Perth Voice Interactive

PRIDE’S parade is heading back to the night.

Following a dire turnout at last year’s inaugural daytime parade the Northbridge event will be pushed back to 8pm.
The Pride management committee had hoped a daytime parade would encourage more families, but Voice staffer Jenny D’Anger marched last year and said audiences were a fifth of their usual size. Adding salt to the wound, it was so sweltering a Wasamba member became dehydrated and keeled over at the end.

Long-time Pride marchers the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence lobbied hard for a return to the night. While Pride’s surveys of 700 people reported a 50/50 split between day and night supporters, the Sisters’ own data showed 90 per cent support for a night event.

Mother Gretta Amyletta of the order said the evening event could still cater for the “balloons and prams” crowd.
“The Channel 7 Christmas pageant is at night, the straight families can bring their kids to a night parade. Why can’t gay and lesbian families bring their kids to a night time parade?”

The evening Celebration event that ran in 2013 (the hair-down party for those missing the raunchier night parades) will also be cancelled in 2014, with Pride’s co-president Daniel Smith saying it took a lot of time and money which could be better spend on fairday, the parade and the overall festival.

by DAVID BELL

 

 

THERE’LL be a three-way tussle in the by-election for Vincent’s south ward.

Business manager Mark Rossi, urban planner James Peart and the executive director of the state’s development department Gary Simmons will fight it out to fill the position made vacant when John Carey was elevated to the mayoralty.

At October’s election Mr Peart came fourth out of eight candidates in Vincent’s south ward, while Mr Rossi came third in north ward.

The extraordinary election will cost $26,000.

Mr Peart, who has the backing of Mr Carey, wants to focus on the roll-out of Vincent’s bike plan, a “super P&C” schools network, and ensure councillors understand policies before they vote.

Mr Rossi ran his 2013 campaign on opposing more paid parking, supporting markets and festivals, and protecting property rights (the council’s currently working on a plan for heritage protection areas; Mr Rossi reckons homeowners should have the right to do what they wish with their homes).

Mr Simmons says he wants to help deliver longstanding projects like stage two of the Beatty Park upgrades. He also has plans to nominate for whatever body Vincent merges into following the Barnett government’s rejig of council boundaries, saying the area will need to be properly represented.

The 56-year-old has lived in south ward for a decade and says his experience working at the state level would be valuable for the city.

Former John Hyde staffer Katrina Montaut—who narrowly missed out in October— said she planned to run if no one else took on the mayor’s favourite candidate Mr Peart, but she bowed out after the other two nominated.

by DAVID BELL

 

A Mt LAWLEY resident has asked an artist to paint an alien mural on his back wall, after graffiti artists kept tagging his property.

Arts management graduate John Clark was fed up looking at the ugly tags on his rear wall, which backs onto Jack Marks Lane, so he got in touch with local artist Martin Wills on Facebook.

Wills agreed to do the mural for free if Clark split the cost of the painting materials, estimated to be around $400.

“My house has been increasingly covered with graffiti tags over the past year—I felt it my duty to do something about it,” he says.

“It is a fantastic project for our area as there has been a marked increase in tagging and an inability for council to handle it.

Overlooked

“We have also seen the removal of local artists’ murals by businesses—especially in Beaufort Street—and a prevalence for local council-commissioned artworks by eastern states’ artists in my area over local artists.”

Wills, who has exhibited at Bivouac Bar and several galleries in Perth, says he had mixed feelings about Perth councils commissioning eastern state artists.

“I feel like there is a lot of local talent that could be exploited and that it is being overlooked sometimes,” he says.

“But then you see the works that the big-name artists from the east have done in Perth, they are amazing.

“I guess there has to be a balance between using interstate and local talent.”

Wills, 31, estimates it will take him around four days to finish his “intergalactic-style” mural on Clark’s wall.

“It’s about alien bloggers with big hair,” the artist told the Voice.

 by STEPHEN POLLOCK

A UNITED STATES printer has left local Bruce Springsteen fans out of pocket after pulling the pin on a t-shirt they had designed featuring their hero.

