Perth Voice Interactive

A VISIT from Pauline Hanson in the heart of Leederville attracted a crowd of some 30 odd protesters who verbally shamed the ticket holders as they entered Ms Hanson’s hired venue at Subiaco Football Club’s function room.

Ms Hanson was in town for the $30-a-head event to promote the case for voting no to constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people, which she argues would “divide” Australians based on race. 

As ticketholders navigated through protesters they were met with boos and cries of “racism”, and about a dozen police stood on hand to shepherd protestors back and prevent the gauntlet from becoming a blockade.

But Ms Hanson herself slipped in via the oval-side entrance, unseen by anyone save a few Subiaco footy players in mid-Monday night practice.

Once inside Ms Hanson responded to protestors assertion that the country “always was, always will be” Aboriginal land.

“No it isn’t,” Ms Hanson said. “It’s Australia’s land.”

In an online stream of her speech posted by One Nation’s WA branch, Ms Hanson referred to the protesters as “ratbags” and said she’d faced bigger crowds of opposition before in Perth during the early days of her political career. 

She said some of those early protestors had come up to her years later and told her “I owe you an apology… I’ve actually grown up and now I understand what you were talking about and now I vote for you.”

Leederville isn’t very friendly territory for One Nation: In the 2022 election the party’s candidate Cameron Bailey got eight votes out of the 878 ballots lodged at the nearest polling place at Leederville TAFE. That amounted to 0.96 per cent of votes cast there, compared to a national One Nation average of 4.96 per cent.

by DAVID BELL

ON Friday night recently the Activ Heartbeats presented their production Back to the Future. 

The 10-year anniversary show has sold out and is set to be a comedic, musical, sci-if and time travel inspired bonanza. 

Heartbeats are a subgroup of Active Foundation, WA’s largest disability services provider. 

Heartbeats was founded by Kim Parkin and Vanessa Strnadica at the Beaconsfield Community Hub back in 2013. To this day, they continue to teach participants with disabilities performing art skills through educational modules. 

Over the years their performances have taken them across various Perth events and venues, and now the group is one of the Activ Foundation’s most popular community initiatives.

The group’s successes and popularity is not taken for granted, especially after the closure scares of last year. 

In mid 2022, Activ Foundation, who has been operating for more than 70 years, announced it was shutting multiple sites due to funding cuts to the NDIS. 

But the closures did not eventuate, thanks to fellow provider Workpower who took over all large-scale industrial work sites.

“We’re very grateful for the support of Workpower and both the state and federal government throughout this transition period,” says Activ CEO Micheal Heath.

“It was a great outcome where everyone was able to continue working and doing what they love.” 

Support Worker and Activ team member Lauren Ranger told the Herald the extent of the Heartbeats group impact.

“It’s become a highlight in the lives of our customers and community,” Ms Ranger said.

“It gives our customers newfound performance skills, confidence, and creativity. 

“We’ve been lucky enough to receive an incredible donation of hundreds of costumes from Compressed Air Spares in Wangara…which will inspire our stories for years to come!”

Heartbeats are hoping to have a company-wide showcase in 2024.

You can keep posted on future shows, through following the Activ Foundation social pages.

by DANIELA GARBIN

IN part two of a look back at the history of women’s soccer, the City of Vincent Local History Centre brings us the story of the post-war boom in soccer, culminating in the sport being played at the highest level at this month’s Women’s World Cup matches. 

IN the 1950s and 1960s, soccer flourished with the post-war influx of migrants and refugees from the United Kingdom as well as Italy, Greece, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Poland and other soccer-loving Southern and Eastern European countries. 

Italian teams included the Azzurri (the Blues) based at Dorrien Gardens, which was affiliated with the WA Italian Club, and the Julia team based in Welshpool which was affiliated with the Club Fiumano e Giuliano representing Italian migrants, refugees from North-Eastern Italy and the former Yugoslavia (now Croatia). 

