Perth Voice Interactive

VOICE photographer Jeremy Dixon dropped by Hyde Park Tuesday to snap a few pics of the baby swans.

The fluffy cygnets are nearly full size, but they’re going through awkward teenage years and have yet to shed their baby down. While the lake has plenty nutrients in it, causing the green algae, a couple of our environmentally-minded readers have commented it’s looking better now than in previous years before the restoration works were finished.

One mentioned there’s been a big reduction in duck deaths from botulism now the water’s healthier.

Daughter tackles stigma with jumble sale

When Ciara Thiedeman’s mum took her own life in 2009, her dad told her “don’t mince your words”.

He told his daughter to be direct about how Noreen Lowe had died and to be open about her mental illness.

Four years on Ms Thiedeman still lives by the advice.

Marking her 40th birthday, she wants to get people talking freely about mental illness and suicide.

She’s holding a fashion fundraiser at Aranmore primary, and has been flooded with donated clothing for sale on the night, including from Perth’s celebrity jet-set.

The family has been weighed under with stacks of donated clothes, including from Ben Elton, Geoff Gallop, Sally Obermeder, Jessica Rowe and the Wildcats (the Lingerie Football League team the WA Angels are modeling donations on the night).

“I’ve always loved second-hand clothes and dressed head to toe in them, a passion that came from my mum,” Ms Thiedeman smiles.

“I grew up in a family of five children in poverty, we were raised on Vinnies’ vouchers and I grew up in hand-me-downs.”

All funds are going to Vincentcare, the support program for people with mental illness that helps them maintain their independence and life skills.

Ms Thiedeman says her mum died shortly after leaving hospital, when she was discharged with a bottle of pills and not much else.

“If my mum had been offered respite at a place like Vincentcare, she’d probably still be alive today.

“She had severe bouts of depression growing up,” she recalls of her childhood in Ireland. After I left home there was a big gulf in her life. Her mental illness got worse.”

For many years her mum’s borderline personality disorder was undiagnosed and not discussed.

“We didn’t know how to talk to each other about it. It was difficult and painful and there was this element of shame.

“In Ireland we use phrases like ‘she’s bad with her nerves’,” rather than confront mental health and suicide in the deeply Catholic country.

Ms Thiedeman says the level of support for the fundraiser shows people are open, even keen, to talk about mental illness if given the opportunity. She says many have come forward with their own stories.

“It’s an indictment of how much people want to talk about this issue but don’t know how,” she says.

“If we were able to talk about it more readily, we might be able to save a few lives.

“I don’t think the problem would be as bad if it wasn’t for the shame and stigma.”

The Second to None fundraiser is on October 25, head to secondtonone.gofundraise.com.au/ for info and gala tickets.

by DAVID BELL

This week marks Eid, the Muslim religious festival of sacrifice.

For the first time Vincent city council is teaming up with the Muslim community to celebrate the holiday, and is hoping to include non-Muslims in the festival too.

Former mayor Alannah MacTiernan says she wanted to help support a mainstream Muslim festival that everyone can enjoy.

She says when an anti-Muslim film recently sent talkback radio into overdrive, “in response to that I wanted to do something positive with Perth’s Islamic community.

“Hopefully this can go on to emulate the success of our Chinese New Year festivities. We need to embrace the latest wave of migration from the Middle-East and Africa.”

Zarrin Siddiqui from the WA ethnic communities council says it’s an important day for Muslims living in Australia, who aren’t able to practice the traditional sacrifice here.

The festival celebrates the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God: In the Muslim recount of the Old Testament story, when Ibrahim (Abraham) follows God’s command and makes the cut his son is unharmed, instead replaced by a ram.

The festival is commemorated in many countries with the sacrifice of an animal, and while that can’t be done in Australia Ms Siddiqui says she will be sending money home to Pakistan so a goat there can meet its end.

