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  • War on beggars

    05. 826NEWSBEGGARS may soon be outlawed in Perth, with the city council considering asking the WA government to “reintroduce a law to make begging an offence”.

    Begging is illegal in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland.

    The PCC’s finance committee is looking at bringing together homelessness agencies to assist in “dealing with the issues causing begging”.

    It’s also looking at starting a public relations campaign to “deter the public from making donations to beggars and donate instead to charitable organisations”.

    Cr James Limnios said in a now-deleted Facebook post that “in most cases it’s a scam with some known ‘beggars’ making $400 per day.

    “You’re better off supporting qualified charities who do a magnificent job supporting very genuine cases.”

    The Salvation Army provides the PCC with a snapshot of the issue, finding “there are some people in genuine need and not connected with support agencies” and those under 25 are a genuine concern, with some begging to support illicit drug addiction.

    The report also agreed with Cr Limnios’ assertion that “there appears to be a level of organisation on the streets”.

    Councillors say a state law is needed because a council bylaw won’t have enough stick in it.

    WA police told the PCC they don’t enforce council bylaws, leaving rangers to deal with them. The coppers knocked back the idea of joint patrols.

    by DAVID BELL

  • Oxford park make over

    06. 826NEWSWORKS are underway at the Oxford Street park.

    Vincent council’s giving the area a facelift, with:

    • more shadzed seating near the playground for parents to have a coffee and keep an eye on the kids;

    • the park extended to the coffee shop so there’s not a road separating it from the park;

    • the southern end turned into an active urban play area with outdoor ping pong and chess tables;

    • the park opened up to make it less desirable for unsavoury persons;

    • the installation of a nature playground, at the urging of former mayor Alannah MacTiernan who’s worried kids are kept so safe in modern playgrounds they’re becoming incapable of dealing with adversity.

    The work’s due to be finished mid-year.

    The plan earned criticism from nearby cafe owner Debbie Saunders who’s unhappy with the consultation process, loss of 24 parking bays and the direction of the project (see this week’s Voice Mail). Ms Saunders erected a large sign branding Oxford Park “MacTiananmen Square”.

  • Cameras for Tyzack pool

    TEN security cameras have been installed at the Terry Tyzack aquatic centre following a spate of car break-ins.

    The state-of-the-art cameras, positioned around the centre and car park, will be linked to the WA police “blue iris” CCTV network and have day and night capability.

    Stirling mayor Giovanni Italiano says the extra surveillance will give visitors more peace of mind, “that their vehicles and property is secure”.

    by STEPHEN POLLOCK

  • Subi snubbed!

    08. 826NEWSPERTH city council has rejected Subiaco’s proposal for an all-in merger, instead preferring to take just the juiciest parts of its neighbour’s infrastructure assets.

    Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi stressed her council’s first preference remained its own submission to slightly expand its borders to take in a small slither of Vincent along with Burswood, UWA, QEII hospital and parts of the surrounding areas.

    She said it had only looked at this new option in response to Subiaco’s desire for a full merger.

    The new hypothetical boundary goes west to Hensman Road in Subiaco, taking in the commercial strip and Subiaco Oval along with King Edward Memorial, St John of God and Princess Margaret hospitals.

    Bits of Cambridge town council around Cambridge Street are also thrown into the mix. Some, but not all the residential areas are left out.

    Subiaco mayor Heather Anderson opposes being split.

    “It is our strongly held view that the City of Subiaco should remain intact,” she says.

    “We are a strong, vibrant community with a long history, and it is the mix of residential and commercial interests that makes Subiaco such an exciting place to be.”

    Perth’s alternative scenario contains an odd bump that sees its boundary jump north to gobble up Beatty Park (which Vincent recently spent millions renovating).

    Vincent mayor John Carey says the proposal is Perth’s most bald-faced cherrypicking manoeuvre yet.

    “It is blatant, it is a farce,” he says.

    “They didn’t want Beatty Park [in the previous submission], but now it’s been included because Lords is having problems,” he says, referring to the Subiaco sporting centre recently closed due to asbestos.

    He describes the latest plan as an “anyone but Vincent” option, noting Perth is apparently happy to take chunks of Subi’s low-density housing, but not Vincent’s.

    In response to the cherrypicking claims Ms Scaffidi says her council focussed on incorporating the infrastructure expected of a capital city.

    Mr Carey has accused Perth’s elected members of not wanting to incorporate surrounding residential areas because they’re terrified they won’t win the support of inner-suburban voters at fresh elections.

