steal from a good looking man?

Local craftsman Andrew Christie, who runs the unique furniture business A Good Looking Man and who built a lot of the cool unorthodox parklets around Vincent, had a drydocked boat set up in the Pleasure Garden as a curio but visitors have been nicking bits from it left and right.

“So far most everything has been stolen from my boat in the Pleasure Garden,” he sighs online. “Trombones, lamps, vases, blankets, and most recently the steering wheel and prized portrait of @thecrowl.

“People do dumbo things when they’re drunk so it’s not such a biggie but if you have any of my bits could you slip them back before the close of [Fringe]? Total amnesty and I’ll slip you a six pack for doing the right thing.”

A couple of pieces were recovered from Fringe’s security team, who’d come across them and held them for safekeeping. It’s all closed up now so if you do find a ships wheel tucked in your mate’s back pocket, best to try A Good Looking Man Facebook page for a safe return.

by DAVID BELL

PHOTOGRAPHIC evidence has emerged that garbage piled up on a Vincent Street block came from a building owned by Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi and her husband, Joe.

Mr and Ms Scaffidi part-own the vacant block at 285 Vincent Street and were fined by Vincent council for using it as an unofficial and unauthorised tipsite.

Neighbours had complained of soiled mattresses being amongst the pile before it was cleaned up. The Voice reported that the garbage was likely from the Scaffidis’ building, based on witnesses’ accounts.

Kay Collinson, a staffer of the Scaffidis, had written to the Voice telling us we were wrong, and that the garbage belonged to a former owner of the property.

But photos have now emerged showing at least some of the material definitely came from the Grand Central Backpackers Hotel building that the Scaffidis own. The notoriously run-down property had been undergoing a renovation at the time.

Amidst a pile of soiled mattresses, a sign reads “BACKPACKERS—GRAND CENTRAL ACCOMMODATION”. An exit sign lies nearby.

We sent Ms Collinson copies of the photos and asked how it tallied with her claim the garbage had belonged to the site’s former owner. We did not hear back.

by DAVID BELL

A VOICE reader’s tongue-in-cheek inquiry to Perth city council about camping on Heirisson Island reveals the capital seems at a loss at how to deal with the remaining 60-odd protest campers.

The reader had forwarded his sarky inquiry having noticed the campers on the island, and asking the PCC how he could go about pitching a tent.

“Do I need a permit and is there a monetary charge or do I just rock up with the family and equipment and erect the tent in my place of choice,” his inquiry asked.

The response from the PCC’s Rebecca Moore, forwarded to us by the reader, states: “As you have pointed out there are people camping on Heirisson Island however this is not permitted by the city.

“The issues that have led to the encampment on Heirisson Island are complex. Most of the issues are political in nature and fall outside of the city’s authority. The city is working with the federal and state governments to resolve these issues.”

Camping on the island is prohibited by council rules but Aboriginal activists say their historical connection to the area, known to them as Matagarup, overrides local bylaws.

“On many occasions the city has met with and attempted to negotiate with protest leaders to bring an end to illegal camping and prevent further damage to the island,” Ms Moore’s response says.

“Unfortunately, these discussions have not been successful to date and as such, the city is exploring other options with the state government and WA Police.”

Attempts to unseat the campers have failed, and raids to confiscate camping goods seemingly petered out last August (and those confiscations and apparently illegal disposal of goods has sparked a new round of legal headaches for authorities).

by DAVID BELL

NEGLECTING any heritage building to a point beyond repair should be a crime and landowners should be penalised for it, a community leader says.

Mount Lawley Society patron Barrie Baker says it’s not enough for the Barnett government to protect heritage-listed buildings against “demolition by neglect” — a process where owners purposefully allow character properties to degrade, making it easier to get a demolition through the local council.

Mr Baker says all heritage buildings, even those recognised only at a local government level, have historic value and councils should have the power to penalise neglectful owners.

His comments come as Stirling council rubber-stamps the bulldozing of a 1910s weatherboard house on Seventh Avenue, Inglewood, despite in-house heritage listing.

The council had sought advice from a structural engineer as well as its own heritage architects and consultants before conceding the site was too run down to save: “The subject dwelling has deteriorated to such an extent that it makes a negative contribution to the heritage protection area,” its report states.

“The dwelling is unfit for habitation as a result of a complete lack of maintenance over a considerable length of time … [and] has been determined to be irredeemable.”

The council insists it’s not case of demolition by neglect, but Mr Baker begs to differ.

The Mount Lawley man, who’s lived in the area for more than half-a-century, says the Inglewood house, “hasn’t had a lick of paint in decades”.

“It’s our civic duty to keep a dwelling up to scratch,” Mr Baker says. “It’s part of the deal of living in a community.”

His sentiments were shared on the society’s Facebook page: “These properties are prime opportunities for developers to acquire, neglect and then demolish.

“But these rare properties do have a value in our community, for they point back to the very earliest days of our city in those suburbs. They clearly belong to the heritage of our city.”

According to the group, the house is one of 16 weatherboard houses built early in the development of local suburbs.

At least six have been demolished already, the group says, but some, such as 163 Ninth Avenue, have been well preserved.

The demolition applicant could not be contacted. Demolition will not go ahead until the council sees replacement designs.

WA heritage minister Albert Jacob is planning on introducing a “repair order provision” in a new Heritage Act.

Changes aim to prevent demolition by neglect of state heritage-listed properties, and will allow the minister to compel landowners to make “sufficient repairs” so buildings are safe, weather-tight and don’t lose their structural integrity.

by EMMIE DOWLING