Perth Voice Interactive

TEARS flowed last week over the sudden closure of a children’s care centre in Highgate, which had been helping women and children affected by domestic violence and low-income families.

Twenty-two children and their parents and nine staff are directly impacted by the federal government’s decision to withdraw $400,000 in funding from the Gurlongga Njininj Child Care Centre on Lord Street.

The decades-old centre learned just weeks ago its funding was being withdrawn, after failing to meet national quality benchmarks, and on June 26 it closed its doors.

“We were crying and they were crying because some of them had nowhere to go,” director Dot Bagshaw told the Voice.

“They couldn’t afford to go somewhere else. There’s one woman who comes in who has experienced domestic violence, and she’s from one of the women’s refuges nearby.

“They’re struggling and they’re all upset.”

She concedes the children’s service had its challenges: it was sometimes caught short on staff and found it difficult to attract indigenous children—who it had been set up to service—because of transportation and money issues.

She says some parents were foreign students who’d found the centre “convenient”.

Ms Bagshaw says the reason given for the axing was a failure to meet “national quality framework” benchmarks.

She thought she’d get another six months to turn the situation around, and was not expecting the axe to fall.

Social services minister Scott Morrison says the centre closed because of “serious concerns” children were unsafe, but did not provide details.

“The department worked intensively with the service over the last 18 months to resolve its quality concerns,” Mr Morrison says.

“Based on the potential risk to children attending the service, Gurlongga Njinij was advised [on June 4] it would not be offered a funding agreement.”

Mr Morrison says the funds have been re-distributed to other programs in Perth to ensure local indigenous children retain access to child care.

Perth federal Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan is helping centre staff try to squeeze $100,000 from the government as compensation for losing their jobs on short notice.

She met with Ms Bagshaw this week.

“The government should have worked harder to get it back on track,” Ms MacTiernan told the Voice.

“Now, unfortunately, a lot of staff have been left with no standing entitlements.”

She says a way forward could be to join forces with a “well-established” indigenous-focused organisation such as Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service.

The WA family support department website describes the centre as a culturally appropriate service, which met the social and development needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander children.

Last year, the Barnett government closed the 51-year-old Kulunga Aboriginal Kindergarten in Hilton after parents missed a new enrolment deadline resulting in the 20 children minimum not being met.

by EMMIE DOWLING

THERE are few things funnier than small children falling over so Voice photographer Matthew Dwyer headed to the Perth cultural centre this week with his camera at the ready in case any young tackers took a spilling. Sure enough, on Tuesday morning they were diving like French footballers but there were still plenty of smiles. It’s open down at the Perth cultural centre till July 19, book over at http://www.winterland.com.au/

 

THE idea’s been floating around for years but a small group of local history buffs has come together to found a Museum of Perth to tell our city’s forgotten stories.

The private museum down in Grand Lane is being started up by Reece Harley, Two Feet and a Heartbeat walking tours founders Ryan Zakich and Ryan Mossny, Heritage Perth boss Richard Offen and former Perth MP Diana Warnock, along with amateur historian Dallas Robertson who has long run the cyber-Museum of Perth online and who headed up opposition to the Michelides tobacco factory being demolished.

Mr Harley—a Perth city councillor who’s outspoken on the preservation of heritage—says “our city deserves a space where Perth’s history can be shared and debated.

“As a visitor to Perth, or even as a resident, it’s not that easy to find out about our city’s history.”

Ms Warnock says she’s always been an inner-city type and interested in the city’s history and urban issues (husband Bill founded the think-tank CityVision in 1987).

“Every great city around the world—Paris, London, New York—has a museum that focuses on the city,” Ms Warnock says.

The long-retired MP and journalist says it’s great to see so many younger people interested in their city’s history: “I’m looking around the room [at the other board members] and thought apart from the building, I’m probably the oldest thing here,” she chuckles.

Set down in Grand Lane, the group’s aim is to tell the social, cultural, political and architectural history of the city.

“We’ve got a tiny space but bold ambitions,” Mr Harley says, “and we’re hoping that the Museum of Perth is a lasting legacy for the city for future generations.”

The group’s planning a permanent collection which tells the whole arc of Perth’s history from Aboriginal to colonial, convict to gold rush, the WWI years, the art deco era, the depression, WWII, the move to suburbia, the destruction of historic buildings through the 1960s to 1990s and finally the current move to new urbanism and a renewed interest in heritage.

There’s also space for rotating exhibitions and a microcinema for documentaries, movies and archival footage of Perth.

As a not-for-profit, the organisers are hoping fundraising can get them across the line to help fit out and populate their space.
The building at the back of 117 Barrack Street is itself steeped in history: it was long home to The West Australian League of Wheelmen, the cycling governing body that boasted “hundreds of wheelmen throughout the colony are members of the league” and which sought to “secure a fair and equitable administration of justice as regards the rights of cyclists on public roads” (the struggle endures).

A cafe planned for the front half of the space is being named for Henry Saw, who had a shop just round the corner, and who was, reportedly, the first person to roast coffee in Perth back in 1852.

The cafe will open towards the end of the month and the museum should be up and running by mid August. You can follow the progress at http://www.museumofperth.com.au

by DAVID BELL

VINCENT city council is raising management fees for its Leederville Gardens retirement village almost 300 per cent.

The council says it’s been subsidising the centre, housing 66 elderly residents, for years and following a review the fee is tripling from $56,650 to $150,000—the amount it says it costs to run the village.

Each unit currently pays about $1000 a year in fees: if the cost is passed on in full, it will see fees skyrocket to $2400.

Mayor John Carey says he expects the centre board—of which he’s a member—to dip into the village’s $1.4 million reserves to cushion the blow.

Residents were invited to a recent forum to discuss the changes: the mayor says more than 40 showed and were largely understanding the fee must rise.

Elsewhere in the Vincent budget, residents’ rates are set to rise an average 2.8 per cent but business owners face a steep 8.5 per cent hike.

Former councillor Dudley Maier says that’s far too big a chunk of the pie given how few businesses there are.

“This is a triumph of popularism over principle, and the tyranny of the masses” he says, suggesting it’s easy for the council to slug traders because there are fewer of them to make a fuss. “Before anybody gets a warm fuzzy feeling that everything is hunky dory, you have to remember the rates increase is the highest since 1999,” he notes, when taking the residential and business rates together and averaging them.

Mr Carey says the key point is three-quarters of ratepayers are residents and most people suffer a tiny increase. And he reminds ratepayers that last year 89 per cent of commercial properties had no increase, and some saw their rates go down.

With rents remaining stagnant—affecting gross rental values, on which rates are based—40 per cent of commercial properties won’t pay more than last year.

Mr Maier says despite his misgiving about business rates he’s pleased with new CEO Len Kosova and finance chief John Paton.

“The main point I’d recognise is the level of detail, the analytical thoroughness of the supporting documents, and the focus on developing a long term plan,” he says. “Mr Paton and the CEO are to be commended for this.”

Vincent’s big projects for the next year include:
• $1.6million for bike network and other “travelsmart” (non-car transport) projects;
• $800,000+ for Charles Veryard reserve clubrooms and floodlighting;
• $650,000 for the delayed Cheriton Street community centre redevelopment, which will turn a disused railway cottage into a neighbourhood hub;
• $335,000 for the Mary Street piazza open space on Beaufort Street, due to be finished before the Beaufort Street festival in November;
• $300,000 for the greening plan for more trees et al and $277,500 for more public artwork.

by DAVID BELL