Perth Voice Interactive

“INCLUSIVITY” will see urinals go the way of underarm bowling in the massive upgrade of the WACA.

The WACA Ground Improvement Project will see the Inverarity and Prindiville stands replaced by one large central stand across the northern end, with construction tipped to start in September.

WACA board member Paul Collins, who was elected as a director by the membership at the last AGM, recently spotted the lack of urinals in the approved plans.

“To my disbelief I found that the general male public will not have access to a urinal on the entire northern half of the WACA ground,” Mr Collins wrote on a social media post.

“I queried this and wondered whether the female toilets were copied across as the male toilets by mistake. Nope. I am told it’s ‘modern times’ and required to address ‘inclusivity’.

He later told the Voice: “I actually believe that it has the potential to be discriminatory against men, because it makes their use of the toilets far less efficient, and we know that 86 per cent of the WACA membership are male.”

Mr Collins says stadium toilets are typically used in surges and not having urinals will make them unnecessarily packed during bathroom breaks. As a rule of thumb urinals are about twice as efficient time-wise and space-wise compared to cubicles, and are anywhere from five to 10 times more water-efficient. 

On top of the new cubicle-only design, the new members area on the northern side will also be a no-urinal zone, and it’ll have a shared sink area in between the men’s and women’s cubicles.

Mr Collins says an Islamic cricket fan had come forward with concerns about that, as shared wash areas are not acceptable to some Muslims. 

“I’m all in favour of inclusivity but stadiums need to be efficient on the toilet front as they experience use in bursts,” he said. 

“That means plenty of urinal space and some cubicles for men during a drinks break at the cricket.

“It also means dignity, privacy and consideration for men and women in their own bathroom mirror and wash basin spaces.”

He says the justification about “modern times” and “inclusivity” came direct from WACA board chair Avril Fahey, who was elected chair in December 2022.

We contacted Ms Fahey and the WACA’s communications GM Matthew Taylor to ask about the end of urinals at the cricket. 

Mr Taylor said they’re still in the final stages of working through the design and some details are still being figured out.

But we weren’t able to get any answers on whether the bathroom situation was one of those details still being rejigged.

The no-urinal design for the WACA upgrade was approved in 2022, and construction was meant to start in August, and has now been pushed back to September as the WACA seeks to sign on a builder and then get a building permit.

The $155 million ground improvement project has largely been government funded, with $140 million from the federal, state, and local governments as part of the Perth City Deal.

In the past few years major sports codes have moved away from urinals in change rooms: Both Cricket Australia and the AFL guidelines for change rooms call for urinals to be replaced with toilets so facilities can be used by any sex in an effort to grow women’s sport.

But this is the first time we’ve seen that extend to the public toilets. 

In February 2023 a New Hampshire school in the US briefly banned urinals. It was a compromise to a tangled debate over which genders should be allowed to use which bathroom, and the school board decided it’d easier to have no urinals and covered them up with plastic bags. Students protested and the urinals were reinstated 10 days later.

by DAVID BELL

THE e-scooter share craze is coming to Vincent, with a 12-month trial pegged to start in November or December.

Vincent council originally wanted to sign up to a five-way inner-city council e-scooter share trial but Perth council dove in early and started its own scheme early in March, before the other councils were ready.

The delay meant Perth got to be the guinea pig and this week Vincent councillors endorsed a tender for two companies to provide e-scooters, based on the scooter scheme’s smooth sailing in the city.

A report to councillors says “to date, the City of Perth have received no reports regarding major incidents” and there was “high demand” with 110,000 rides in the first four months of the trial.

Some locals were concerned the plan would exacerbate the existing e-scooter scourge they’re experiencing.

For a few months now residents living around Britannia Reserve have been petitioning council to act on the scooter scourge zooming through the park’s pathways and unnerving kids, dogs, and older folks with the risk of a crash.

Leederville resident Linda Harris told the council this week, “this is becoming quite dangerous because of the increasing number of speeding cyclists, e-scooters and skateboards.

