Perth Voice Interactive

Reece Harley will run for Perth city council.

Soon turning 27, if elected he’ll be the city’s second-youngest ever councillor (Chas Hopkins first won at 26 and later went on to become lord mayor).

With recent data showing almost half the city’s residents are aged 20–34, Mr Harley says the PCC needs youth in its chamber: “Councils need to be reflective of the community they’re representing,” he says.

He is a regular in the public gallery and was the city’s Youth Ambassador in 2011, travelling to Houston, Halifax and Washington to scout youth and arts hubs and bring back ideas for Perth.

The West Perth local is a founding member of Rotary Crawley where he drove the swags for the homeless program, and he leads tours around the city showing off the sights and challenging misconceptions about Perth.

He says he loves to bust myths about Perth being dead on weekends, or claims there’s nowhere to eat at night, or beliefs all the heritage has gone.

“I think Perth is a beautiful city and I hate when people talk it down,” he says.

Mr Harley has worked alongside Spacemarket to help fill dormant upper-storey buildings with tenants.

A heritage buff, he’s also a member of the Savoy Hotel Collaboration, a group looking to activate the dormant upper levels of the old Hay Street site which is now owned by a Singaporean group.

In 2010 he won the Premier’s Australia Day award for his youth ambassador work.

Mr Harley, whose mum Ros sits on neighbouring Vincent council, works for the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, an organisation that aims to help indigenous kids complete high school at the same rate as other Australian children and help them on to uni.

by DAVID BELL

A divided development assessment panel has approved a six-storey project on Brewer Street, tossing aside the usual three-storey plus loft height limit for the area.

The elected members on the DAP—Vincent councillors Dudley Maier and Josh Topelberg—voted against the plan but the two state-appointed members Megan Bartle and Clayton Higham gave the 37-unit Danny Psaros project the thumbs up.

Ms Bartle, a senior development manager at Woodsome and previously a Subiaco council planner) used her casting vote as chair to approve the plan.

At five storeys plus a loft (with bathrooms making the loft look a lot like an extra floor) it’s almost twice the usual height usually allowed.

The council’s design advisory committee had recommended one extra storey for “design excellence”. Then the developer was allowed another storey because they were keeping part of the frontage of the old building, meaning they couldn’t dig out a basement carpark.

Crs Maier and Topelberg wanted something more in line with the policy and supported Vincent staff recommendations to reject it.

“I can’t support a six-storey building there,” Cr Topelberg said. “It’s well outside what the city has slated for the area.”

But Mr Higham, a local government executive, said he didn’t have a problem with it. It was noted the locals weren’t complaining about height, and “it’s going to be near the NIB stadium which is going to be a monster anyway”.

Ms Bartle said the applicant had kept the old facade and given up a basement, so there had to be some “quid pro quo” to encourage that kind of thing.

by DAVID BELL

Bayswater’s historical societies are irked their city is being portrayed as heritage-unfriendly by the Mount Lawley Society and Stirling city council.

Under the proposed Barnett council amalgamations, Mt Lawley will become part of a new Bayswater-Bassendean super council.

The MLS wants Mt Lawley to stay in Stirling, because it has heritage protection areas, and has been campaigning on the slogan “Don’t make Bayswater your future! It could ruin your heritage!!”

Maylands Historical Society president Terry Gaunt says Stirling council is no heritage paragon and didn’t do much when it controlled Maylands.

“I’m really disappointed when I read the propaganda attacking our heritage record—we are very proud of our history,” he says.

He reeled off a list of Bayswater council’s heritage achievements, including restoring Ellis and Halliday House, purchasing the old Senses building used by WA Ballet, funding the Maylands Aerodrome Commemorative Park and plans to restore the old Maylands Brickworks.

Bayswater Historical Society president Shirley Babis echoes the sentiments, saying the council lets the MHS and BHS use the old police station on Guildford Road and Halliday House, rent-free.

MLS president Bruce Wooldridge maintains Bayswater is not serious about heritage, particularly regarding the sliver of Mt Lawley it already controls.

“Stirling has a comprehensive heritage management program, including character retention guidelines, demolition by neglect provisions and a heritage protection area,” he says.

“We have over time requested Bayswater council adopt Stirling’s heritage policies for the part of Mount Lawley that currently sits within its boundary. However, there has been no interest. If Bayswater is serious about heritage, regardless of the current debate over local authority boundaries, it will implement this much-needed change.”

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

Drunk, loud, loitering women leading “idle lives” in early 1900s Perth is the topic of a new book by ECU lecturer Leigh Straw.

Dr Straw became interested in researching the era while investigating a 1929 murder.

Poring over newspapers of the day, she was struck by the number of mugshots of women staring back at her.

Her book Drunks, Pests and Harlots: Criminal Women in Perth and Fremantle 1900-1939 tells the stories of both victims and perpetrators: Esther Warden was known as the “terror of the West End” in Fremantle.

“A really tough character,” Dr Straw says. “She was a woman who could hold her own,” amassing more than 200 convictions. She spent an average of 10 months a year in Fremantle prison, and proves glassing is not a 21st century phenomenon.

“As she was walking down the street in Fremantle to the Orient Hotel, the second the staff would see her they’d start hiding the glasses, because she’d lob glasses at the clientele.

“It was a sad story, too, because she couldn’t get off the drink.”

Others, like Sarah Jane Mattson, were victims of circumstance. After so many of her children died at a young age, she turned to drink to cope, and notched up many arrests for fighting in public and loitering for sex.

“They were caught up in this cycle of offending, and really quite lost souls,” Dr Straw says.

While sentences doled out to women for public nuisance were comparable to what men received, the way the courts viewed them was very different.

“Women were sexualised in their crimes: No matter what they did, it came back to them being a woman.

“They talk about some fall from femininity that takes place. For a woman appearing in court, her appearance is detailed, her family life, whether she’s quite sexual.”

Dr Straw found some themes live on today: “The public gaze is always different towards women.

“If you see a young woman drunk in public, it’s not accepted in the same way as male drinking… immediately we hear terms like ‘she’s vulnerable’, ‘she’s looking for trouble’.”

The research also reveals some posh Perth areas used to be very different places: “King Street was one of the most notorious places in Perth,” Dr Straw says.

“King Street was described as this scene of drunken orgies, and prostitutes working on the corner, and youth gangs hanging around.”

Murray and Hay used to be inner-city slums filled with “all manner of criminal types”. Fremantle’s sort of remained steady: In the old days only social outcasts were game enough to live in inner city Fremantle. A wander along Queens Street still feels like an outing in the wild west.

Dr Straw’s book is out now on Amazon.

by DAVID BELL

SINBAD’S on Beaufort Street has closed under a cloud of complaints.

Stirling city councillor David Lagan says he’d been inundated with calls from residents about noise and illegal parking at the Inglewood kebab shop.

“They were playing music really loud—much louder than the nearby Civic Hotel—and there were cars strewn all over the street and verges,” he says.

The council didn’t close the place down, despite having received complaints.

Word is there were “lease issues” that led to its closure.

Sutherland puts South Africa trip ahead of Stay in Stirling rally

The fur is flying over Mt Lawley Liberal MP Michael Sutherland missing a Stay in Stirling rally last week that attracted 400 locals opposed to being merged with Bayswater.

The MP had flown to South Africa for a conference the day before the rally was held at the Astor Theatre, just metres from his office.

Rally organiser Paul Collins—a Liberal Party member and former Stirling city councillor—says Mr Sutherland should have delayed his travel plans.

“It is not for Paul Collins, who has a tendency to be overbearing when he thinks he is correct or he is not getting his way, to tell me what to do,” the MP retorted.

“There is a lot of advice he should take! My research officer was at the meeting, others also report back to me on what went on.”

