Perth Voice Interactive

Class sizes in WA schools will increase next year because no teachers are being employed to cope with almost 10,000 extra students.

Education minister Peter Collier’s media minder Russell Yeo confirmed to the Voice this week the state’s 21,000 teachers will have to absorb “less than half a student per teacher” as a result of budget cuts.

A department source says principals are also being told they may have to stop offering upper school courses with low enrolments and send the students elsewhere, despite being given no extra money to pay for buses.

Senior staff will also have to pick up extra work to ensure schools are up-to-date with the curriculum. That work is currently done by teaching staff, but if that is to continue they will be taken out of class and students reallocated.

As of 2014 intensive English centres (IEC) will also lose staff and there will be fewer officers to help Aboriginal students, saving the education department $4 million. There are around 1290 students with English as a second language enrolled in Perth’s metropolitan area, including Mirrabooka, Thornlie and Highgate primary schools.

Around 81 are enrolled at the IEC at Highgate primary, which already had its state funding slashed by $15,662 in a 30 per cent resource cut.

The department source said schools would have to take more responsibility for dealing with the needs of individual Aboriginal students. He said the funding details hadn’t been worked out yet, but school-based funding was finished and teachers would have to work out how to make the reduced funding go further.

Labor MP Ljiljanna Ravlich, a former WA education minister, says they are cuts dressed up as reforms: “These are new cuts that have, until today, been kept quiet by the Barnett government,” she says.

P&C secretary Lisa Jooste says the P&C has discussed the funding cut and is considering a course of action.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

STIRLING mayor Giovanni Italiano indulges in some friendly sledging outside the new $4.66 million changing rooms at Grenville Reserve.

After seven years planning and work, the rickety club and change rooms in Tuart Hill have been replaced by a state-of-the-art sporting and multi-use facility.

Users include the Titan’s Woman’s Football Club and Tuart Hill Cricket Club.

Cr Italiano says he is proud of the facility.

“The community are absolutely ecstatic at the opening of this new facility—which will be called Stirling Community Centre—Tuart Hill,” he says.

“Activities like yoga and bridge can now also be accommodated in the community centre as well as use of meeting rooms and function rooms.”

The facility includes an external accessible ramp, public toilets, public tennis courts, outdoor exercise equipment and a picnic area. It also has public change rooms and toilet facilities for local schools and other reserve users.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

A POPULAR on-road cafe plan has been canned—for now—following accusations it was tantamout to favouritism.

Vincent city council had trialled the on-road cafe—ORC for short—outside Foam cafe in Leederville, turning a couple of carbays into a mini al fresco area, echoing set ups in San Francisco.

It was so well utilised neighbouring councils came sniffing around to get the skinny on installing their own.

In September the council voted to install another six around town, and put aside $30,000 for the project (although that budget more than doubled to $70,000).

Stuart Lofthouse, who owns Greens & Co across the street, said the Oxford Street ORC was essentially the council giving one business a free kick on the public’s dime.

“No-one in the street has a problem with public open space, they do have a problem with council becoming landlords and giving businesses financial benefit,” he said.

“Rescind it, and start again, and get criteria in place.”

Cr Josh Topelberg agreed: “We can’t be seen as investing in individual businesses at the expense of others.”

Mayor John Carey moved the rescission motion along with deputy Ros Harley and Cr Matt Buckels.

“We need a clear policy direction rather than deciding on the run when we don’t know where we’re going,” Cr Buckels said.

“There’s obviously been some issues in regards to the affordability of it… my main concern is budgetary circumstances,” Cr Harley said.

Foam owner Nicholas Bond was baffled by the way the council had made its decision: “I’m a bit bewildered that no-one’s come to us to ask how it’s operated and whether it’s been a positive or negative effect or what impact it’s had on our business,” he told the council.

While the ORC had been quiet in the winter it attracted up to 600 people on busy summer days.

“For such a small investment the impact has been sensational,” he said, adding he’d spent about $6000 on furniture and umbrellas, and even more staffing it. He said he was happy for the ORC to be moved up the street and he’d gladly let the new operator use the furniture and umbrellas he’d bought.

While Mr Bond said he’d worked hard to make sure everyone on the street could use the ORC, not just his own customers, 50mil cafe owner Debbie Saunders described that as “a load of shit” and said the ORC had been marketed as a Foam-exclusive area that hadn’t benefited other Oxford Street traders.

The council hopes a detailed policy will be ready by February.

by DAVID BELL

THE folding of the Swan River Trust into the WA parks and wildlife department will not affect funding for current and future projects along the Swan River, says WA environment minister Albert Jacob.

Former Bayswater mayor Terry Kenyon and Labor Maylands MP Lisa Baker have expressed concern various projects could fall by the wayside.

Their fears were exacerbated when the Barnett government knocked back the council’s grant application to restore the riverbank at Clarkson and Bath Street reserves.

Walkers had complained the slumping riverbank at Clarkson reserve had made it unsafe. The council erected orange barricades fencing, but they continued to tear.

“This makes me very concerned that the Eric Singleton bird sanctuary project may be the next one to be chopped,” Ms Baker says.

Mr Jacob told the Voice the funding model would not change.

“In relation to sub-regional support, the amalgamation of the trust into the department will make no difference to future funding for programs and projects currently occurring throughout the Swan and Canning rivers and it catchments,” he says.

“Future funding arrangements will continue to be considered on a case by case basis.

“The Eric Singleton bird sanctuary and the Weld square living stream will continue to be funded following the amalgamation of the SRT into the Parks and Wildlife department.”

