Perth Voice Interactive

PERTH doctors say young office workers who participate in a White Collar Boxing match at the WA Italian Club “have a problem and should seek help”.

“The only aim of the game is to punch another person in the head and body, the ultimate goal being to bash them unconscious with your fists,” says Australian Medical Association WA vice-president Andrew Miller. “In a society where we already struggle with violence it cannot be tolerated.”

“We should have moved on already from bull-fighting, bear-baiting, gladiators in the arena, and boxing.

Barbaric

“The AMA WA views boxing as a barbaric and ridiculous activity that has no place in modern society.”

Doctors feel so strongly about the August 15 amateur bout they are demanding the juvenile diabetes research foundation refuse funds.

“WCB appears to be using the foundation’s positive brand to gain some sort of respectability,” Dr Miller says. “The foundation should refuse to accept these funds. I think it is likely that Parkinsons WA or the Brain Injury Association of WA would be unimpressed with boxing being associated with the medical research community.”

He says people keen on raising funds for charity can participate in “plenty of legitimate sports”.

“Intelligent community-minded people could easily choose something less stupid to do,” he says. “If your ego is driving you to fight somebody rather than challenge them to a triathlon or table tennis match then you have a problem and should seek help.”

White Collar Boxing event organiser Donna Martin has hosted three bouts in Perth so far. She says the fights are fully regulated and tickets are selling well for the Italian Club event.

“Participants have a medical before they start training, a blood test before they start sparring and another medical at the weigh-in,” she says.

“We try to do everything in-house and match boxers up with those of equal ability.

“Everything is done to the same standard as a professional bout and a doctor is always ringside. I have heard of some unregulated fights going on, but all ours are regulated by the CSC who attend the event.”

Ms Martin adds one of the participating amateur boxers is a doctor.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

HAVING a leafy tree on the verge outside your house increases your median property value by more than $16,000, according to a new academic study.

Conducted by three academics—including UWA assistant professor Ram Pandit—the study analysed data from 23 northern Perth suburbs, including Stirling, Bayswater, Perth and Vincent. It found broad-leaved trees (not pine needle nor palms) increased the median property price in a street by about $16,889.

Professor Pandit says the survey covered around 92sqkm: “Trees on private property can increase maintenance costs and take up room, so they don’t tend to have a positive influence on property price,” he says.

“But verge trees, which are maintained by the council, do not incur any cost, barring the tree falling onto your property or another similar incident.

“Our survey didn’t extend to why the property price increased, for example, whether it was related to the extra shade provided or the aesthetic effect of the verge trees.

“Sometimes because of power lines, the verge trees have to be kept at a certain height and pruned, so that is another factor that can affect the level of shade.”

Professor Pandit adds a second related study on tree canopy density reveals similar findings on median house prices.

Town planner Greg Smith says people should now realise trees benefit both the environment and their wallets: “Anything that indirectly encourages local governments to plant more trees on verges and prevent an urban heat island is good news. I want Bayswater to be more proactive and live up to its Garden City motto by making our verges greener.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

MORE than $300,000 was flicked the arts community’s way at Perth city council this week, with councillors unanimously endorsing three big artsy spends.

The Black Swan Prize for portraiture was handed $41,000, with Cr Jim Adamos saying it “is an important part of Australia’s art calendar” and its free events draw people into the city to populate carparks and patronise businesses.

Along with the main show of winners at Linton and Kay Gallery, there’ll be Salons de Refuses (exhibitions of non-winners) around the city.

The Awesome international arts festival scored $100,000 to put on film, dance, visual arts, street arts, theatre and music in the city come October.

The WA Opera was kick-started to the tune of $161,722 for the opera in the park event next March at the supreme court gardens.

The event is simulcast around the state, and Cr Rob Butler said “they do dress up in Kalgoorlie and Port Hedland to go along [to screenings], they don’t just show up in jeans and thongs”.

He said it worked out to spending about $8 per attendee. And apparently the biggest attendee group is the 18-34s.
At the previous meeting councillors agreed to sponsor September’s Perth Fashion Festival for $313,000, though Cr James Limnios winced over the amount.

With the fashionistas picking up Telstra as a naming-rights sponsor this year and getting bucketloads of cash from that, he wondered whether the council’s generosity should be tempered.

Nah, the council reckoned, and even upped it a little on last year. About 35,600 showed up last year, and public relations goblins calculated that provided $67 million of media coverage.

by DAVID BELL

ROLF HARRIS’ commemorative plaque on St Georges Terrace is to be pulled up with nary a word, with laconic Perth councillors unanimously voting Tuesday night for its removal.

The chamber was near-silent as lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi presented her motion to remove the 1959 plaque “due to community concerns relating to the guilty verdicts relating to Rolf Harris”. Councillors endorsed it without comment.

Bassendean council’s also pulling up Harris memorabilia following his child sex abuse convictions. His portraits have already been pulled down from council chambers.

While WA disowns its once-revered expatriate, Harris memorabilia is still selling strong in the UK, with at least one seller claiming a price rise is on the way. Someone in Somerset is selling an original painting on eBay for $1000, warning “don’t miss out probably your last chance to obtain work from this great artist before prices rise”.

A signed book titled “Beastly Behaviour” is going for $800.

One seller was blatant about the cash-in, admitting they’re jumping onboard “the ghoulish practice of cashing in on memorabilia related to a celebrity on the occasion of that celebrity’s death or (as in recent years), their ignoble fall from grace and subsequent incarceration”.

The seller, flogging an old Commodore 64 program featuring Harris, describes the item’s condition: “The package’s friendly exterior hiding a grubby set of operating instructions serves as yet another laboured metaphor for the title subject—as well as my current commercial exploit.”

Current bid: $9.50.

by DAVID BELL

A NASCENT community group led by Catherine Ehrhardt is set to take over the running of the Maylands Hawkers Market.

The Maylands Lions Club oversaw a successful 12-month trial of the markets, but struggled to get enough volunteers to support the weekly event at The Rise.

The Lions have agreed for it to be managed by Local Arts and Community Events, formed by Ms Ehrhardt, a former Lions member who was instrumental in managing the markets trial.

She says she and her six members are enthusiastic and full of energy.

“I didn’t feel that I was getting enough support when I was organising the markets before, so hopefully this time everyone will be onboard and help out.

“We have young enthusiastic people in the group, so hopefully it will be all hands on deck.”

Bayswater city council will vote on whether to extend the Hawkers market later this month.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

WITH a bid to ban plastic bags stalled, Vincent council’s moved to at least allow residents to recycle them.

Up till now the bags just ended up in landfill to rot over the next 500 or so years. With the average person using about 200 a year, that’s 270 tonnes of bags for Vincent alone.

It’ll cost the council an extra $80,000 a year to recycle the bags, and $20,000 to let locals know they can now be yellow-binned, along with plastics numbered 1-7.

“Clearly there’s been some confusion in the community about what you can recycle,” mayor John Carey says. “It has been quite some time since we had an education campaign.”

The move to recycle bags comes after former mayor Alannah MacTiernan’s attempt to ban them altogether.

That bid’s been held up: Vincent’s waiting to see what happens with Fremantle’s ban. The port city’s attempt was fouled by the WA government on a technicality but it’s coming back for a second try.

“We’ll nick great ideas from other councils,” Mr Carey says, “we’re not going to reinvent the wheel.” He concedes recycling’s still the second-best option, and it’s best to simply not get a plastic bag in the first place.

The council’s also starting up a mattress collection services, since verge shoppers will pick up just about everything on a kerb but soiled mattresses.

by DAVID BELL

THE rundown playground at Upper Bardon Park is set to be transformed into a regional nature playground.

Bayswater city council is looking at spending $175,000 to upgrade the small riverside Maylands site into an eco-friendly play space.

A concept with four zones representing European seasons and featuring sand, mulch and turf will be presented to council for approval later this month..

Bayswater councillor Stephanie Coates says the facelift is part of a wider program of playground upgrades.

“Every two years we look at the condition of playgrounds in the city and assess which could do with a spruce up,” she says.

“I think this will encourage more people to come down to the river and make it a real hub for families.”

Bardon Park is listed as an Aboriginal heritage site so the council will consult with elders and seek approvals from the WA indigenous affairs department before work starts.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

THE Melbourne Hotel will (probably) be redeveloped to the tune of $40 million after a few stalled starts over the years.

In 2011 owners Oakesfield put forward a plan for a $30m refurbishment and construction of 17 levels of offices above the circa 1897 hotel. That didn’t end up going ahead, following in the footsteps of expired plans from 2008 and 2010.

But now Oakesfield is back with a 20-level office design that went to the Perth development assessment panel this week with a recommendation for approval.

The hotel was constructed during the gold rush and, according to Heritage Perth “what makes this building so special is the fact that it has hardly changed in appearance since it was built”.

“Built by an unknown architect, the Melbourne, on its corner site, demonstrates the confidence and opulence of hotels built during the first gold boom in Perth.”

Some modern bits of the hotel (built in 1997) will be demolished to make room, but given the historic significance the DAP wants to ensure the heritage isn’t flattened by the towering modern office block jutting from above. The owners must enter an agreement with the state heritage office to ensure “ongoing conservation and maintenance” of the hotel, an archival record will have to be prepared, and they’ll have to “interpret” the new floor to make it look like the old 1897 one.

by DAVID BELL

SUBIACO councillor Mark Burns has beaten Vincent council in his bid to open a gym next to the popular Bikram yoga studio in North Perth.

The studio already ties neighbours in knots over parking and the council feared a gym would make things worse.

While a council planning officer had written the application should be approved, as it met guidelines, former CEO John Giorgi scribbled the recommendation out to state it should be rejected, in order to “protect and enhance the health, safety and physical welfare of the city’s inhabitants”.

The council followed his advice, but Mr Burns was gob-smacked by the intervention, saying he’d never seen anything like it in 30 years of planning experience.

Mr Giorgi told nervous councillors he believed “I feel quite strongly that we can win this at the SAT” in the event of an appeal.

But he was wrong.

“It’s taken eight months of time and money wasting by the city for them to do what their planner originally advised,” Mr Burns said, sounding like he might need a bit of de-stressing. We recommend yoga.

by DAVID BELL