    Officially the deadline to get submissions to the WA local government advisory board is closed, but it’s still accepting late homework.

    by DAVID BELL

  • Letters 12.4.14

    Not being negative

    CONTRARY to mayor John Carey’s rude remarks at a previous council meeting, I am not about just being negative.

    Asking questions or questioning the decisions of council is not just being negative.

    I have been going to council meetings for six years and have read more background, more reports and more council documents than many current councillors, the mayor included. Many of the things I have previously questioned council about have resulted in policy reviews, if not changes to policy.

    I am not pretending to know everything but there are many things I can stand up and confidently say I fully understand. I think this allows me to ask questions and expect answers.

    The fact there are councillors who vote on items they do not understand scares the shit out of me. These decisions have a direct impact on my business: my livelihood.

    I work seven days a week, 363 days a year and I work bloody hard. It is not for the money because most of my staff make more than I do. I do this because as a single parent I wanted to be able to take and pick my child up from school and have the ability to participate in her schooling. Being self-employed allows me this luxury and for me, I believe that hard work is a small price to pay.

    I have invested a lot of time and money into my business and cannot, and will not stand silently by when decisions are being made that may have a negative impact on my business.

    I will stand up and ask questions and voice my opinion. What hurts my business hurts my family and I will never stand idly by and let anyone do that.

    Leederville is important to me. I have grown up in this area and watched it survive basically unscathed and relatively free from commercialisation. It is an area that, partly due to relative neglect in previous years, has thrived and retained the individual character that draws people to the area. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” has never been truer than it is for Leederville.

    I am not anti-development, but I believe it has to occur in an organic way dictated not by any council but naturally by the area and the people who live and work in it every day.

    The council seems hell-bent on gentrifying the town centres and suffocating any originality out of them. Each area needs to be different—that is how each can survive. They can’t be competing against each other, but need to be complementary to one another, allowing people to appreciate each for the unique aspects it holds.

    Case in point is the Oxford Street Reserve. I do not care how many times council tries to justify and claim community consultation was done, it simply was not.

    People do not want this. People do not think losing 24 car bays is a good trade-off. In every survey done by council, people have stated parking is their main concern. How can the council then justify any project that results in the loss of parking, especially with no real benefit?

    Oxford Street Reserve was indicative of Leederville. It was an old-school, unpretentious area of space in juxtaposition to the city in the background and the busy shops near by. It was an area of true public open space. It did not need anything done to it. There has never been anyone saying their main concern is the development of that park.

    People loved that park for what it was.

    Now, thanks to a council too easily lead, it has been destroyed forever.

    Driving by the site on the weekend I was confronted with an unrecognisable space of ripped-up bitumen and grass, large trees that had been chopped down and artworks that had been there for years just thrown upside down in the corner. It brought me to tears and left me with the feeling that I should have done more to stop it.

    There is no justification for what the council has done.

    If the council wants to go along with the self-serving, ill-thought out plans of the mayor then all I ask is that it do it elsewhere and leave Leederville alone. It should feel free to go and stuff up Beaufort Street all it wants. For anyone to sit up there and claim to know what is best for a place, when they do not live or work there, is crap.

    That is supposedly what community consultation is for, and why when the council knows the community won’t support certain things, consultation is not done properly, if at all.

    I will not be silenced by a mayor who in my opinion is out of his depth and out of control. I will continue to speak up and fight so Leederville can survive and the people who make this area what it is can have their say about its future.

    To the council I say this: Whether you agree with me or not, at least have the courtesy to hear me out rather than have me sit down and be quiet.

    Debbie Saunders
    Oxford St, Leederville

  • A palace for your palate

    GIVEN it had been just a week after her fourth round of chemo and my friend’s mouth was also swollen from unrelated emergency dental work I was beginning to think bringing her along to a food review might have been a mistake.

    Especially after she bit her numb lip, mistaking it for chicken.

    Rocking up to Piccos Kitchen, the brick facade of the small shopping centre offered a bland welcome and had me thinking this might be a day to forget.

    Inside, however, the place reassures with trendy, minimalist decor and a groovy, monster sheet of butcher’s paper proclaiming the day’s specials.

    The menu with pork and rabbit terrine with poached pear and onion jam ($18.50), a homemade braised beef cheek pot pie with hand cut chips ($21) and similar dishes show Piccos has a chef willing to go well beyond the ham and cheese toastie that was once the height of cuisine at centres like this.

    Piccos doesn’t squeeze its own juices but does have some terrific varieties trucked in from York.