The inaugural ‘Vincent Celebrates Eid’ festival is this Sunday October 20 at Birdwood Square from 11am to 4pm. All are welcome and there’ll be food stalls, arts and crafts, markets, dancers, world music, and the team from Silat Seni Gayong Australia practising Malaysian martial arts.

by DAVID BELL and STEPHEN POLLOCK

The red man finally has a home, ending long debate over whether to buy it and where to put it.

The controversial $65,000 artwork Games by Chinese sculptor Chen Wen Ling is being installed at the corner of Vincent and Bulwer Streets.

When councillors two weeks ago again demurred over where to put it, former mayor Alannah MacTiernan reminded them it was her last meeting and if they didn’t put it somewhere now it was going to be acting mayor John Carey’s problem.

“Cr Carey it’s going to be your responsibility, this little fellow that you bought.” The council split 3/3 on the location, leaving the decision to Ms MacTiernan’s casting vote.

“Oh, God,” she muttered, wearily.

This week Ms MacTiernan joined other newly minted federal MPs on a tour of the federal parliament, but she managed to escape the class photo of newbies.

Friends of Lightning Swamp president John Williams says Bayswater city council has “missed the mark” by not contributing to a proposed $6 million sustainability centre at the Noranda swamp.

He says the council doesn’t understand the “vision” for the centre and has failed to allocate a brass razoo in its 2013/14 budget for it.

“The community consultation undertaken by the council was all wrong, describing it as an interpretative centre—people didn’t get what it was,” he says.

“This would be a world-wide first for Australia—a regional hub for sustainability. To be honest, I think this project is beyond the capability of the council.”

In January, the council sent letters to 370 homes in Noranda asking for input on the planned eco-facility, but received just five responses.

Mr Williams says it would be a sustainable and technology environmental centre, including rooms for environmental community groups, an indoor permaculture room, a water wise vegetable garden, a school laboratory and a renewable energy room.

Mr Williams has progressed the project himself and enlisted the help of Curtin University and international sustainability groups.

Curtin will provide third year urban and regional planning students to help.

“Lightning Swamp is a unique A-class reserve and has bio-diversity with lots of fauna and flora,” Curtin’s Dr Shahed Khan says. “The challenge is to gracefully incorporate a world-class educational centre into a natural site.

“This project will provide a real-life case study for our students to work on and will also benefit FOLS.”

Bayswater-managed Lightning Swamp is an A-Class reserve and home to a diverse range of flora and fauna. At 71 hectares it’s the largest block of bushland in the city and is listed on the WA government’s Bush Forever register.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

A catalina test flight on the Swan River is expected to pave the way for the first passenger trips this summer.

Catalina Airlines says the Swan River Trust caved into pressure and gave the company permission to conduct the noise test yesterday. Catalina boss Mack McCormack told the Voice he had been summoned to the trust last Thursday to find a way forward in his application to operate seaplanes on the Swan.

“They had a bit of a whinge about what was happening and said they preferred to work together in a professional manner. That’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

The trust’s backflip follows Mr McCormack’s criticism in the Voice about the time it’s taken to process the proposal he first raised last year.

Illustrative of his frustration is what occurred when he agreed to shift his preferred landing site from between the bridges near South Perth to the west side of the Narrows, in order to placate concerns from a government MP about the impact on young yachties.

Agreeing to the site shift was in the trust’s eyes “a considerable amendment to the initial application”, so it told the company to reapply all over again.

Mr McCormack is confident the proposal will be approved when referred to the board of the trust next month.

by CARMELO AMALFI

Barnett mirrors Brisbane mistake
DO not destroy a good council. The question needs to be asked—when Brisbane is in the process of de-amalgamating its gigantic council because being  too large has been a failure,  just why is WA hell-bent on making the same mistakes?
Bigger councils have been shown to breed corruption—look at the histories of Cockburn, Wanneroo and Stirling councils for example, because such large-size councils are too difficult for ratepayers to monitor what goes on internally and local voices get crushed.
The ideal population for effective running of councils is up to 60,000. Vincent council has shown that it can be successful in its decision-making because its councillors are able to be easily contacted and its ratepayers’ voices can be heard.
They can have their three-minute say at council meetings. In Vincent there still exists a community spirit where ratepayers know their neighbours and people are happier.
Democracy is still alive.
This does not happen at Perth city council fora—you have to write in in advance to council fora and hold your hand up. You may or may not have your voice heard. Larger councils do not behave like a third tier of government, when their purpose for existence is actually to listen to the people they are elected to represent.  Instead they become self-service entities. Merging councils does not mean better benefits or services for the public.
My submission to the WA local government advisory board two years ago pointed all this out—whatever has happened to logic and common sense in WA?
Marie Slyth
Carr St, West Perth

Squeeze solution
SURELY the problem with the parking on Chelmsford Road (Voice, October 12, 2013) is due to the ineffective layout of parking bays, and not use of the road to park by Bikram Yoga clients (who, cartoonist Chatfield may like to know, do not include the “downward dog” posture).
Because there are bays marked out directly opposite each other on both sides of the street, the inability to pass easily between parked cars would exist whenever the street is full of cars, irrespective of who they belonged to.
Even if there are only two cars parked on the entire street at any one time, if those cars were parked directly opposite each other, as the current ayout allows, it would still be difficult for anything other than a small hatchback to pass easily between them.
One solution could be to dispense with the bays entirely down one side of the street, leaving parking only on the other side. This would allow two cars’ width down the street for passing at all times. Alternatively, restrict one side to one-hour parking between business hours and leave the other as it is.
Emma Bell
Brady St, Mt Hawthorn

More than a battle of Wills
IN Willox v Wills (Voice, October 12, 2013) a blind eye is turned to the fourth candidate striving to secure the vacant Mt Lawley seat on Stirling council.
Ironically, Zlato Petrovski, married with three children, seems to be the more down-to-earth of the bunch. Bromide for a blind i: never trust a man with a beard, or a man without a beard.
Yours ’till death…,
Aloysius Pepper (Sgt. Ret.)
Clotilde St, Mt Lawley

It’s Montaut for me
OVER the past five years or so I have had the occasion to walk about 100m down William Street from my home to visit John Hyde’s offices.
A lot of thought went into that walk, perhaps because I was seeking help from a Labor MP and I felt I had to tell him where I stood in my political beliefs.
But having crossed that threshold when John was mayor of Vincent I knew I was in good hands and dealing with a great person: No fuss, and a straight shooter.
When I met Katrina Montaut, John’s personal assistant, I got a taste of how things are done and how things get done.
I was waiting months for departmental approvals that were resolved in days by Katrina’s assistance.
Katrina is very bright and sociable; a dynamo of power and ability and drives the message straight home.
It’s not about which political party you belong to here, it’s who is best for the job, and this responsibility is for an important public and social job.
It is about time that we had a few more Katrinas in this world.
Don’t go past this lady without considering her experience and ability to serve us as our own personal assistant in local government, as a Vincent city councillor for south ward.
Anthony J Casella
Ruth St, Pert
The Ed says: This letter has been slashed for length.

Don’t come a mocking when I’m a knocking
I WOULD like to respond to former Vincent deputy mayor Ian Ker (“Stuff Perth,” Voice Mail, October 12, 2013).
Ker mocks Perth councillors for not doorknocking. During my campaign as a candidate for Perth city council I have stood on the doorsteps of hundreds of residents throughout East Perth, West Perth, Northbridge and the CBD. Many readers of the Voice would have spoken with me at their door over the past month from Terrace Rd to Malcolm St, Mount St to Goderich St, Aberdeen St to Bennett St and right across the city.
Unlike most of Vincent, the majority of Perth residents live in secure apartment complexes where sometimes even letterboxes are out of reach. This makes door-knocking difficult, even for the most willing campaigner. As a result, I’ve paid for the postage of around 11,000 direct letters and have been on the phone day after day discussing issues and encouraging people to vote.
As a resident of the city, and someone eager to see our community grow, I look forward to an increase in Perth’s residential population. Ker shouldn’t be so flippant in his remarks when there are candidates putting in hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to engage with voters.
Reece Harley
Mount St, West Perth