“If Vincent adopts this trial of e-scooters I can only assume there will be more e-scooters in the suburb and they will naturally think Britannia Reserve is a great place to test out the scooters and ride as fast as humanly possible,” Ms Harris says, calling on the council for clear signage around the park to deter reckless riders.

Mayor Emma Cole said the scooters that were part of the trial ought have less of an impact than privately-owned scooters because they can limit the speeds of the hired ones.

Geofence

CEO David MacLennan said they could geofence them out of unwanted areas, using GPS to halt scooters from the no-go zones.

One councillor, Ron Alexander, voted against the scheme as he was opposed to more scooters being on footpaths, but the remainder were all a-go.

“I’m super excited about this one,” said Cr Ashley Wallace, a keen scooterer. “It was disappointing that we weren’t able to go in with the City of Perth when they undertook their e-scooter process, but I guess you could view that as a trial to our trial.

“My observations working in the city around the City of Perth’s trial is that the scooters are generally

used pretty respectfully,” but “pretty infrequently as well.”

by DAVID BELL

ALL councillors and staff should have mandatory police clearance, a working with children card, and undergo mandatory “safeguarding” training to prevent abuse and neglect, Stirling councillor Elizabeth Re reckons.

Cr Re says the raft of measures is to “improve transparency and the culture across the organisation.

“You’ve got to clean up the sector,” Cr Re says.

Neglect

Safeguarding courses teach people to keep kids safe by being on the lookout for abuse and neglect.

In 2022 then-councillor Keith Sargent was arrested for possessing child exploitation material, as was a council staff member. Mr Sargent admitted he had been watching the material on and off for years, and was sentenced to 14 months prison.

Cr Re says safeguarding training would minimise the chance of that kind of thing going on undetected. 

“Safeguarding courses are becoming more common for volunteers,” Cr Re says, and if it’s good enough for volunteer organisations then Stirling should do it too. “I just volunteered for the Women’s World Cup, and as part of that I had to do a safeguarding course.”

Cr Re says she wouldn’t seek a ban on employing staff who had a criminal record, but thought it was important that it was out in the open. 

She said she’d recently heard of a staff member who’d been driving around without a licence ‚Äîhe’d lost it for drunk driving.

“It doesn’t stop you keeping a job, but you need to come true.”

Her three notices of motion go to the next council meeting for a vote.

At the August 15 meeting where she raised the idea, mayor Mark Irwin seemed weary of the flood of notices of motions, which are ideas for actions councillors can submit at will.

There seems to be a huge surge in these motions ahead of the election: 13 notices of motion were voted for that night – everything from a plan to install a telescope at the beach to putting new benches at Inglewood Triangle – and 10 new notices of motion were raised. 

Mr Irwin said they were eating up too much staff time and he might disallow some motions if councillors couldn’t show they’d put in their research and carefully considered their idea first. 

“The amount of notice motions coming in is exorbitant and extravagant,” Mr Irwin said.

by DAVID BELL

BANKS Reserve could return to its traditional Noongar name “Warndoolier” after a prolonged renaming process. 

This week Vincent councillors voted to ask the public whether to rename Banks Reserve entirely to Warndoolier or to use a dual-name.

Back in 2012 a group of traditional owners, local elders and Noongar consultants agreed that the area was widely known as Warndulier, and a plaque was put up featuring that name.

The name comes from historic maps marked with names by Noongar woman Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840-1907). 

The translation is inexact, but ‘warn’ means digging stick, ‘dool’ means spirit or a misty fog, and doolier (doolya) means big leaves. It roughly translates to women’s spirit, and indicates a place where spirit mist dwells.

Apart from the plaque the renaming stalled for a few years until Vincent council revived the Banks Reserve Masterplan in 2018. Then came five years of consulting, discussing, and confirming the place name had wide support.

Vincent’s Boordiya (bosses) Reference Group endorsed the name (but with their preferred “Warndoolier” spelling) in February this year. 