    I threw caution to the wind with a kale, apple, lime and spirulina juice ($4.50): deliciously sharp and fresh and one to try again.

    As a couple of gorgeous, sophisticated-looking platters sailed past we started congratulating ourselves on our off-the-beaten-track choice of venue.

    Owners Adam and Marissa Bielawswki also own Poach Pear and hand-make a top-end range of delectables (pates, terrines, relishes and vodka-cured salmon) which are sold at the cafe, gourmet stores and farmers’ markets.

    The lunch platters ($24.50), are a beautifully presented mix of pork and rabbit terrine, pork rillette, chicken liver pate, pickled vegetables, onion jam, preserved walnuts and organic ciabatta.

    I’m sure it’s delicious but too meaty for me so I chose a massive slice of frittata ($18.50).

    With layers of pumpkin, capsicum, spinach and just enough cheese to give it a lift it was wonderfully flavoursome.

    And I loved the home-made dressing on the beautifully fresh salad, with its terrific seeded-mustard bite.

    My mate had the tandoori chicken special ($19.50), obviously popular as she ordered the last one when it wasn’t much past midday.

    The huge chicken drumstick was well-cooked, moist and tender, and the tandoor flavours fantastic, she proclaimed.

    A couple of coffees and something sweet to keep sugar levels up for the afternoon were called for.

    I had the lemon slice, a tad sweet and lacking sharpness I thought, but my mate tucked into her fresh berry trifle ($6.50) with glee. Flourless orange cake, rather than traditional sponge was used, giving it more body and a great taste and texture, she reckoned.

    It was all washed down with a couple of very drinkable coffees.

    A lovely lunch as it turned out but I am left wondering: does lip taste like chicken?

    Piccos Kitchen
    38 Peninsula Rd, Maylands
    open for breakfast and lunch
    Tues to Sun | 9272 4491

  • Jack of war

    11. 826ARTSSCRIPTWRITER Ross Lonnie wanted to write a play about the Second World War and was struggling when, out of the blue, he was sent a transcript of his father’s war diary.

    Once he started reading, Uncle Jack fell into place.

    “[The diary] is beautifully written—so understated, no hint of self-pity,” Lonnie says.

    “It’s an account of what it was like being at El Alamein [Egypt 1942].”

    In the diary his father writes of going to the beach for a swim and discovering dozens of sailors’ corpses, from a ship sunk off Crete.

    A beach burial is organised: the incident could have been the one immortalised in Australian poet and war correspondent Keith Slessor’s Beach Burial, Lonnie says.

    Like most returned servicemen, Lonnie’s father rarely if ever talked of his war experiences so the diary came as a surprise.

    “You read about astonishing incidents, of people killed alongside him.

    “But it’s not all serious—there is a lot of humour and fun.”

    Uncle Jack is an autobiographical account of the toll that war takes on its veterans and their families.

    Seventeen-year-old Doug (played by WAAPA graduate Ben Hall), is sent by his stoic father to work the land with Jack, a war veteran, during a harsh, hot summer.

    It draws on the memories of Lonnie’s own sojourn in 1962, when he was sent to the country in disgrace to work for his father’s former batman.

    “I had failed my leaving; having been sent to a posh school. I had let my father down.”

    The work was gruelling and is something that stayed with the now 69-year-old.

    “I was sent to learn the meaning of hard work…we spent the summer working together, it was very hard work…although Uncle Jack drank he didn’t stop working.”

    The play is the story of Uncle Jack, Lt Col Lonnie and young Doug. The diary features but so does Jack’s memories of the lighter side of war—the brothels, donkey races and two-up schools.

    Behind the levity though are darker memories Jack can’t speak of.

    Featuring extracts from the journal, the play provides a dramatised snapshot of Australian wartime history… “[an] account of how story telling and distance can change our perception of the men we think we know,” Lonnie says.

    Uncle Jack is at the Blue Room Theatre, Perth Cultural Centre, Northbridge, April 22 to May 10. Tix at http://www.blueroom.org.au

  • Sweeping beauty

    A SERIES of solid cast-iron bicycle seat moulds remain under the floor of the converted warehouse at the rear of this Mt Lawley property.

    The expansive building has been put to a number of uses over the years, including a bike and a kapok mattress factory, and a dairy.

    It was a gymnasium in 1939 with the-then daily Mirror reporting on a social and trophy presentation there.

    Before that, owner Mrs R Nathan was reportedly a bit of a go-getter and the Daily News reported on a 1913 soiree: “Ladies and gentlemen interested are invited to witness the third exhibition of the White Rose Washing Fluid.…an opportunity of witnessing how wash day can be made easy.”

    This amazing property on 688sqm surprised and delighted me from the moment I arrived: the setting is of a beautifully renovated federation home in a lovely garden.

    Inside, jarrah floors, magnificent ceiling roses, fireplaces and soaring ceilings are just the beginning.

    The main bedroom is at the front; it’s a sweeping domain with a dressing room and spacious ensuite.

    The formal dining room has French doors to the verandah, where guests can stretch their legs after some fine feasting, courtesy of a very modern kitchen.

    A soaring extension houses the open-plan living spaces, which are comfortable and genteel, with lovely ceiling roses, jarrah floors and a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows and doors.

    When the extension was built the owners went up too, creating a huge loft area for a bedroom or sitting/games room.

    Back on ground level the bamboo-roofed patio is really an outdoor room, where alfresco entertaining is made easy with a built-in-BBQ. And while the barbie heats up you can cool down with a dip in the adjacent pool.

    My jaw dropped when I opened the French doors of what I thought was a studio/granny flat, and it continued to drop as I walked from room to massive room of the converted warehouse.

    The old gymnasium has come full circle, turned into a dance studio for the vendors’ sons, and back to a (private) gym since they left home.

    There’s so much space out here its potential uses are too many and varied to list: let your imagination do the walking.

    Suffice to say there’s another dwelling, with kitchen, living room and bedroom, with room for a third abode, not to mention a loft space that’s bigger than my entire house.

    For good measure this fantastic property is just a two-minute walk from the Beaufort Street cafe strip, with its many eateries and great boutique shopping.

    28 Raglan Street, Mt Lawley
    low $2 millions
    Heliyana Pereza 0419 919 548
    Homestead Realty 9227 6488

  • Waste energy delay

    PLANS for WA’s first waste-to-energy plant are in doubt after the WA environmental protection authority ordered a 12-month review of the facility over “potential air quality issues” and public concern.

    The eastern metropolitan regional council wants to build the $25 million plant 15km north-east of Perth in Hazelmere, at an existing recycling site, to convert waste wood into the fuel source “syngas”, by heating it to 800 degrees celsius.

    Critics argue the site might release toxic emissions and is a waste of timber: supporters say it diverts rubbish from landfill and is a source of alternative energy.

    In an email to EMRC members, CEO Peter Schneider says the EPA’s review is “extremely disappointing”.

    “We are informed this formal level of assessment was based on the level of public interest—13 submissions were received during the public comment period—and potential air quality issues,” he wrote.

    “This is extremely disappointing and unfortunately there are no appeal provisions within the environmental protection act.

    Urgent meeting

    “This could now involve an estimated 9-12 month process, if all goes well—we have sought an urgent meeting with the EPA.”

    The EMRC works on behalf of six member-councils, including Bayswater, and provides waste management services.

    “The city supports full and thorough assessment of all EMRC proposals to the level that is deemed appropriate by the EPA,” mayor Sylvan Albert says.

    “The review period will have limited impact on Bayswater residents as the city’s recyclable materials are processed at the Collier Road transfer station.”

    The plant would use a process called “pyrolysis” to process 13,000 tonnes of timber every year.

    It is estimated the technique could power the equivalent of 10,000 homes.

    The review includes four weeks’ public consultation.

    by STEPHEN POLLOCK

  • Back for more!

     

    02. 825NEWS
    • Clockwise from top left: Amy, Matilda, George and Jack are coming for your olives. Photo by Matthew Dwyer

    THE kids from North Perth primary are coming back for your olives, after last year’s inaugural harvest produced an award-winning oil.

    What started as a small fundraiser plan to raise money for a new playground went massive when Voice readers offered up their trees, groaning with fruit, for plucking. The kids collected more than one tonne in just days.

    York Olive Oil Company owner Arnaud Courtin pressed the fruit and he told them their product—sourced from a huge variety of olives was so good they should enter it in the Royal Show.

    So they did: Harvest 6006 (the North Perth post code) competed against 152 other oils—almost all from commercial producers—and picked up silver with judges calling it “green vegetable-like on the palate, with subtle bitterness” and “tropical and nut aromas”.

    The kids need locals to offer up their trees again this year for more school fundraising, so get in touch with Sonia Hills at s_hills@iinet.net.au if you’d like to help.

    They’ll be picking over April 25 and 26 if you want to volunteer, and heading up to York on April 27 for the pressing.

    by DAVID BELL