Perth Voice Interactive

BAYSWATER city council has voted down issuing ratepayers a $5.66 carbon tax refund.
The council had netted $169,050 by charging ratepayers extra because of the tax, which was then abolished in July.

“Whilst it is believed that the city is not legally required to refund these monies, there may be an expectation that ratepayers are entitled to a refund of the carbon tax component from the fees and charges in relation to waste disposal fees received after 1 July 2014 to June 2015,” wrote Bayswater staffers.

The council decided to bank the $169,050 in a waste management reserve account rather than offer refunds or rebates.

The council collects about 24,500 tonnes of general waste per year.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

ST BART’S has opened its new $1.3 million accommodation for older homeless women—the first of its kind of WA.

The Kensington Street facility has 36 rooms and is located beside key support services for  the vulnerable.

St Bart’s CEO John Berger says women over 55 have become the fastest growing demographic of homeless people in WA.

“We want to fight this by providing temporary accommodation in our new shelter to give these women time to get back on their feet.

“It’s often things like illness or loss of a job which trigger a chain of events that make older women homeless. We want to create a buffer between them and the streets.”

Potential residents include 68-year-old Anne Haydon, evicted from accommodation she shared with her son, and 56-year-old Jennifer Bennett.

Ms Haydon was in debt to the WA housing department and Telstra because her son accumulated debt in her name.

Ms Bennett has brain cancer, is partially deaf and blind, and lives on a disability pension.

She lives in a caravan park in Kingsley and pays $258 a week in rent, but the arrangement is unsuitable because of her health problems.

Mr Berger adds the group hopes to raise $15 million to build around 70 independent living quarters at St Bart’s old Brown Street site.

St Bart’s research shows just under half the 13,000 people classified as homeless in WA are women, and the fastest growing homeless demographic is women 50 and older.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

FOREIGN plants were never an option for Mt Hawthorn gardeners Lisa Mazzella and Geoff Weekes.

When they moved into their new house they decided to go all native in the garden and, after a once-a-week watering in the first summer, their plants don’t need more watering except in preparation for the occasional scorcher.

Along with being tired of wasting water on plants unsuited to the local climate, Ms Mazzella says the couple wanted a garden that’d attract native birds, bees and butterflies, all of which prefer local plants. Black cockatoos in particular are picky, preferring to chow down on things like hakea.

Ms Mazzella says people wanting to go for a native garden should pick contrasting leaf colours with a mix of greens, greys and blues. Because the plants are often not in flower, you need interesting colour contrasts during the rest of the season.

Mr Weekes says they went hyper-local, not just choosing native Australian plants, but flora local to the Swan coastal plain.

Last week the Claisebrook Catchment Group picked its design for a gong in the Vincent city council’s garden competition, with the Water Corp pitching in the prize money.

It was a joint first-place award between nearby neighbours Marissa Galvin and Mark Rust, and it’s now inspired a little friendly rivalry around the neighbourhood. Next year’s competition is bound to be fierce.

Now Ms Mazzella, a member of the Transition Town Mount Hawthorn community group, wants to form a native gardeners network. She wants gardeners to be able to give each other tips and support for growing in this area, so other keen green thumbs should get in touch through http://www.ttmthawthorn.org

by DAVID BELL

PLANS for an Inglewood community garden are in limbo after council mergers shifted the suburb from Stirling into Bayswater.

Community group Inglewood on Beaufort had submitted an application with Stirling city council for a $20,000 grant to set up a community garden.

But as of July, Inglewood will become part of an enlarged Bayswater under Barnett government amalgamations.

IOB garden organiser Damien Giudici says Stirling staff don’t know whether the council will be interested in funding a garden that won’t be in its borders in a few months.

“We held some great talks with Stirling and identified two sites: one is on First Avenue at the old Beaufort Street works yard, and the other is beside the Inglewood Soccer Club,” he says. “We also had a community meeting a couple of weeks ago where people came down and contributed their ideas.

“Now things are up in the air with the mergers, we’ll need to wait and see if it impacts our grant.”

Mr Giudici adds any potential site needs to be at least 800sqm.

The Voice asked the council if mergers are jeopardising the application, but we received a bureaucratic side-step.

“The grant round has now closed and the application will be assessed against the grant approval criteria,” economic development manager Paul White said.

“Once the application has been assessed, a report will be submitted to council for a decision, which could be expected in early 2015.”

IOB has been impressed by the success of the North Perth community garden, opened last year, which has a waiting list for people wanting to lease a plot.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

DRONES under 2kg may soon be operated without a licence so the Film and Television Instititute is running drone camera courses.

Traditionally aerial shots are ludicrously expensive, putting them out of reach of budding film-makers. Even buying stock footage can cost thousands.

But with a 2kg drone you can stick on a GoPro and let ’er rip.

The FTI’s running training in conjunction with pilots from Coptercam, a Malaga-based aerial film company that recently worked on aerial scenes in the new Robert Connolly film Paper Planes. The two-weekend course starts November 22 and all the info’s at http://www.fti.asn.au

by DAVID BELL

Perth federal Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan says she’s met several constituents concerned about data retention laws.

“I also went to a very interesting briefing with various industry and consumer leaders,” she says.  “They were absolutely worried about the potential for this legislation to fundamentally change our way of life and they point to the irony that, supposedly, under the justification that we need to preserve our way of life we are taking action that potentially will undermine our very culture and that very freedom that we hold so precious.

“Presentations were made by people like Clinton Fernandes, from the Australian Centre for Cyber Security, who … made reference to the potential for the Internet of Things to monitor every part of our lives.”

PROPOSED new laws to fight terrorism could actually make it easier for cyber criminals to hack into people’s lives, says a local IT expert.

The Abbott government’s proposed data retention laws require telcos to store data for two years, including names and addresses, the IP address allocated to an internet account, billing information, download and upload volumes, and the duration and locations of phone calls and internet sessions.

Chris McCormick, who runs a Perth IT consultancy service, says the honeypot of data could prove irresistible.

“If hackers can get into JP Morgan and Target, I’m sure they will be able to access the information held by telcos,” he says.

“The majority of authorised people who will have access to these records will be trustworthy, but there’s always someone who will be corrupt and abuse the information for their own gain. In any case, storing this information is not an effective way of stopping terrorism in Australia.”

ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis says all four plots for mass-casualty terrorism attacks in Australia in recent years have been thwarted largely because agencies had access to communications metadata.

Critics of the new laws say the agencies’ success shows current laws are sufficient, and that the new powers are over-reach. Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie, a former intelligence whisteblower, says they put Australia on the road to becoming a police state.

AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin concedes the powers may be used to tackle illegal downloading of movies and music. They’ll also be used to hunt child abusers.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK