Perth Voice Interactive

A MAN who fell and sliced his arm on blade-like bike racks on Beaufort Street has lodged a compensation claim against Vincent city council.

The suit has prompted the council to remove the 21 racks, which resemble boomerangs embedded in the footpath.

Installed in 2012 at a cost of $15,000 the racks prompted “numerous complaints” because of their near-invisibility head-on (they’re just 1cm thick) so the council spent another $6000 on garish pavement stickers.

Now, it will spend $9500 replacing the racks with thicker pipe-style racks and another $6000 on more stickers. The company that supplies the skinny racks—Leda Securabike—says they’re supposed to be grouped in clusters where they’re more visible or flush to a wall. 

by DAVID BELL

THE disappearance of children from art due to tightening laws and regulations is the subject of a new photomedia exhibition by local artist Connie Petrillo at the Perth Centre for Photography.

Public concern over the subject of children in art—especially photography featuring nudity or suggestive posing—has been at fever pitch since Bill Henson’s contentious 2008 exhibition which included a photo of a nude girl (who has always maintained she was a willing participant and who criticises those who’d claimed she’d been exploited).

State laws introduced in response to the furore impose stringent checks and limitations on artists wishing to feature children in their art in any way.

Petrillo herself was narrowly cleared of child pornography charges—stemming from taking photos of her own children—after a nearly three-year court battle which demoralised her to the point of ceasing photography for several years. 

“Within art history there has been a long tradition of the use of children as models but this has all now changed,”

She says the laws have resulted in many artists choosing to censor themselves from even working with children, which she predicts has dire consequences for the future.

“Within art history there has been a long tradition of the use of children as models but this has all now changed,” Petrillo says.

The result is an art world almost devoid of children, possibly “completely forbidden in our lifetimes, this portion of the humanity of art… lost forever”. She hopes her exhibition will make people think about the implications and end the hysteria.

Petrillo’s works communicate her message by creating a sense of distance between the viewer and the photographs of children they view. A key motif is the children’s eyes are obscured representing their lack of personality under laws that emphasise their protection to the point of stifling their existence, as well as the artists who depict them.

She maintains the art world is respectful of children—who are also increasingly cloistered and coddled at home, at play, even when travelling to and from school—and does not pose a threat to their innocence.

Instead, she says politicians and child protection groups who demand tighter artist regulation are cracking down on the wrong sector, having “left unchallenged the exploitation and sexualisation of children in the mass media”.

Cabinets of Curiosities runs till March 16 at the Perth Centre for Photography, 100 Aberdeen St, Northbridge. Admission is free.

by ALICIA PERERA

“IT’S not a merger, it’s a takeover” was the unhappy sentiment around Vincent HQ this week.

Until last week it was assumed that come July 2015 both Perth and Vincent would be dismissed and neutral commissioners take over until an election in October 2015.

Instead, WA local government minister Tony Simpson has announced he’d prefer a simple “boundary change” where he dismisses only Vincent and extends Perth’s boundaries.

That means the area once under Vincent will be ruled over by the existing Perth city council for four months until fresh elections for the bigger Perth council are held.

Culture

Vincent mayor John Carey is concerned about Perth’s formal, officious culture impacting on Vincent’s open, community-minded culture: He says it’s fairer for the new and bigger council to be represented only by elected members drawn from the new boundaries.

He says there are many things Vincent and Perth do differently, from parking policies and approaches to multiple dwellings to the open way Vincent handles public question time (anyone can speak) compared to Perth’s formal process where questions are submitted in writing for the CEO to read out.

“It is a clear takeover by the city of Perth,” he told an impromptu crisis meeting on Monday night, which attracted 50 concerned locals at short notice. We believe it should be an equal partnership.”

Perth Liberal MP Eleni Evangel—a former Perth councillor—attended the meeting to soothe fears about Perth councillors mucking things up in the interim.

“There’s no way they’re going to be able to plonk a 20-storey building in a local park,” she told the meeting.

She says Vincent’s CEO and staff will still be around to represent locals’ interests, and Perth councillors will be wanting to make a good impression on their new voters.

She said Vincent locals—particularly the mayor—had campaigned hard on going entirely into Perth and the minister had heeded their calls.

At Tuesday’s meeting Vincent councillors voted to express “strong opposition” to the minister’s plan, saying “it is undemocratic to leave City of Perth ratepayers without local elected representation for a period of four months”.

They’ll write to the minister, hold a town hall meeting, seek legal advice, and apply for a $50,000 grant from the state “to assist with the forced merger process”.

The Voice asked Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi for comment but she said it was a little premature to weigh in given Perth’s preferred proposal only takes a smidgen of Vincent and the WA local government advisory panel is yet to say what’s happening. But in the event of a complete Perth/Vincent merger she said “we would remain as professional as we are and work to the needs of our whole community whatever that ultimately is”.

by DAVID BELL

A ONE-WARD approach could spell the end of the ordinary citizen running for council.

If Perth and Vincent merge it could lead to just having one city-wide ward where elections are a free-for-all.

Mayor John Carey says having only one ward would require spending $40,000 to $50,000 to letterbox every house in the newly merged council: “The only people who can afford that are developers,” he says.

Vincent also opposes any ward system that doesn’t offer “one vote, one value”—meaning it opposes having four councillors from the old Perth and four from the old Vincent, which would in effect be a gerrymander for voters in the current Perth.

Vincent councillors voted to form a working committee to nut out the ward problem and to push for a multi-ward, one-vote one-value system.

CORRECTION: We published some dodgy figures in last week’s story comparing the size of Vincent and Perth. Vincent has 31,549 residents and Perth has 18,988.

LOCALS are already so contorted and steamed up about traffic and parking issues related to the popular Bikram Yoga in North Perth that Vincent council has refused to allow an expansion next door.

Council planning staff supported the application but CEO John Giorgi stepped in to advise the council it should refuse it.

He says under the town planning scheme the council must “protect and enhance the health, safety and physical welfare of the city’s inhabitants and the social, physical and cultural environment”.

A half-dozen Chelmsford Road locals had fronted the council to complain about being completely parked out.

‘I was personally shocked, I had never seen anything like that in all my days’

One gent said his elderly mother couldn’t leave her house in the afternoon because the street was so densely packed with cars, the gap so narrow that wing mirrors are routinely clipped off.

“The amenity of our neighbourhood has been severely affected,” Ross Field told councillors.

“Yesterday I arrived home at 4.45pm, yet I was not able to access our street and my driveway until 8pm.”

Sixty-three formal complaints were lodged over the past year.

Gym owner Mark Burns—a councillor at neighbouring Subiaco—regards Mr Giorgi’s intervention as “extraordinary”.

“I have 30 years of planning experience, both here and in the US, and when the agenda came out and I saw the CEO had lined through the recommendation from the planning department I was personally shocked, I had never seen anything like that in all my days,” he told the Voice.

“I contacted four separate town planners in Perth to ask them if they’d ever heard of such a thing and all four of them—high level planners running businesses in WA—every one of them stated they’d never seen it.

“This has turned into a political matter: Our application, as proven by a town planner in their now-crossed out recommendation of approval, is fully compliant.”

Mr Giorgi told the council he felt, “quite strongly that we can win this at the SAT”.

The council also voted to implement a one-hour parking limit in the street (yoga classes run 90 minutes), and to ban parking along one side to ease the squeeze.

There was some concern that’d just push things one street over, so it’ll be reviewed in three months.

Cr Matt Buckels, a transport guru, says restrictions may be required on several streets before yogis get the message they should park at a public carpark and walk to their fitness class.

by DAVID BELL

PRIDE fairday will move back to its old home of Hyde Park this weekend.

The fairday’s been around for 20 years as a more laidback event in the Pride calendar, but after 11 years at Russell Square it’s moving back to Hyde Park.

