Perth Voice Interactive

A SECOND e-scooter operator has launched across the City of Vincent this week.

Singaporean-based Beam Mobility has rolled out 250 of its distinctive purple Saturn 5 e-scooters in Vincent; it already operates in the Perth CBD and in January started offering them in Stirling as well.

It joins Neuron in Vincent council’s 12-month e-scooter trial, which includes “geofencing” to stop riders going into Hyde Park and Britannia Reserve.

Mayor Alison Xamon said having two providers would make the City’s trial more effective.

“As an avid rider myself, e-scooters offer an alternate mode of transport for inner-city residents to get to work, school, social gatherings, community events and our buzzing town centres.

They are also environmentally friendly as they produce zero emissions and reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.”

Beam is an app-based service, with users being charged $1 to unlock the bike and then a minimum 45 cent fee for every minute it’s used.

Beam operations manager Andrew Dodd said the company was committed to safe riding.

“We invest in rider education, prevention and deterrence, but above all, even the safest e-scooter requires a safer rider, and we ask that people do the right thing – that means wear a helmet, follow the road rules,” Mr Dodd said.

Under Vincent council’s trial, Beam and Neuron will have to monitor parking stations to ensure they don’t become a tangle of scooters.

Beam was started by Yale classmates Alan Jiang and Deb Gangopadhyay on the basis they believe personal car ownership may fade as cities become increasingly dense.

They have indicated that they’d like the company to branch out into share e-bikes and e-mopeds.

Beam now boasts of being Australia’s “largest micromobility company”, but didn’t fare well on the Australian-based productreview.com.au website.

Of 17 reviews across Queensland, NSW and Victoria, they got hammered for a variety of issues, ranging from the pricing, unexpected charges and poor customer services.

BAYSWATER will be abuzz with a celebration of its multicultural community during Harmony Week 2024.

Free activities from 3 – 6pm on March 17 at The RISE Amphitheatre include a picnic and concert with the mesmerising rhythms and melodies of the Middle East and Turkey played by Group Ezgi.

Bayswater mayor Filomena Piffaretti said the city had a strong reason to celebrate Harmony Week.

“With nearly half of our population hailing from overseas, this inclusive event serves as a wonderful opportunity to embrace and celebrate our cultural richness,” Ms Piffaretti said.

“Our City of Bayswater Youth Advisory Council members and Age Friendly Ambassadors will be on hand, facilitating connections and encouraging the sharing of cultural narratives within our community.”

City’s Libraries will be joining in Harmony Week with special Make It! Club sessions for kids, featuring origami and collage projects. Adults can also unleash their creativity in a Chinese lantern-making workshop.

For further details or to reserve your spot, visit bit.ly/COB-Library-Eventbrite.

PARA SPORT will be back in Forrest Place later this month thanks to Rebound WA.

The Para Sport Festival allows people from all walks of life to explore recreation and sport opportunities available to Western Australians with physical disabilities and blindness, with wheelchair basketball and bowling crowd favourites.

Rebound WA is a charity that aims to empower people with physical disabilities through sports and recreation.

This year’s festival at Forrest Place will include activities from Wheelchair Rugby WA, Perth Para and Ability Dance, Western Electric Sports Association, Lawn Bowls WA, WA Blind Sport, Archery WA and Strong Abilities WA which showcases the power-lifting abilities of people with disabilities.

The Rebound WA Para Sport Festival kicks off on March 20 from 4 – 7pm in Forrest Place.

MEMBERS of the WA media and arts community will be protesting in solidarity with journalist Antoinette Lattouf over her sacking by the ABC for posting about Gaza on social media. 

Ms Lattouf was sacked in December, days after she had shared a post from Human Rights Watch regarding Israel’s war in Gaza on her Instagram story, including a caption stating the humanitarian organisation was “reporting starvation as a tool of war”.  

MEAA Members for Palestine Perth representative Maduvanthi Venkatesan says it is worrying Ms Lattouf is being “punished” as a journalist for reporting on Israel’s war in Gaza. 

“We really need to push back against this troubling culture of censorship and suppression when it comes to speaking out for Palestine,” Ms Venkatesan said. 

“Journalists shouldn’t lose their jobs or their livelihoods for speaking the truth.”

Ms Lattouf has lodged an unfair dismissal claim with the Fair Work Commission against the ABC, after she was asked to leave her fill-in position three days into a five day stint on Sydney’s Mornings radio show. 

