Perth Voice Interactive

VINCENT city council has banked $740,000 more in rates than it was counting on, because it has 389 more properties in its boundaries than it had budgeted for.

Usually the council adds just 10 to 20 properties between the time the Budget is first drafted and when rates are issued.

Former councillor Dudley Maier says the windfall means households and businesses across the municipality are being slugged about $45 more than they should be.

He says at the very least, the extra money means the council should abandon its plans to raid the seniors reserve to pay the bills.

Vincent CEO Len Kosova says the reserve money may still be needed. Following a financial bungle under the previous administration, Vincent had been heading towards posting a $6.4 million deficit.

by DAVID BELL

MAYLANDS’ Eva Fernandez has won the Bayswater art award and $5000 for her wry take on colonisation.

Ms Fernandez says the battered suitcase in her photographic work alludes to middle-class Englanders who immigrated to Australia to annex land from the indigenous population.

“I was looking at these objects in terms of the impact they had on Australia’s land—it was a territorial premise,” she says.

“The process of colonisation has not stopped—it’s an evolving and changing process. I’m an immigrant myself and so these things became very obvious to me.”

Ms Fernandez was born in Canada to Spanish parents but has lived in Australia for more than 30 years.

She trained in traditional film photography but now mostly uses a digital camera. Suspending the case resulted in it becoming an unwitting reference to lynching, and deaths in custody, she says.

“When you can marry the aesthetic and the conceptual then you are on to something. It becomes very powerful, with lots of hidden meanings.”

Ms Fernandez also won the Armadale city council art award this year.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

PERTH MP Eleni Evangel has hosted a second workshop on addressing antisocial behaviour in Wellington Square.

The workshop was attended by around 40 people, including Aboriginal leaders, WA police, residents and Perth city council staff.

Locals have been concerned about drinking and biffo in the East Perth park for more than a century: as far back as 1910 the council wrote to the commissioner of police calling for more patrols.

PCC city services director Garry Dunne told a council committee many people sleeping in Wellington Square were from the country, visiting for dialysis at nearby Royal Perth Hospital.

Ms Evangel noted a $45.8 million federal grant for the expansion of renal dialysis and support services across regional WA would enable people to be treated closer to home by 2016.

Workshop attendees discussed replacing the existing toilet block—a haven for drug abuse—with self-cleaning toilets.

Recently a plan to help address long-standing antisocial behaviour at Wellington Square was approved by Perth city council.

It included looking at re-engaging the Nyoongar Patrol or a similar service to help people in the park.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

FIFTY-TWO owners of empty blocks in Vincent were issued with double-rates last year.

Mayor John Carey won support for the double-rates policy back when he was a councillor, arguing it was a way to stem the growth of derelict blocks bringing down streetscapes.

German artists Reinigungsgesellschaft renamed Brisbane Street “Broken Tooth Street” saying its empty blocks resembled a British prizefighter’s smile.

The policy meant affected owners paid roughly $4000 extra each, adding $209,000 to Vincent’s coffers.

Across the river Fremantle council attempted to get double rates from owners of empty buildings. Freo had hoped it’d encourage landlords to get tenants into long-empty shops, but the plan backfired when the state administrative tribunal ordered it to pay back all the extra cash.

by DAVID BELL

A SPECIAL council meeting will be held regarding the redevelopment of the Mertome retirement village in Bayswater.

The Winifred Road home was established in 1972 and accommodates 213 people in 200 units. It was the first of its kind to be constructed by a council and pioneered WA councils’ involvement in aged care. Many are now getting out of the sector, labelling the assets financial white elephants.

With tired facilities and pressing demand, Bayswater council is considering expensive redevelopment.

Cr Terry Kenyon says residents should not have to pay a fortune to move into new homes.

“Delays are the norm and the residents are really fed up with all the let-downs,” he says. “Most of them are looking forward to the redevelopment in a positive manner, now only to be told they will have to pay $400,000-plus to move in.

“I don’t support this as some residents have been there for over 30 years and paid $7000 to move in.

“So as retirees of over 30 years, where will they find these funds?”

One option being considered is a $170-million, 20-year redevelopment of the aged care complex, with 316 apartments in two- to seven-storey buildings.

Some $22 million is required to fund the first stage. The council has $9m from the aged persons home and is looking to fund the $13m shortfall.

The special meeting will be held on October 27 at the Bayswater civic centre at 7pm.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

IN October 1915 Horace “Horry” Thompson planted a Moreton Bay fig near his Leederville home and told his family he’d see how big it had grown upon his return from the front.

Three months later he climbed aboard the HMAS Borda bound for France and never returned, killed by a shell at the Battle of Passchendaele.

Horry never came back but the tree still stands.

Horry’s grand-niece Fay Maughan has written the story of her grand-uncle and his tree, picking up a Vincent local history award for the endeavour.

For much of the information about the little-known branch of the family, Ms Maughan turned to town elder Dorothy Jenkins, born in 1920 and who lived in Leederville all her life.

She was the Thompson family’s neighbour and for most of the 20th century she stood vigil over his tree, ensuring it wouldn’t be cut down as so many were, making way for houses or the Mitchell freeway project.

“Dorothy was the keeper of that tree,” Ms Maughan recalls. “Dorothy used to go down there every day and make sure they didn’t bulldoze it.”

The story Horry’s Tree is now on file at the Vincent local history centre.

Vincent staff are now looking into listing the tree for heritage protection.

As for Ms Jenkins, she died in June at the age of 94, shortly before the story’s completion. But the tree still stands.

by DAVID BELL

TWELVE Noongar leaders will be honoured at a photography exhibition opening this weekend at the Perth Town Hall.