Ms Baker worries about the long-term focus on the river.

“Barnett’s decision to axe the SRT will place huge stress on the deteriorating Swan River that has been crippled by algal blooms, low oxygen levels, fish and dolphin deaths,” she says.

The council had a number of share-funded projects with the old SRT, including improving water quality at Bayswater Brook.

Bayswater mayor Sylvan Albert, who ran for the WA Liberals at the state election in March, says the council will write to Mr Jacob to request a written assurance that funding will not be cut.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

Vincent’s new deputy mayor Ros Harley warns Oxford Street’s residential area could be forever changed for the worse if the council keeps approving the spread of offices.

The council voted to approve a plan to knock down a 1929 home and erect a three-storey development, which will mostly be offices with five units up top.

But Cr Harley warned they could be making a mistake: “We have an opportunity here to get this right. My fear is that in five or 10 years’ time … if more and more of them go up on Oxford Street, we’re going to look back and wonder at what point we got it wrong.

“In five years’ time I don’t want to look at that building and feel I made a mistake. This has no street appeal whatsoever. I am concerned about the bulk and scale and I’m concerned about the precedent it sets.”

Council rules say there can be a maximum of 30 per cent commercial aspect to any development in the area. This one clocks in at almost double that.

“I think there’s no reason not to stick with the policy,” Cr Buckels agreed.

“What happens with commercial is you get a far less interesting interaction with the street.” Cr Julia Wilcox sided with them but they were outvoted.

Council planning chief Peter Mrdja said that under the yet-to-be implemented town planning scheme 2 such a project would be fine.

by DAVID BELL

The original stonework of the Alexander Forrest statue has been revealed after Perth city council workers removed a lime wash coating on the base.

The statue by Pietro Giacomo Porcelli was erected in 1903 to pay tribute to the famed surveyor (a brother of Sir John Forrest), who died in 1901.

Situated at the busy corner of Barrack Street and St Georges Terrace, Perth city council CEO Gary Stevenson says it’s subject to  damage from car fumes and general wear and tear.

For a few years it’s been clad in a thick cream-coloured lime wash to stabilise its surface, which workers pulled off over the weekend revealing original engravings from PG Porcelli, along with a few older blemishes that’ll need to be brushed up.

The PCC’s now consulting with the WA heritage council to consider options for restoration.

The statue was erected by Forrest’s friends, celebrating him at the “first explorer of the Kimberley District,” second-in-command of the expedition from Perth to Adelaide, and mayor of the city for six years.

by DAVID BELL

Docos chart the Hyde Park Hotel

When Woolies turned the old Hyde Park Hotel into a boutique watering hole, independent music in Perth suffered a blow and artists were left to cry in their beer.

Fridey at the Hydey documents the last years of the pub and its hey-day as a punk venue, and features interviews with local bands and locals.

Several years in the making it closes RTRFM’s music documentary festival Gimme Some Truth on Sunday, December 1.

“This is a great documentary for the local music scene,” general manager Jason Cleary says.

“The Higgins family [former owners of the pub] were very support of the local music scene.”

The festival, which kicks off Friday November 29, is showing a selection of rarely seen underground music documentaries, including Radio Unnamed, about legendary New York radio personality Bob Fass, who during his 50 years of broadcasting has interviewed the likes of Lou Reed and Bob Dylan—giving the-then virtual unknowns a leg-up as they struggled to break into the industry.

A Band Called Death is number 21 on Rotten Tomatoes’ Best Films of 2013 list and promises a ‘70s punk soundtrack that will stay with you long after you leave the cinema, Mr Cleary says.

Others are great documentaries that failed to get traction.

“For whatever reason they can’t get a showing, and end up on YouTube.”

Gimme Some Truth is on at Luna, Leederville, running in conjunction with the Light Up Leederville Carnival, Friday, November 30 and Saturday and Sunday, December 1 and 2.

by JENNY D’ANGER

School pack facts about the Anzac legend

School kids will get to learn all about the men and women who offered up their lives for their country, thanks to an education drive at the Anzac Cottage in Mt Hawthorn.

Anne Chapple says a Lotterywest grant will help pay for a primary school information pack.

“It will give teachers activities to do with the kids before they visit the cottage, while they’re here and after they go back to the classroom,” she says.

“It’s really important that children learn about the sacrifices servicemen made.

The 1916 cottage was handed over to Vietnam vets in the early 1990s and, through voluntary work and fundraising, they have painstakingly restored it to its former glory.

Originally built as a memorial to those who’d died at the landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, the cottage now serves as a salient reminder to soldiers who also served in WWII and Vietnam.

Richard Williams, WA president of the WA Vietnam Veterans Association, served in-country from 1970-1, when he was 21. He says friendships and bonds formed in the paddy fields and jungles remain unique.

“It’s strange, but even if you didn’t know someone personally from back then, you still have this amazing bond because you both went through the same common experiences,” says the 64-year-old.

“I was a mechanical fitter and helped clear minefields in Vietnam. Before going out we spent three months training in the Queensland jungle.”

Williams estimates there are around 3250 Vietnam veterans in WA and around 200 VVA members.

Around 500 Australians servicemen—50 of whom were from WA—died in the 1962-75 Vietnam conflict.

An open day at Anzac Cottage, 38 Kalgoorlie Street, is held during August to honour them.

The cottage was originally gifted by the Mount Hawthorn Progress Association to a returned wounded soldier who’d fought at Gallipoli.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK