Perth Voice Interactive

SIX years on from a survey revealing how commonly people were harassed at bars and clubs, Safer Venues WA has launched a new one to find out if anything’s changed in the years since.

SVWA was formed by a group of concerned gig-going friends after a Northbridge pub used misogynist slogans on huge banners to market their 2016 new year’s eve “frat party”, a boiling point reached after increasing reports of harassment and assault at gigs. 

Their 2017 survey found 80 per cent of women who responded said they’d experienced harassment, as did 67 per cent of non-binary or trans respondents. Two out of five respondents left a gig after experiencing harassment or intimidation. 

It led to the Department of Government, Sport and Cultural Studies commissioning a pilot program in 2022 to run training days and workshops at three Perth venues, teaching staff about how to make venues more inclusive, de-escalate conflicts, and mitigate and respond to sexual assault. 

SFWA’s pilot producer Samantha Martin tells us they’re interested to see what might’ve changed in the years since, especially with venues taking a break amid the Covid pandemic.

“A fair bit’s happened since 2017,” Ms Martin says, but from the initial responses so far “the stats are still very high in respect to experiencing harassment in a venue”.

People are also still more likely to go to their friends instead of talking to security or staff when they experience harassment, a sign that at many venues they don’t yet feel comfortable approaching staff. To mitigate this some venues have included signage encouraging people to feel safe approaching staff, or to put stickers in toilets with a number they can text for help if they feel threatened. 

Ms Martin says they’re interested in hearing about all sorts of venues, from nightclubs to local taverns. The data collected is all anonymous and it’ll contribute towards more advocacy campaigns and initiatives to improve safety.

The survey is up at www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y77WX6X or via www.safervenueswa.org

by DAVID BELL

A RECORD number of stalls are booked for this year’s Young Makers Christmas Market, with people aged from 6 to 25 selling their handmade creations.

The December 3 event is hosted across three Vincent venues to make room for all the interested traders, and 100 stalls are set to spread across the North Perth Main Hall, Lesser Hall, and multicultural gardens.

The surge in stallholders has trumped the previous makers market high of 72 stalls, a record set at last year’s Christmas Makers Markets and precisely matched at the 2023 Mother’s Day Makers Market.

“Our Young Makers Markets are always a hit with the community and our enterprising young people,” Vincent Mayor Alison Xamon said in a press release. “I am looking forward to seeing what Vincent’s young people have prepared and I encourage our community to come along and find some unique gifts.”

Previous stallholder, a young creative named Evelyn, is returning after enjoying the market’s atmosphere, and she’s looking forward to the chance to make some money so she can buy presents for others.

“I love the Christmas fun and feeling at the markets ‚Äî everyone is so happy and it is great to think of ideas to sell to people,” Evelyn said.

“This year, I will be selling bracelets, flowers and some homemade Christmas decorations.”

It’s on December 3 from 8am to 11am at 26-28 View Street, North Perth.

“I WANT you out,” new Vincent mayor Alison Xamon has told two concrete companies that for more than 20 years have brought dust, noise, and heavy trucks to a Claisebrook neighbourhood.

The plants owned by companies Hanson and Holcim have operated on time-limited approvals since the early 2000s, and the current approval expires June 2024.

But Ms Xamon says neither company has made a serious effort to prepare for the deadline, which they’ve known about for five years, and they’re both now asking the state government for more extensions.

“I would like to make it very clear that I think that Holcim and Hanson have proven themselves to be extremely poor corporate citizens,” Ms Xamon said at her first full council meeting on November 21. 

“This has been a matter which has dragged on for decades, and is ridiculous.

“I think the fact that five years ago a final decision was made, and that there has really been no genuine movement by either of those companies to actually ensure that they have moved their operations, is absolutely appalling.”

Many locals want the plants gone to give the neighbourhood a chance to flourish with new housing. 

Hanson is keen on a land swap to move their plant to Vincent council’s current depot in Osborne Park, which could be freed up if the council depot moves to a Mount Claremont site they’ve been offered by the state government. 

But that’ll still take “years, not months” according to Vincent council staff, and Hanson wants the state government to grant an extension to continue operating in Claisebrook in the meantime.