The portraits for Gnarla Moort (our people) were taken by photographer Eva Fernández, who says historically some photography has been used against Aboriginal people.

“Throughout the history of photography it’s been used quite detrimentally, and more recently in the media,” she says.

“There’s lots of colonial images that are quite horrific and not necessarily accurate: They always tried to present them in the eyes of the coloniser with not always accurate representations.”

Examples include staged images complete with props to make Aboriginal people look “savage”, intended to titillate audiences back home with exotic images but also to drive a colonial agenda.

Fernández wanted to get outside the stereotype. She worked closely with subjects like Hazel Winmar—who died in August aged 100—travelling to Kellerberrin to get to know her before the shoot.

“I showed them the photos before we decided which ones we use, because that was really important for me [that] I made sure all along the way they were part of the process.

“Everyone was really happy and it was quite heartwarming how happy they were. When we showed some of them they were brought to tears.

“They were all amazing and open and friendly.”

She says photography has a special place for a lot of Noongar people: When families were split up, sometimes all they had was a photo of their family members.

Some subjects were political leaders who’d dedicated their lives to human rights.

Others like Janet Hayden took care of the next generation, looking after many extended family and other kids, some white.

“She said she’d had a hundred children throughout her house at her cost, with no help from anyone. She doesn’t live in an affluent position.”

The Gnarla Moort exhibition is on at the Perth Town Hall October 17 to November 2.

by DAVID BELL

MT HAWTHORN will be home to a new hawkers’ food market.

Vincent city council has approved a one-month trial in Axford Reserve—at the junction of Oxford Street and Scarborough Beach Road—starting November 7.

The 15-stall market will be held 5–9pm every Friday, and be run by Local Arts and Community Events, the not-for-profit group behind the Maylands hawkers market.

LACE chairperson Catherine Ehrhardt says she has 10 stallholders signed up already.

“There’s a bit of a cross-over with some of the stall holders from the Maylands markets and we have some brand new faces as well,” she says.

“Uptake has been quick and people are really keen to come on-board.”

LACE originally approached Vincent council after Bayswater delayed approval of the Maylands market. The Bayswater market was eventually approved and will run Saturday nights, complementing the Mt Hawthorn Friday night market.

Cr John Pintabona says the markets will inject activity into the under-utilised Axford Reserve.

“We had a good turnout for a recent Light Up carnival in the area, so I’m hoping this carries on from that and gets people out and about in Mt Hawthorn,” he says.

“It will energise the area.”

Council voted to waive the $230 park hire and $300 bin charges.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

FINALLY a little good news for Brookman Street, with a new owner starting restorations on the badly dilapidated old house at number 4.

The area, along with nearby Moir Street is heritage-listed as “conservation essential,” as it’s a one-of-a-kind precinct of affordable housing from the late 19th century.

The previous owner of number 4, Norman Ioannopoulos, was fined $9000 for letting it fall into disrepair after Vincent council took him to court, one of the first prosecutions under the new Building Act.

Mr Ioannopoulos told the Voice at the time he’d planned to fix the house but had been waiting on rare materials—matching the historic architecture was difficult, he said, and he wanted to get it right.

“You don’t restore a Ferrari and put Volvo doors on it,” he’d said.

Meanwhile, several nearby neighbours renovated their near-identical houses.

Now the place has changed hands and new owner Andrew Crocker has started renovations and tuckpointing work was well underway when we dropped by Tuesday.

Back in 1990, number 4 Brookman was named as one of the two most intact and “grandest dwellings” in the street.

by DAVID BELL

THE Film and Television Institute is offering a lifeline to WA games developers following the disappearance of state and federal funding.

The FTI will allow gamers to apply for funding of up to $10,000 through its members’ production fund: previously the cash was available only to film-makers.

WA developers were left high and dry this year when Screen Australia shut its $20 million interactive games fund following Abbott government cuts.

FTI CEO Paul Bodlovich says plans to create a dedicated fund for games developers were abandoned when $240,000 in Screen Australia funding—around 15 per cent of FTI’s total budget—was slashed.

“To make up for the loss in core funding we will need to generate between $1.5 and $2.5 million extra in revenue, and effectively double in size,” he says.

“We’re still working out how to bridge the core funding gap without having to make cuts.

“But we would like to expand the games developers’ fund in the future.”

Perth Games Festival director Anthony Sweet says the fund is a step in the right direction.

“The FTI are very supportive of local developers and have held one-day workshops and various other events to support us,” he says.

Recently the FTI appointed Dr Kate Raynes-Goldie as its games interactive director.

“The global games market reached $93 billion in 2013 and continues to grow,” she says. “We want WA to tap into that market.”

A recent survey by the FTI reveals 16 per cent of game developers in Perth are female. Although small it’s more than the 10 per cent national and global average.

The Perth Games Festival last weekend attracted more than 1600 attendees, nearly triple the expected turnout of 600.

Meanwhile, the FTI has relocated from Fremantle to the second floor of the state library in the Perth Cultural Centre.

FTI was forced to move from its 1870s Fremantle building so structural repairs could be carried out and Mr Bodlovich doesn’t anticipate moving back.

“The extensive repairs could take up to three years and we have first right of refusal on the the lease, but we are much closer to our practitioners and our government and corporate partners up here,” he says.

“Our staff used to spend several hours driving from Fremantle to Perth every week for meetings.

“Plus, the peppercorn rent on the Fremantle premises ran out this year.”

At the library, FTI has around 200sqm of office space, a video editing suite and access to a screening theatre and training area.

Mr Bodlovich adds FTI pays a “cheap commercial rent” to the library.

He anticipates it will eventually move to a larger, permanent space in Perth.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK