Perth Voice Interactive

LISA BAKER has been relegated to the same pariah status as cigarette companies, being refused a stall spot at the Autumn River Festival.

The Maylands Labor MP has run stalls at the festival twice previously but Bayswater city council says political parties, real estate agents and liquor and tobacco companies are now banned under new bylaws.

Ms Baker says council staffers are misreading the rules and that she intends to be there as a local MP, not as a Labor Party representative.

“I have previously provided the community with useful information about state government grants and rebates, information for seniors and community services available to residents locally,” she says.

“A member of parliament governs for all electors within their constituency, regardless of the political affiliation of those electors.

“Most of my material doesn’t even mention WA Labor.”

The no-politics rule was brought in after councillors expressed concern that Cr Sylvan Albert—who is now the mayor—had used the Maylands Street Festival to promote himself as Ms Baker’s Liberal opponent in the 2013 campaign.

Ms Baker’s appeal will now go before the council which, following the October council elections, has a majority Liberal faction.

“As mayor it would be inappropriate for me to try to second-guess council’s decision,” Cr Albert says. “I want to listen to the debate and consider the information provided in the report before I decide how to vote.”

Ms Baker says approval should have been granted by council staff months ago: “This shouldn’t even be going to council,” she fumed. “I just hope councillors vote independently and are not swayed by their political persuasions.”

PERTH city council is campaigning hard on its merger stance in the final days before submissions to the local government advisory board close, rolling out an expert lineup to spruik its message.

The PCC favours a minor expansion of boundaries to take in surrounding infrastructure and hubs like UWA, King’s Park, QEII medical centre, and the casino.

To sell its argument it’s called upon former Victorian local government board chair Leonie Hemingway to weigh in.

She says the WA government’s (current) favourite plan to merge all of Vincent with Perth is a mistake.

“This only causes conflict and it really takes away from the main game of the capital city,” she says in a promo video by the PCC. “These sections of low density residential areas are much better in a neighbouring municipality where they can focus on residential issues.”

Queensland local government commissioner Greg Hoffman also offered his thoughts, having worked on mergers in Queensland between 1992 and 1997.

“Inclusion of the whole of the City of Vincent within the City of Perth, I believe poses serious problems to the important focus of the capital city,” he says.

PCC media wrangler Peter Jackson says neither Ms Hemingway nor Mr Hoffman were paid for their involvement.

The Voice did receive calls from local spin outfit PPR requesting we include the PCC’s position, however, and we’re pretty sure they don’t work for gratis.

Meanwhile Burswood locals have overwhelmingly backed lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi’s plans to bring them into Perth’s fold. Ninety-four per cent of residents surveyed by the Burswood Peninsula property owners say they support going over to Perth city council and not sticking with councils south of the Causeway.

As for Perth’s phone polling of Vincent residents, the PCC is yet to release the results. CEO Gary Stevenson hints “the city’s survey (not unexpectedly) showed that Vincent residents prefer to be merged with City of Perth, but that in the northern part of Vincent there was a somewhat higher level of neutrality of ambivalence about this than in the southern part”.

by DAVID BELL

FORMER Vincent mayor Nick Catania says he’d gladly take up the role of commissioner during mergers—if offered the job.

If a merger goes ahead in July 2015, the city’s elected members could be sacked and replaced by an appointed commissioner.

Rumours are floating around town that Mr Catania—a former state Labor MP whose son is a state Nationals MLC—is being lined up for the role, but he says he hasn’t been approached about it.

“It’s news to me,” he told the Voice. “It’d be good news! I’d be delighted to do so.

“When there has been commissioners appointed, it’s someone who has a good bit of experience in local government, state government, with the local government act, and those sorts of things.

“If it came up and someone asked me, because of my great interest in local government and particularly in this area of local government, I think it would be appropriate to say yes because of my interest and experience.”

Under WA local government minister Tony Simpson’s preferred option for a “boundary adjustment” (Perth’s borders extending to engulf Vincent), there could be no need for commissioners as Perth’s councillors would rule over their northern neighbours for four months until the next election.

by DAVID BELL

LOCAL artist Matt McVeigh will be paid $25,000 for his artwork, effectively cancelling a decision by  Vincent city council last year to sack his commission.

Last year the council had voted to pay McVeigh $30,000 for public artwork Togetherness. He’d been given a down-payment of $5000 and got to work, but there were disagreements over the emerging sculpture’s stability and appearance. Then-mayor Alannah MacTiernan dismissed it as a “very stock standard piece of municipal art” and convinced the council to sack McVeigh and pay $59,800 for Chen Wen Ling’s Games.

McVeigh claimed breach of contract.

