Perth Voice Interactive

IF Vincent council was a private company, Mt Hawthorn resident Steve Allison says he’d take his business elsewhere.

The council’s taken an extraordinary 115 days to process his application to knock down a garage and build a double garage with a bedroom on top.

His first version of the plans was submitted in November. Council planning staff came back to him in February to suggest changes.

He resubmitted in March and it has taken nearly four months to get an answer. His plans were signed off the day after he’d rung, and shortly after the Voice submitted queries about the delay.

At a recent budget meeting former councillor Dudley Maier warned his former colleagues that “development applications are taking far too long to process”.

“This is an area where the city provides a service at a fee,” he said.

“A private business would put on more staff to address the backlog, or face customers going elsewhere. The city should not rely on its monopoly position and should look at employing more staff or outsourcing some processing.”

Revenue from application fees this year is up 42 per cent but salaries are up just 11 per cent, suggesting no new staff have been put on to help clear the extra work.

Mr Allison works on offshore oil rig approvals. He gets 30 days to approve changes and the stakes are a lot higher, so he can’t understand the lengthy assessment for a new shed.

The Voice asked to see Vincent’s current average times for dealing with planning applications but we didn’t get them. In neighbouring Perth, officers crank out delegated authority decisions—those which tick all the boxes and don’t need to go to the elected chamber—in 15 days for fast-tracked stuff or 20 for those which go across the CEO’s desk.

Acting Vincent CEO Mike Rootsey concedes “the time delay on the part of the city in this matter is excessive”.

He says new planning director Gabriela Poezyn is making it a top priority.

Mayor John Carey is hoping new CEO Len Kosova will also make his mark: When he took over a planning team at Wanneroo, he slashed the average processing time from 50 days to 16.

by DAVID BELL

A SMALL group of HIV-positive locals gathered at the AIDS memorial in Roberton Park Friday, looking world-weary after news that AIDS conference delegates died aboard MH17.

Diane Lloyd had been preparing to fly to the Melbourne conference the next day: “We didn’t have a choice about having HIV, but these people did choose to devote their lives to helping us,” she said.

Early reports said more than 100 medical researchers, health workers and HIV activists were on the plane, destroyed mid-air by a missile over war-torn Ukraine, but when confirmation came through the final number was six delegates.

by DAVID BELL

MIDWIFE Tamzin Mondy says she’s seen many new mums left disappointed and dejected by the mainstream maternity system.

“I often describe them as refugees,” she says. “They’ve been through the mainstream system and realised it doesn’t meet their needs.”

She reveals she’d felt troubled when women told her they “weren’t allowed” to do things their own way during birth, such as standing up.

“These words made me think ‘where are we? We’re not in a prison’.”

She stresses no-one in the system means any harm and she’s worked with plenty of caring obstetricians, but workers are often overloaded and burdened by strict tick-the-box requirements that don’t always cater to individuals. Ms Mondy says women’s experience with the public health system can also be fragmented: women see different doctors from one visit to the next, and might meet an obstetrician for the first time moments before giving birth.

“My personal view is that the system is badly broken and not meeting the needs of women,” she says.

Soon to open her own midwifery practice in West Perth, Ms Mondy hopes to offer women more choice, providing a continuity of individualised care from the pre-natal through to post-natal.

Once working in palliative care, she’s been in midwifery 17 years, most recently practising in Queensland.

In 2010 a federal government report recognised people were crying out for midwife-led care options. Legislation was passed enabling midwives to offer a Medicare rebate for services, knocking the price for full-term care down from $5500 to around $2000.

The sting in the tail was that midwives had to secure collaboration with doctors, and only a handful have signed on. The AMA has pushed hard to ensure its members are retained as the primary caregivers, arguing it’s safer.

GPs don’t need midwives—who are specially trained maternity nurses—but midwives need GPs.

Ms Mondy is negotiating with King Edward hospital for admitting and consultation rights. If it happens it will be the first arrangement of its type in WA.

by DAVID BELL

SUPPORTERS of Australia’s paralympic soccer team the Pararoos have taken their fight to save its federal funding (“Pararooted”, Perth Voice, July 19, 2014) to the Australian Sports Commission’s major sponsors .

The team, which includes local goalkeeper and state representative Chris Barty, had virtually all its funding pulled by the ASC because they weren’t considered a chance to qualify for the Rio Paralympics in 2016.

The ASC has a controversial policy of channeling most of its resources into real Olympics prospects, angering critics who say it comes at the expense of grassroots sports, which are important in fighting obesity.

Pararoos coach Paul Brown, who ignored an ASC demand to keep quiet about the axing of the funds, started up an online petition which has scored almost 80,000 signatures.

He says the commission has gone silent and doesn’t appear ready to listen, so he’s urged signatories to needle major sponsors Gatorade and Nestle.

Gatorade’s Facebook site was peppered immediately. A benign posting about the AFL ladder had 125 comments within three hours calling on the sports drinks manufacturer to put pressure on the ASC.

by STEVE GRANT

WHEN the choir kicks off the opening off the Commonwealth Games this week, 7-year-old Leo from North Perth will be among them—virtually.

He’ll be among 2292 youngsters around the world singing in Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir at the Glasgow games opening. Leo recorded his version of Whitacre’s song What If from the musical Paradise Loft and sent it off, where it’ll be played as part of a Unicef film at the games.

The opening is expected to attract about 1.5billion viewers, some of them tuning in to see Susan Boyle or Rod Stewart, but probably mostly to watch Leo.

THE derelict site has long been a source of complaint for neighbours, but after years of inaction Leederville’s Baymoon apartment project is moving ahead.

The famously weed and rubbish-ridden Brentham Street site has been sitting empty for years, with plans for a 53-unit block falling victim to the global financial crisis.

In 2010 site project manager Wayne Tjhung from Baymoon Holdings told Voice readers he hoped the development would get underway in “the next month”. He’d already spent $900,000 preparing the site, including demolishing an old building.

But nothing happened. The council threatened legal action over the untidy site, next to Aranmore primary school, and named it one of a handful of “tough nut” empty sites. Residents posted a YouTube video comparing it to a warzone.

“Why would a government let this happen to the people? … could this be a refugee camp? Maybe the Bronx?” the video posed.

Mr Tjhung has presented to Vincent’s development assessment panel plans identical to those that had lapsed, and again won a thumbs-up.

The applicants have two years to start substantial construction before approval lapses again.

by DAVID BELL