Holcim has a long-term plan to move its Claisebrook operation out to a bigger site in Welshpool, but has asked for another seven-year extension to give it enough time to prepare. 

“By asking for a seven-year extension, I think it’s a very cynical approach,” Ms Xamon said.

“To be very clear to Holcim and Hanson, I’m the mayor, I’ve been elected for the next four years: I don’t like you, and I want you out,” Ms Xamon said. “I want to get that on the record.”

A Hanson spokesperson said the company was in “talks” with the WA government.

“Hanson has been constructively engaging with the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage, the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, Main Roads WA and local authorities about the relocation of the plant and suitability of alternative sites,” they told the Voice.

“Hanson has also worked collaboratively over the past three years with the City of Vincent regarding a potential relocation site. These discussions have been positive and are continuing.”

Councillors endorsed shifting the City’s depot and Hanson’s plant relocating there. 

A business case will be prepared and community consultation will follow. 

Councillors also voted to agree “not to object to the shortest possible extension to Hanson’s current planning approval in order to undertake a smooth and orderly relocation”.

However they’re objecting “in the strongest possible terms” to the state government granting any extension to Holcim’s approval.

by DAVID BELL

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is being embraced at Stirling council, with councillors and staff allowed to “leverage AI for tedious tasks” so they can “focus on impactful customer-centric activities”.

This week the council passed a “Generative AI policy”, referring to the programs that can generate humanesque responses to questions.

With approval from the CEO, councillors will be allowed to use publicly available AI platforms “for completion of their official duties”, and staff will be able to use approved, licensed AI for some duties as long as it’s double-checked by humans for accuracy. 

Stirling recently rolled out Bing Chat Enterprise, a commercial AI chat program described in a staff report as “a secure AI powered platform designed to revolutionise the way the City approaches work related tasks”. 

And back in July Stirling started using a chatbot called “Ainsley” to conduct community consultation and offer information about upcoming community infrastructure plans (“Posts start talking back,” Voice, July 29, 2023).

The new policy carries some caveats for using such programs:

• Users must appropriately disclose the use of generative AI in generating information, assisting with decision making or producing communications;

• Results of all generative AI tools must be verified by a person before use or communication;

• Results of all generative AI tools must be explainable and transparent in use; and,

• They’re only allowed to use programs cleared by their digital security techies, and the policy says free publicly available programs “must not be used where services will be delivered, or decisions will be made”.

The current generation of chatbots became widely available in November 2022, after the AI programs were exposed to large bodies of text and then trained by humans to give plausible answers.

Stirling’s policy insists AI’s work be double-checked by a human after various AI glitches around the globe: 

• Several lawyers who used AI to research legal arguments were exposed after the bots cited cases that never existed, or invented fictional quotes from judges. 

• Earlier this month four Australian academics apologised to consultancy company KPMG for their submission to a parliamentary inquiry that made several false accusations against the company, including that KPMG was involved in something called the “7-Eleven wage theft scandal”. The scandal never happened; it was invented by Google’s Bard AI tool.

In a separate item presented to council this week, councillors also approved adding AI issues as a new category of “strategic risk” to be taken into account when making decisions.

Strategic risks are those affecting the City’s overall strategies and long-term vision.

The staff report says: “Whilst AI promises great benefits, it also raises many concerns around privacy, security and safety… in the evolving landscape of AI, it is imperative that the City also considers the risks associated with AI.”

A report on AI risks will go to the next audit committee meeting.

by DAVID BELL

WHEN we asked Bing’s artificially intelligent chat if other local governments had an AI policy, the chatbot was quick to spruik AI’s value, claiming “the City of Pasco in Washington State has implemented a generative AI tool to analyze data on transportation, energy consumption, demographics, and environmental factors to optimize urban planning”.

We couldn’t find any reference to this impressive tool in any of Pasco’s policies or announcements, and asked the chatbot to provide a link supporting its claim. 

“Certainly!” the bot replied, and provided three links.

None of the websites even mentioned the City of Pasco.

When we informed the bot, it conceded: “I apologize for the confusion. I was mistaken in my previous response. I could not find any reliable sources that confirm the City of Pasco in Washington State has implemented a generative AI tool.”