Now the council has decided to go ahead, pay him the remaining $25,000 and find somewhere to house the work.

Mayor John Carey says it was a goodwill decision by the new council and not forced by legal proceedings.

ALANNAH MacTIERNAN has been promoted to federal Labor’s front bench in a junior role, calling the move a “small bump up the food chain.”

The Perth MP—formerly a senior minister in the former state Labor government—was appointed shadow parliamentary secretary for WA and regional development and infrastructure.

The rise followed Fremantle MP Melissa Parke’s decision to resign her own shadow ministry due to a family member’s serious health issues.

Although already busy with several parliamentary committees—including education and employment and Northern Australia—Ms MacTiernan has looked increasingly frustrated in recent months, champing at the bit on the opposition backbench.

“It’s nice to be recognised in a formal role,” she says.

“The leader had been saying to me for some time that he wanted to get me more involved.

“He has sought my advice on a number of occasions, on matters concerning Western Australia.

“In the end he exercised his right to appoint me, rather than go through the factional system of which I am not a part.”

A former WA planning minister who oversaw construction of the Perth-Mandurah line, she plans to barrack for federal funding for urban rail and use her local contacts to get the commonwealth and state working in tandem.

At a regional level, she will be looking into the Pilbara interconnected power grid.

The 62-year-old says she did not demand a shadow cabinet portfolio in return for agreeing to run for Labor at last year’s federal election.

“That’s not my style, I was happy to bide my time and wait until an opportunity arose,” she says.

“I like to think my appointment was based on merit, but Melissa’s resignation probably was a factor.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

THE Sonlife church is hoping to turn a run-down industrial shop on West Perth’s Cleaver Street into a new house of worship.

Pastor Binh Nguyen started the independent church in his living room three years ago, having been with the Anglicans for three years.

He had about a dozen people at his first sermon, and the congregation has since grown to more than 100.

Sonlife has been operating out of the Loftus centre, but with a growing congregation was looking for a roomier HQ that doesn’t have to be set up and packed away each Sunday.

Pastor Nguyen chuckles that when he first spotted the Cleaver Street place “it was infested with cockroaches, it had no ceiling or carpet, it was dirty, but I could see it being transformed into a wonderful place of worship where people can experience the love of God”.

Vincent council staff initially wanted to refuse the new church in West Perth, worried about traffic, but councillors relented, arguing there was very little on Sundays. They said it’d be a resurrection for the rundown area.

A refugee who left Vietnam in a boat at the age of five, Pastor Nguyen was a high school science teacher when he felt “there was this greater calling”.

“It grew in me and got stronger and stronger.”

He says his church wants to show the community its love in practical ways, practising what it preaches. It puts together hampers for the poor, works with Foodbank, supports single mums, and holds parenting and marriage courses.

Pastor Nguyen says it’ll be a lot of work to get the place up to scratch and take a few months to finish. “We don’t know where we’ll get the money from, but God knows!”

by DAVID BELL

FOR Szuszanna Herenyi it was like silent spring all over again. When the Stirling resident moved in 16 years ago, one of the joys in her life was watching and listening to birds early in the morning.

Then her neighbours started chopping down their trees, complaining about the hassle of cleaning up fallen leaves.

Now, one of those neighbours hasn’t a single tree.

“It got quieter,” Ms Herenyi says.

“I would like to hear the birds sing again,”

Then she noticed the neighbourhood was getting hotter.

“I like walking my dog once or twice a day, but there are parts where there is no shade at all,” she told the Voice.

The final straw came when a few neighbours replaced lawns with paving and concrete.

Ms Herenyi decided it was time to try to turn back the tide, so she signed up for the Stirling city council’s community tree planting program.

Last year, along with 20 other volunteers, she helped plant 260 trees throughout the municipality and is back again for this year’s event in May, when 50 vollies are expected.

“I would like to hear the birds sing again,” she says. “Everything has gotten more artificial, and I think people are just too busy to stop and listen.”

Ms Herenyi also blames WA planners for allowing nature to disappear from the city, saying it’s a victim of the rush to cope with Perth’s burgeoning population

“They take out one old house and put in three new ones, and there is no room for trees any more.”

Council tree officer Elena Walsh-Negus says trees bring many benefits: international research shows green streets encourage people out of their houses more, and the ambience reduces stress and improves mental health.

Trees are also the cheapest, most effective way of combatting the “heat island effect” of concreted suburbs.

UWA research also shows green, leafy streets increase real estate values.

Ms Walsh-Negus says while the program involves planting both natives and exotic species, it’s the locals who are the most effective at bringing birds back.

Anyone interested in the program can sign up at http://www.stirling.wa.gov.au/trees.

by CASPER JUST