Ms Lattouf she was told by ABC management she “failed or refused to comply with directions that she not post on social media about matters of controversy during the short period she was presenting.”

The Sydney-based journalist has sued the national broadcaster on the grounds that the termination was unlawful, and that she had been cleared to post about accurate information from a reputable source such as Human Rights Watch. 

The ABC also reported on this information using the same source.

In her claim to the Fair Work Commission, Ms Lattouf said management at the public broadcaster did not abide by its own enterprise agreement. 

According to the agreement, employees should be “advised in writing of the nature of the alleged misconduct”, which Ms Lattouf claims she was not. 

Ms Lattouf is also claiming she was stood down because of her race, as she is of Lebanese descent. The ABC has denied this claim. 

Ms Venkatesan said Ms Lattouf had “made a huge sacrifice” for speaking out about the conflict, which is why the MEAA group is protesting in solidarity. 

“As a woman of colour, and as an Arab woman, she took on a great deal of risk to do that,” she said.

“We can’t let her bare that alone.” 

Ms Venkatesan says the protest in honour of Ms Lattouf was “not just about journalism”, as it sets an example for anyone wanting to voice their political opinions outside of work. 

“It’s also equally about working people and their right to speak out against genocide, which anyone should be able to do without feeling like they’re going to be punished by their employer,” she said. 

The MEAA Members for Palestine protest in solidarity with Antoinette Lattouf was due to be held yesterday (Friday March 8) at 8am in Wellington Square, East Perth. Rallies will also be held in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Canberra on the same day.

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER

THERE are calls for a total ban on filters in cigarettes after recent research found more than half of all smokers don’t bother putting them in a bin.

With filters taking the unenviable title of the most littered item in Australia, No More Butts executive director Shannon Mead said they were a burden on the country.

“If only 10 per cent of Australians smoke and up to 65 per cent litter, Australia is then paying for the costs as well as being impacted by the actions of a relatively small minority,” Ms Mead said.

A 2021 report commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia estimated 8.9 billion cigarette filters were carelessly discarded across Australia every year; each one starts leaching chemicals into their surroundings within an hour, while the estimated 300 kilograms of microfibres released is comparable to the emissions from domestic laundry.

With cigarette butts constituting a third of all litter and taking 15 years to start breaking down, Sea Shepherd Australia marine debris campaign co-ordinator Karolina Strittmatter said it took a lot to clean them up.
“Since 2016 we have removed 269,659 used cigarette filters in WA. In 2023 alone, 19,798 butts were taken away, during 37 community clean-ups, with the most found at Bathers Beach.”
While NSW is considering expanding its single-use plastics ban to include cigarette filters, there haven’t been any moves to follow suit in Western Australia. 

No More Butts is also calling for the International Plastics Treaty to deal with the issue of cigarette filters, while others have pointed to a European Union model that makes manufacturers and smokers bear the financial burden of filter pollution through a levy on each cigarette that gets sold.

by JENS KIRSCH

MASTER model maker Gerry Westenberg’s replica of Henry VIII’s famous 16th century flagship Mary Rose has caught the eye of an international YouTuber, and he flew to the UK last week to hand it over personally.

The model is a 1/96 scale replica of the Mary Rose, which sank in mysterious circumstances during the Battle of the Solent. 

A becalmed British navy were facing a French fleet a third bigger than the Spanish Armada when the Mary Rose suddenly keeled over and almost all her 400 crew were lost.

Mr Westenberg, who has one of Australia’s largest collection of hand-crafted naval ships, regularly exhibits his work at the Fremantle Shipwrecks Museum, and it was during a chance visit that a YouTuber who goes by the handle Drachinifel spotted the Mary Rose replica.

Drachinifel is actually Alex Pocklington, an engineer-turned-historian who’s channel has a following of half a million people and has landed him speaking gigs at naval conferences around the world.

Drachinifel was so impressed with the detail and quality of Gerry’s work, he decided to buy the model of the Mary Rose for his collection. 

Mr Westenberg says the model was completed in six weeks, working 12 hours a day.

Model ships of balsa and bits of plastic aren’t something to entrust to the average courier, meaning Mr Westenberg will accompany the ship on the flight back to the UK, but says he’ll be taking some extra balsa, glue and paint just in case.

by DAVID NICHOLSON