Members of Perth’s Springsteen fan club had come up with the design—a silhouette of the New Jersey muso against the Perth skyline—and were having them printed by Spreadshirt.

About 100 people got their shirts before Spreadshirt pulled the plug, telling fans “we cannot process your shirt with this design unless you can provide legal documentation stating that you have the right and or permission to use this specific design”. The company didn’t say whether it had been threatened with copyright breaches by Springsteen’s management company.

Simon from the fan club says he’s told Spreadshirt “we’re promoting his brand, not infringing it” but they wouldn’t budge. Spreadshirt said they’d only print them if they didn’t have the words “Bruce Springsteen” on them.

The design was adapted from photo taken by a fan of Sprinsteen performing at the Superbowl, with Perth’s skyline superimposed onto the foreground.

Fans who’d already forked out for the shirts but didn’t receive them are trying to get refunds.

Graham Atkinson posted on the club’s Facebook page that he was “pretty devastated. [I] was going to wear it with such pride”.

Simon says fans all over the world print their own shirts, and die-hards will still buy the official merchandise.

He’s now trying to get in touch with the Boss’s PR handlers to get the thumbs up to print more shirts, but with two weeks to go he’s yet to hear back.

by DAVID BELL

THE 90-year-old Michelides tobacco factory is likely to be demolished, with a divided Perth city council planning committee giving owner Graham Hardie the thumbs up to knock it down.

It’s still to go before full council but committee members Rob Butler and Judy McEvoy say they support the demolition because the building is decrepit and they want the long-dormant site on the corner of Roe and Lake streets being used again.

Local heritage buffs had pounded councillors’ emails and Facebook pages in the lead-up to the vote, urging them to save the building. 

Archeologist Stuart Rapley said; “it would be a blight on this council if this building is demolished just as the area adjacent (the sunken railway) opens up. This restored building would shine as a connection between the new and the old”.

If demolition is granted, it’ll be outside the usual rules requiring an owner to have a new development approved before the wreckers move in. 

But Mr Hardie says there are safety concerns and squatters, so city staffers said they were happy to turn a blind eye.

The interior has “the biggest termite mounds we’ve seen in an urban setting” according to council planner Margaret Smith.

“We do hope a new application for redevelopment will come in soon,” she told the committee.

New councillor Reece Harley argued for part of the factory to be retained, saying the front could be kept while the developer ‘adaptively-reused’ the rest of the site.

He said it was a worthy example of the art deco style and would make a great entryway to Northbridge once the city railway link was finished.

Cr Harley said it was “poor form” for the owner to let the rear building further deteriorate. 

He tried to show the committee images of how the building looked in its full splendour shortly after the factory opened in the 1920s. 

But Cr Butler who was chairing the meeting sternly brought proceedings to a screeching halt, asking for the images to be put away.  “They don’t reflect the current state of the building,” he said.

Cr Butler said his computer went into meltdown as 140-odd people lobbied him to keep the building, but he said they’d been deceived by old photos of the place being circulated on the internet. He says these days it’s simply decrepit.

Heritage fan Dallas Robertson, who started the online history group Museum of Perth, said the old photos were an example of how good the building could look if it was restored, and only minor changes had been made over the years.
He said he didn’t oppose the development, but the front should be kept. Mr Robertson said Brookfield Place had kept the frontages of the old buildings and it had been a huge commercial success.

But Cr McEvoy sided with Cr Butler, saying the site had been dormant too long and it was time to get the area activated.

Last year the WA heritage council pushed for the factory to be heritage listed and PCC staffers initially agreed, but Cr Butler led the charge to knock that back and the heritage minister Albert Jacob agreed, leaving the building with no protection.