Pride co-president Daniel Smith says it moved partly because the fairday no longer has a bar.

With liquor licensing laws getting tougher, in recent years the organisers fenced the bar off: “It divided it into two events, and you had lonely stall areas,” he says.

Now it’s moving back to a more open format, and people can BYO a bottle of wine if they’re after a tipple.

“Russell Square’s been great and we’ve appreciated the support of the City of Perth to have it there for 11 years, but it’s time for a change and people are excited about going back to Hyde Park,” he says.

Along with 44 stalls run by or catering to LGBT people, there’ll be drag queens, a dog show, a children’s play area and music from Sun City and Sarah Pellicano.

They’ve also moved the date: In previous years it had been paired in the same month as the parade, but Mr Smith says “Perth’s weather in spring is very unpredictable: We’ve had fairdays suffering rain that ruins the day. Having those large events through the spring months is risky.”

It all kicks off at Hyde Park this Sunday February 16, 11am to 6pm, $5 entry (but free for children under 16 and Pride members).

SUNDAY’S Pride fairday will hold a minute’s silence in solidarity for LGBT people living in Russia.

Amidst the Sochi Olympics—which has become synonymous with shoddy hotel rooms, suspicious yellow tapwater, dangerous infrastructure, false structures, painted tarpaulins depicting buildings, thousands of stray dogs and armed security reminiscent of Iron Curtain Russia—the city’s mayor has proudly claimed there are no gay people in his city.

Russia, with a wink and a nod from hyper-macho president Vladimir Putin, has undergone a recent resurgence of official homophobia: Police stand idly by as gay men and women are attacked by skinhead thugs, and new lawsto  stop gay people “promoting” their lifestyle have been used to violently crack down on activists.

Fairday will be become one of 37 remote Pride house events taking place around the world during the Olympics as a show of support.

Most Olympic games have a Pride house as a safe space for gay athletes to hang out in, but—along with potable water—there’s none at Sochi.

Photos of locals in Perth will be uploaded as part of the worldwide campaign to show gay Russians they have supporters.

“They can see that people are speaking up for them,” Pride co-president Daniel Smith says.

“What is happening in Russia at the moment is very scary and serious,” he says. India has also recently reinstituted anti-gay laws, while in Uganda it’s a capital offence to be gay.

Mr Smith says it’s important to remind people here the struggle’s not over and hard-fought gains can very quickly be lost.

“It’s just heartbreaking seeing gay and lesbian rights go backwards so quickly,” Mr Smith says.

“Here in WA where we’ve got possibly the best laws for gay and lesbian people in the world—apart from marriage—it’s very easy to become complacent and think everything’s fine, but things are going backwards for people around the world.”

He says while the mayor of Sochi might never budge, corporate sponsors may well be influenced by international rights movements if their bottom line is at stake. A 2008 study showed LGBT people prefer to buy from gay-friendly businesses, even when the cost is higher.

THE prostitution name and shame list will stay, with a divided Vincent council voting to keep it as it appears to be working.

Last year the council started publishing the names of men convicted of soliciting street prostitutes following a flood of complaints from locals around Stirling Street. Names stay on the Vincent website for six months.

Cr Josh Topelberg wanted to remove the list, saying it wasn’t the business of local government to be naming and shaming, and it might have been heightened police action that’s responsible for the downturn.

Cr Matt Buckels agreed but the rest of the council voted to keep the register.

Mayor John Carey pointed out complaints had dropped to almost nil, and scrapping the list could lead to a resurgence.

Deputy mayor Ros Harley described it as one of the hardest decisions she’d made as a councillor, as she didn’t want the families of men who were caught to suffer, “but if it’s working, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”.

Cr Laine McDonald said, “it does seem madness to be getting rid of a program that does appear to be working”.

Currently the list features just two names: Eugene Rosslyn Hinkley and Calogero Ziino, who will soon be removed as their six months is almost up.

Names are uploaded on the website as images rather than plain text, meaning they can’t be easily Googled.

by DAVID BELL