These types of errors are common and have been dubbed by US scholar Kate Crawford as “hallucitations” (hallucinated citations). 

It’s hard to track down the source of these errors, but they appear to be caused by the AI attempting to produce new sentences by remixing bits and pieces from the many different texts it was trained on. 

In this case, it’s possible the bot found websites that mentioned Pasco staff attending conferences about the potentials of AI, and mushed that with other tangentially related information from websites about AI data analysis and town planning.

EDITH COWAN University has been ranked sixth in a new national breakdown of higher education’s top performers — the only WA uni to make the top 10. 

The ranking system, established by the Australian Financial Review, puts more emphasis on areas such as student satisfaction and equity which are often relegated to the bottom of other systems.

ECU vice-chancellor Steve Chapman attributes the success to a focus on the student experience and teaching quality.

“This is a fantastic result for ECU that recognises that being the biggest, the oldest or the wealthiest university doesn’t always equate to high achievement,” Prof Chapman said in a media release.

“For ECU it is, and always will be, the student experience, teaching quality and high levels of satisfaction that guide what we do.”

Equity

The AFR rankings were developed by professors Tim Brown from La Trobe University and former former University of Canberra vice-chancellor Stephen Parker and draw from verified public sources, eliminating the need for data collection by institutions. 

The ranking evaluates universities on five categories: student satisfaction, research performance, global reputation, career impact, and equity and access.

Prof Chapman said ECU had bumped up its research program in recent years, and was adaptable to meet evolving student expectations, exemplified by the construction of a new city campus in Perth, set to open in 2026 as part of the Perth City Deal.

UWA came equal 12th in the list, with research and reputation rankings that were double-digits above ECU, but a student satisfaction well below its little cousin. 

Of WA’s other universities, Notre Dame and Murdoch were equal 30th on the rankings, while Curtin trailed the field on 33rd. 

Curtin’s student satisfaction rating matched its overall score, some 31 points arrears of ECU, which had the second highest in the country.

PERTH MP John Carey has been given a reminder about parliamentary conduct after referring to the Nationals MP for the South West as Louise ‘Kill the Whales’ Kingston.

Mr Carey was speaking about the Cook government’s new policy on airbnb-style short-term rentals, which aims to free up housing for the longer-term rental market. It involves tighter regulations for unhosted short-term rentals which will now require local government approval, and a $10,000 incentive scheme for current short-stay landlords to convert their properties back to long-term rentals. 

Whaling

In Parliament on November 14 Mr Carey mentioned the plan was widely popular save for some criticism by a couple of Opposition members.

He said housing shadow minister Steve Martin was the first to attack the policy as a “short term shuffle”. 

“Then we have Louise ‘Kill the Whales’ Kingston,” Mr Carey said, referring to the Albany-born MP, who is an Upper House member and hence not around to hear the moniker.

Speaker Michelle Roberts interjected: “Minister, that was unparliamentary.” 

“I withdraw that.” Mr Carey said.

“That is not how you refer to a member of the Upper House,” Ms Roberts reminded Mr Carey.

The Kill the Whales nickname stemmed from Ms Kingston’s inaugural speech to Parliament on October 12.

Ms Kingston’s father worked as a whaler at the Cheyne Beach Whaling Station, and she said “when the whaling station closed in 1978, it was a very sad day for Albany and for the 102 workers who were given just six weeks to come to terms with a decision forced upon them without consideration”.

She said the decision had been made on “a lie – and a shift in conscientiousness based on feelings, not facts,” and it turned her into “a warrior for the truth, and one of my strongest convictions is speaking for those who are unheard and affected by decisions not based on fact”.

Labor’s been having a fine time squeezing every last drop out of Ms Kingston’s whaling comments, and Mr Carey’s jibe is about the 10th joke they’ve made about it so far. 

Labor’s Cockburn MP David Scaife had said in October that “it seems to me that Hon Louise Kingston and the Liberal and National Parties are focused only on bread and blubber issues”.

“You’ve just harpooned the argument,” Labor’s Mandurah MP David Templeman observed.

“I am having a whale of a time,” Mr Scaife confessed.

The Cheyne Beach Whaling Station took 1136 humpback whales and 14,695 sperm whales across its 26 years of operation.

by DAVID BELL