Perth Voice Interactive

ORIGINALLY from Edinburgh, Niall Inverarity knows a thing or two about water—in Scotland it’s either falling from the sky or in a whisky.

So it is fitting he works as a hydro-geologist.

Recently the 30-year-old from Highgate wanted to do something more rewarding, so he quit his lucrative day job and now helps the Red Cross get clean water to remote villages across Asia and the Pacific.

According to a UN Water study, every 20 seconds a child dies as a result of poor sanitation (around 1.5 million preventable deaths each year).

Over the past six months Inverarity has worked in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, PNG, Timor Leste and Nepal.

His most memorable trip involved taking several flights to reach Kathmandu and then an eight-hour car journey across makeshift roads to the remote district of Sindhuli in Nepal.

Once there he used his expertise to select a location for a well, which will save locals from walking kilometres to the nearest river for drinking water.

“There were around 1000 people living in six remote villages across the district,” he says.

“We enabled them to get access to piped drinking water at a central collection points. It means they only have to walk for minutes instead of hours to get clean water.

“It was really rewarding to use my skills and give something back to these remote communities.”

Inverarity also helped locals in South-East Asia prepare for major disasters by making sure they have water purification equipment and emergency procedures in place.

Around one in 10 people worldwide—some 768 million—do not have access to enough safe water according to a UNICEF report.

Some 2.5 billion people do not have access to basic toilet or sanitation facilities.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

MORLEY MARKETS may be struggling but that didn’t stop Bayswater council staff from wanting to slug a hopeful cafe owner $30,000 in lieu of three parking bays.

An incredulous Cr Michelle Sutherland said the 49sqm shop would need to sell thousands of “bowls of noodles” simply to recoup the fee.

Mayor Sylvan Albert agreed, saying the near-empty markets needs all the help it can get: “We should be doing everything we can to help turn this place around and revitalise it,” he says. “This is the reason council has dispensation on these sort of things.”

The shopkeeper is seeking to convert his premises to a small five-table restaurant. Cr Alan Radford wanted the owner to get slugged the full amount: “The rules are the rules,” he said.

Eventually the council voted to reduce the fee to $3000.

Cr Chris Cornish said that was still too much: “They’re already spending a large amount on the refit—this might be a deal breaker for them.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

ACROSS Perth recycling rates are up six per cent, but at Stirling it’ll keep going to landfill till next July, when the council moves to a three-bin system.

By then more than 150,000 tonnes of rubbish will have been dumped into landfill since August 2013, when the single-bin recycling facility shut.

Waste and fleet manager Sean Sciberras says residents are encouraged to self-recycle  household waste until the three-bin system starts.

“The city continues to provide various recycling services at its Balcatta recycling centre to allow residents to bring recyclables and deposit them free of charge,” he says.

Currently Stirling has two verge side collections a year, one for green waste and another for rubbish. Bayswater locals get double that.

This system will also change in 2015 with residents able to access a skip bin once a year to replace bulk rubbish collection and green waste collection reduced to one every nine months.

Most Stirling residents surveyed support the incoming system, despite an increase in fees.

by JESSICA ZOE ALLEN

THE wrecking ball is rolling through West Perth’s Cowle Street, with established homes demolished to make way for flats.

Three ancient houses were flattended this month to make way for the 48-unit Dorrien Gardens project by developer Giorgi Group. Numbers 28 to 32, once owned by Criterion hotelier John Charles Chipper who’d sat on Perth city council in the 1890s, were built with 50,000 bricks delivered in August 1890.

Now they’ve been reduced to a pile of bricks once again.

Another house across the road will be knocked down soon, with a divided Vincent council approving a four-storey, nine-unit block in its place.

Council staffers had wanted to refuse it but mayor John Carey pointed out the street’s heritage fabric had already been lost so what was the point.

“It has been lost as soon as Dorrien Gardens was approved,” Mr Carey said.

“It saw the demolition of some houses which should have been protected by this council but they weren’t.

“Council at the time should have looked at listing some of those properties on the heritage inventory list.

“I can’t turn back time, I can only deal with what I have now.”

Anthony Magri attended the meeting with his elderly grandfather who lives next door.

“My grandfather does not look like a mushroom,” Mr Magri told councillors, “he does not thrive without any light.

“He is proposed to live in partial internment by this design.

“Why should a development be four storeys to the detriment of the neighbours?”

The boundary wall complained about can be up to 7m, but the applicant’s hired gun Ben Doyle pointed out the wall to be built would be less than half that.

Councillors Matt Buckels and Emma Cole voted against demolition, with Cr Cole saying four storeys was too high.

by DAVID BELL

THE Maylands Hawkers Market will reopen for the start of the summer season in November.

Bayswater city council approved the markets to be held at the space between the RISE and Maylands Hall until March 28.

It had previously completed a successful trial there.

Last month, Local Arts and Community Events, the not-for-profit group behind the markets, was left fuming when the council deferred approval pending a traffic management report.

LACE chairperson Catherine Ehrhardt claimed she had already submitted a report and the delay left her no time to attract sponsors or ready the markets for a lucrative pre-Christmas.

“I’m just delighted that the markets have finally been approved, regardless of all the political stuff going on in the background,” she says.

“We’ve lost a few vendors who have booked up to other places during that month, but we’ll make sure the place is packed for the start of the season.”

Mayor Sylvan Albert said that some people had used the delay to generate a lot of “airplay for very little outcome”.

Cr Alan Radford expressed concern the council was waiving around $7000 in fees for the markets, including reserve hire, use of public toilets and rubbish bins.

“We only usually give free reserve hire to junior sporting clubs,” he said.

“After all, the stalls are charging money for food.”

The council voted to review the waiving of fees at the start of the 2015/16 season.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

PLANNER Ben Doyle says Vincent council’s design advisory committee process is “broken”.