Mr Sutherland says he’s lobbied hard for Mt Lawley to stay in Stirling, meeting with the premier’s office, local government minister Tony Simpson, the MLS and Stirling city council.

He says he asked the Mt Lawley Society if his wife could read out a statement on his behalf at the rally. But because Ms Sutherland is seeking election to Bayswater council the MLS deemed it to be a conflict of interest and denied the request. The statement was instead read out by a member of the MLS.

Former Stirling mayor Terry Tyzack is urging Mr Sutherland to refuse to take the speaker’s chair when amalgamation legislation comes before state parliament.

Mr Sutherland dismisses that as a “thought bubble”, noting there are five designated deputies.

“Can you imagine the chaos if we all decided if and when we wanted to be in the chair,” he says. “Being speaker, deputy speaker or acting speaker is not a position to be used like a toy. Proceedings in the house is not a game!”

Mr Sutherland says he’ll continue to work with the MLS, “despite one or two loose cannons in the ranks”.

“I deal with the president directly and do not need a go-between,” he quipped.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK

When his old church refused to let him become a member because he was gay, Graham Douglas-Meyer started up his own.

Based out of the North Perth lesser hall, Open Arms Fellowship is in its early days with just a few members, but Pastor Douglas-Meyer is hoping his flock will grow.

“I had that sense that there was a need for a church where people didn’t need to hide their sexuality, they can be open and honest about who they are,” he says. “[And] I needed a place for myself.”

He says his independent charismatic church is “gay-affirming” but that’s not its only focus, and he welcomes all-comers.

Originally a Catholic, Mr Douglas-Meyer drifted from the Church, moving on to the charismatic movement with Riverview Church.

While he was able to attend services, the church brass wouldn’t let him sign on as a financial member.

“It was devastating,” he says.

He underwent gay conversion therapy in 1991 but now describes the discredited process as damaging.

“I was trying to get healed of my sexuality,” he says.

“A lot of people get hurt. They just provide lies and more lies, and I believe people need to be appreciated for who they are.

“The churches need to be welcoming them, not turning them away.”

Open Arms Fellowship meets every Sunday at 3pm at 24 View Street.

by DAVID BELL

‘Gross act of vandalism’

A proud Bayswater resident hijacked the Stay in Stirling rally last week.

Former city councillor Sally Palmer was unhappy her city was being painted by rally organisers as somewhere undesirable for heritage suburbs like Mt Lawley.

Around 400 attended the Astor Theatre rally to protest the WA government’s plan to shift Mt Lawley from Stirling to Bayswater.

Mount Lawley Society president Bruce Wooldridge was addressing the crowd when Ms Palmer jumped out of her front row seat, declaring, “we have a great record in heritage! This information is misleading!”

The real estate agent continued her barrage during the Q&A session, disputing claims house prices would fall if Mt Lawley became part of Bayswater. 

“There’s no evidence or facts to back that claim up,” she said, attracting the odd boo and jeer.

Last week Bayswater deputy mayor Barry McKenna said he was sick of the Society and Stirling council running Bayswater down. Bayswater council voted to spend up to $75,000 to launch a counter-attack.

Another Bayswater insurgent present at the meeting was Cr Chris Cornish, who sat quietly at the rear.

The slick 90-minute rally included speeches from Stirling councillors, Society members, videos from residents against the change and a Powerpoint history of Mt Lawley.

Politicians included Perth Liberal MP Eleni Evangel, West Swan Labor MP Rita Saffioto and East Metro Labor MLC Alanna Clohesy.

Labor’s Alannah MacTiernan was there but Liberal opponent Darryl Moore wasn’t. Local state Liberal MP Michael Sutherland flew to South Africa the day before.

The biggest cheer from an enthusiastic crowd was reserved for former Stirling mayor Terry Tyzack, who continues to serve as a Stirling councillor.

“Put simply the government’s proposal as it relates to the City of Stirling can only be described as a gross act of economic and social vandalism devoid of logic, transparency and credibility,” he said.