This week mayor Emma Cole proposed they go a step beyond the originally planned “dual naming” to see if there was public support for outright returning Banks Reserve to the Warndoolier name.

It’ll go out for advertising for 21 days of comment and the council will need to demonstrate community support if Landgate is to give approval.

Banks Reserve is named after former Perth councillor Ronald Frederick Banks.

by DAVID BELL

PERTH councillor Di Bain has resigned two months ahead of her term expiring. 

Ms Bain was elected in 2020 with a strong showing in a crowded field, taking a council seat after coming in a close second in the lord mayoral race won by Basil Zempilas, who got 29.44 per cent of the vote to her 24.94 per cent. 

But she called it quits early, announcing on her website: “Today (August 17, 2023) I issued a letter to the CEO as notice of my resignation as an Elected Member of the City of Perth Council effective immediately.

“Caretaker mode for the 2023 election is just around the corner and I do not wish [to] be an occupier on the City’s electoral roll which closes on August 25.”

Candidates have to be either a property owner, resident, or one of two appointed ‘occupier’ voters for a rented non-residential building. Ms Bain bought a unit in the city ahead of the 2020 election to qualify as a property owner, but we weren’t able to get hold of her to clarify her current eligibility. 

Ms Bain posted a lengthy list of achievements from her time on council, including launching the city’s first dog park and opening the safe night space for women, and said it was all a team effort.

“Sometimes public commentary creates an impression that only one person achieved this result,” Ms Bain wrote.  

“At council each elected member has brought diverse and strong opinions which have guided the delivery of all these initiatives.”

Ms Bain also heads up Tourism WA and says, “I know I can have greater impact for the City of Perth and our state as a whole if I dedicate more time to my role as chair of Tourism Western Australia and other professional opportunities that are on the horizon.”

by DAVID BELL

STIRLING council has voted to investigate a 12-month moratorium on developer contributions towards artwork or park upgrades.

Mayor Mark Irwin penned the motion calling for the moratorium because he says developers are being put off by the cost of having to pay extras, including:

• paying 1 per cent of the cost of a development for public artwork;

• money to improve parks, in lieu of including the usual amount of open space required on the development site;

• contributions to improve rights of way and lighting for developments that plan to use small laneways; and,

• cash in lieu money to pay for public parking where not enough is provided on a development site.

“If you look up you just don’t see cranes up at the moment; developments aren’t happening,” Mr Irwin said.

“And if you ask the property council, if you ask the state government what the number one reason developers aren’t developing low-cost housing, it’s because of the cost of doing business at the moment. And a lot of these things on their own aren’t significant, but when you add them all up together on a development they can be very significant.

“The only people that pay for this are the kids who are trying to buy those low-cost housing apartments at the moment, they’ll pay for the average apartment anywhere between $10,000 and about $30,000 extra per apartment because we have this bright idea that we want some bike rack out the front that looks like public art.”

Mr Irwin says there’s already plenty of cash sitting in some of the reserves funded by the payments, which should spend first before collecting more. 

Mr Irwin’s description of stalled developments was disputed by public art consultant Helen Curtis, who says developers she’s worked with have not at all been off by including public artwork on their projects (“Plea for art program,” Voice, August 19, 2023).

A majority of councillors endorsed Mr Irwin’s investigation, with councillors Felicity Farrelly and Suzanne Migdale opposed.

A report on the implications of a 12-month moratorium will now go back to councillors in November for a final decision.

by DAVID BELL

STIRLING councillor Bianca Sandri’s early resignation has been confirmed with the Electoral Commission of WA announcing her Inglewood ward seat is up for grabs at the October 2023 election.

We speculated Cr Sandri would likely step down when she took up her new role as planning director at Bayswater council, but didn’t hear back from Cr Sandri to confirm (Voice, August 12, 2023).

Cr Sandri’s term would otherwise run until 2025, and the other empty spot for Inglewood is a four-year term running until 2027. 

Whichever candidate gets the second-most votes will get the shorter term running to 2025.