His client’s Cowle Street design was first lodged with the council 342 days ago. The DAC is supposed to improve the design before it gets to council, but he found the process to be a tangled mess.

“It’s been to DAC four times now,” he told councillors, and he’d consistently received inconsistent advice.

One DAC lineup would say it was great, and the next time different members not there previously would trash it and ask for changes, and so on it went.

“It’s a game of snakes and ladders,” he told councillors.

Mr Doyle notes the council is trying to improve the DAC process—more cash has been put aside to ensure people get consistent lineups instead of a rotating cast—but that doesn’t help his project.

“It’s encouraging, but unfortunately it doesn’t help us because our proposal went through the ringer at the time the DAC process was broken.”

GREENS & CO cafe owner Stuart Lofthouse has dropped his minor protest against the police state.

Greens & Co is a known hangout for uniforms, with coppers and ambos frequently seen at the coffee counter where they get $2 brews.

Mr Lofthouse had temporarily erected a sign saying “sorry all police coffee now $4—ambos still $2—why? Ask Wembley.”

Mr Lofthouse was miffed at the boys in blue after Wembley police station wasn’t responsive to his complaints about rangers’ behaviour at the Vincent city council meeting where he was ejected.

Instead they’re in the midst of pressing charges against him following the lodgement of a complaint by ranger boss Steve Butler.

Mr Lofthouse has since pulled the sign down, not wanting to hold his grudge against the entirety of the state’s 6000 coppers in need of caffeine.

by DAVID BELL

GIANT elkhound Bart is just one of the colourful cast of characters to be written about in the forthcoming history of St Bart’s homeless shelter.

Since stepping down as St Bart’s CEO in 2012, Lynne Evans has put pen to paper and has nearly finished the first draft of of her 300-page history of the Perth shelter which officially opened in 1963.

Ms Evans initially approached the late Sir Charles Court’s biographer to write the book, but she was convinced to have a go herself after realising she had worked there for 13 years and knew the place better than anyone else alive.

“I wanted to centre the book around the people of St Bart’s and complement that with historical information,” she says.

“There are so many fantastic characters that have stayed at the shelter and tales to tell— the people are the real stars.

“One of our most famous residents was a dog called Bart, a huge Irish elkhound that we bought as a puppy—the residents loved him.”

Bart was somewhat of a local legend and bonded with many of the residents and visitors he rubbed thighs with.

He even managed to soften the heart of ex-Kalgoorlie miner Jim Giltrap, a tough old larrikin who stayed in the shelter for more than 10 years.

The pair became inseparable and Bart would keep watch outside Jim’s room at night.

When Jim was diagnosed with cancer and eventually went into palliative care, he would get tenants to sneak Bart out of the shelter and smuggle him into his hospital room.

Jim missed Bart so much he discharged himself so they could spend Jim’s last days on Earth together: the dog didn’t leave Jim’s side for his final two days.

Bart died in 2009 and the shelter bought two new dogs—Little Bart and his sister Bling—to help keep residents active and happy.

Ms Evans says she is up to 55,000 words and has just started writing the final chapter, which will cover her last 10 years at the shelter.

“I must concede, the writing was a bit of a challenge at first and it came out in dribs and drabs,” she says.

“But I’ve joined a few writing groups, got myself two monitors and I’m motoring along quite well now. I hope the final result will be both informative and entertaining.”

Ms Evans says St Bart’s plans to publish the book online.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

BAYSWATER city soccer club has won the inaugural National Premier Leagues WA league.

The Black and Blues clinched the title with a hard-fought 1-1 draw with Sorrento at Percy Doyle Reserve.

After going behind in the first half, Baysy secured the title with a late 86th minute strike from Paul McCarthy.

They will now go on to represent the state in the National NPL Finals Series next month.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

FOLLOWING his fourth suicide attempt and a schizophrenic stint where he believed he was Jesus, David Tehr decided it might be time to seek help.

These days he’s married with a steady job but back when he wanted to kill himself he couldn’t see any bright days ahead. The attempts started with shooting himself at age nine (he still carries the scar through his stomach), through to making two attempts in two days, aged 33.

“I just didn’t see a future,” he says.

In hospital after his first attempt with a bullet wound in his belly he heard people around the bed saying “what a terrible accident”.

“It wasn’t an accident,” he told them, “I just wanted to get out of there.”

When Robin Williams committed suicide a few people said he’d behaved selfishly by not thinking of the impacts on his family.

But Mr Tehr says he knows how the comic felt: “When I was in that space, I thought the world would be a better place without me.”

Stigma surrounding mental health doesn’t make it easy for most people to talk about it, but it was being open that set Mr Tehr onto the long path of recovery.

When he told his psychiatrist he believed he was Jesus and was given a diagnosis, it was a bit of a weight off.

“It was a lot easier having borderline insanity than being the saviour of the world,” he chuckles.

He got onto the mental health organisation Grow—now based out of Angove Street in North Perth—where every week people gather to chat about their feelings openly, instead of bottling up problems. It started back in the 1950s when the only real option for mental health support groups was to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and just ignore the bits that weren’t applicable.

Mr Tehr says the accountability of going back week after week and checking in progress with other people really helped him.

Health department stats show mental disorders are pretty common: 45.5 per cent of people will have some kind of mental disorder event in their life, and 20 per cent in any year.

Despite being so common, the stigma remains a huge barrier for people from seeking help, so Grow’s holding an “odd socks day” to remind everyone we can all have an odd day and it’s as common as odd socks.

“For many people to admit there is a disorder or mental illness is such a tough thing,” Mr Tehr says.

The Odd Socks Day is on October 3 and Grow’s hoping people share pics of their odd socks on http://www.oddsocksday.org.au

by DAVID BELL