 MICHELIDES LTD was Australia’s only tobacco company to grow and manufacture its own tobacco. It was set up by Greek migrants Peter and Michael Michelides, who’d spent the previous 20 years hand-rolling and selling cigarettes. The first Roe Street buildings went up in the 1920s, with more added in the ‘40s as the company expanded. By the 1940s it was the country’s third largest tobacco company, with 250 workers in the Northbridge factory. By the mid-’50s Michelides was producing a million cigarettes a day, but soon after profits slumped and the company was sold in 1960. The building went on to become a Peters ice cream factory and then a Tony Barlow suit hire store before falling into disuse around five years ago.

 by DAVID BELL

A LOCAL technology company is hoping its new smartphone app will help visitors avoid a trampling this Australia Day.

Inhouse Group’s Skyworks app, commissioned by Perth council, lists the day’s events from the citizenship ceremonies in the morning to the fireworks and laser display from 8pm.

It also comes with:

• a pop-up reminder when events begin;

• public transport information and live parking updates;

• road closure info;

• a simulcast of the official radio broadcast; and,

• maps including first aid locations and BYO zones.

Inhouse founder and CEO Clinton House said with 300,000 visitors to the area, the app would make it easier to plan ahead.

The King Street-based company is already thinking beyond 2014 and wants to combine its consumer monitoring technology with the app.

That would give “real-time” crowd information so visitors can avoid drunken brawls, find the best spot for the fireworks or even locate lost children.

“We hope a future app can also work with police to minimise security issues,” chief operations officer Stan Ghys told the Voice.

by CLARE KENYON

TAFE students are thinking about dropping out midway through courses as the reality of fee increases—some up to 400 per cent—hit home during enrolments this week.

Eighteen-year-old Joondalup resident Kimberley Beisley travels to the Central Institute of Technology in Northbridge, but says she might drop out because she can’t afford the second year of her advanced diploma of jewellery design.

“I can’t even afford to eat now, I have to go to my parents house,” Ms Beisley said.

The fee increase was announced in August 2013, with one of the justifications used by training minister Terry Redman being that higher fees would make students take their studies more seriously.

“That’s a pretty strong statement to make,” Ms Beisley told the Voice, annoyed. “I loved my course last year and took it so seriously,” she said.

Half-hearted decisions

But recently graduated Johnathon Ashcroft (26) said the higher fees would stop people from making half-hearted decisions.

“If you want to do something you’re going to put in the effort, but sometimes people feel very strongly going into something and then realise it’s not for them,” Mr Ashcroft told the Voice.

“It’s a lose-lose situation really because regardless its going to put a lot of pressure on people who choose to do a course now.”

WA president of the State School Teachers Union Pat Byrne says it is demeaning to say that increasing fees will make students take their studies more seriously.

“We interviewed 60 angry students last week and many of these students were accompanied by parents who told us that the fees were going to hit their family budgets hard,” Ms Byrne told the Voice.

“Students and their parents have no choice but to pay the higher fees if they want a job or a better future, and the Barnett government has underestimated the financial impact it will have on WA families.”

by CLARE KENYON 

TIME’S up for Perth’s million-dollar sapphire atomic clock, with Perth city council planning to handball the project back to the increasingly parsimonious state government.

At this week’s planning committee councillor Reece Harley said the clock saga, which has been floating around almost a decade, was “best described as a debacle.”

The bumpy road began when the public transport authority commissioned the clock as a public art component of the Mandurah railway. It was to go near the horseshoe bridge, and be hooked up to the world’s most accurate atomic clock at UWA.

In 2010 the PTA backtracked on the location after chatting with “stakeholders”, and a crisis cadre of top state planners, the lord mayor and a UWA academic looked at 10 alternative spots, but they couldn’t reach a consensus.

Perth council eventually settled on the Point Lewis roundabout at Riverside Drive, but Main Roads kicked up a fuss saying it would be a distraction for drivers at the already-problematic roundabout.

Eight years since conception it’s now approaching the too-hard basket, and Perth council wants to hand responsibility to the culture and arts department. It’ll vote next Tuesday on that possibility. The smart money is on the clock never seeing the light of day, given a move in the public art realm towards creating sculptures suited to their surroundings rather than coming up with a work and finding somewhere to plonk it.

by DAVID BELL