For a short period from 1958 to 1963, Azzurri and Julia both fielded women’s soccer teams who played one another in a regular series of charity matches at Dorrien Gardens to raise funds for what was then called the Spastic Welfare Association of WA (now Ability WA). 

Luciana Birighitti (nee Alfieri) was a teenager when she joined the Azzurri ladies’ soccer team which was coached by her father Potito Alfieri, a former Italian soccer player who also coached the men’s Azzurri team in the 1950s. 

Birighitti recalled the novelty of the competition for spectators and the excitement of the matches for the players: “We raised money. They went around collecting money while the game was on. The first time we played they had 3000 people. It was absolutely chockers because an Italian singer (Claudio Villa) was supposed to make an appearance. He never showed up, but we still made some money. We also went down to Bunbury once and played an exhibition match. It was mostly for fun more than anything… I loved soccer. I wish I was playing now. But it wasn’t a thing in those days. I can’t wait for this women’s World Cup to start!”

While women’s soccer may have continued in the 1960s, there is no official record of further games until the early 1970s when the Azzurri women’s team played Graylands as the curtain-raiser at Subiaco Oval before the WA state team took on the visiting Moscow Dynamos in a friendly match in February 1971. 

Shortly after in May 1971, the first official women’s soccer game between Ascot and Olympic took place at the Lake Monger Velodrome (now Litis Stadium). 

The pitch at Litis Stadium was to become a focal point for the development of women’s soccer in Western Australia in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Focal point

As former WA state player turned media commentator Penny Tanner Hoath documented in her history of women’s soccer in WA, the Lake Monger Velodrome was home to the fledgling WA Girls Soccer Association which began with six metro clubs in 1972. 

The league grew quickly and by 1973, it included 500 players and 14 country teams, mostly from the South West districts. 

The association, later renamed the Women’s Soccer Association of WA, had its headquarters under the former grandstand at the Lake Monger Velodrome where it was co-located with the breakaway Soccer Federation of WA offices. 

By the late 1970s, WA had hosted the national championships at Lake Monger, the women’s league had expanded to three divisions and the WA women’s state team toured Asia playing matches in Malaysia and Singapore. 

During this period, talented local players including Anna Senjuschenko and Sandra Brentnall made the national squad and represented Australia in international tournaments. 

The Azzurri women entered the local Perth leagues on a regular basis in the mid-1990s and currently compete in the National Premier League.

Western Australian representative side Perth Glory competes in the A-League Women competition.

Matildas captain Sam Kerr (Fremantle) and goalkeeper Lydia Williams (Katanning) are the two most recognised Western Australian players in their team.

From its early tentative origins, women’s soccer has grown exponentially throughout Western Australia. 

Given the early ties to the game in the Vincent area, it is fitting that five women’s world cup matches are being held in Vincent at the Perth Rectangular Stadium (HBF Park) from 22 July to 3 August. 

Fans can also watch teams training held at Dorrien Gardens. 

If you’d like to learn more about women’s soccer in WA, visit the Women’s Soccer WA Project website coordinated by Penny Tanner Hoath at womensoccer.com.au

More great soccer photos are available through the City of Vincent Local History Collection at https://cityofvincent.imagegallery.me/.

PERTH councillors have ushered in the 2023-24 budget with an alluringly low rise in rates, but not without some grumbles about expenses imposed by the WA government.

Lord mayor Basil Zempilas proudly announced on budget night, Monday July 17, that they were “delivering the lowest rate rise for all major councils across the Perth metropolitan area”, with the rates yield up 2.45 per cent. 

He said the mild rise came despite hefty inflation, and spending on city-stimulation projects like more free parking, marketing to attract visitors and big spends on making streets safer and more inviting.

“This budget is this council’s third budget since our election in October,” Mr Zempilas said, and later added “it’s worth noting we also delivered the lowest rate rise … across the Perth metropolitan area last year, and that followed two previous years of zero per cent rate rises.”

Council elections are in October.

Abnormal

Some of the heftier costs in the budget this year are listed as “abnormal expenses” stemming from contributions to state and federal government projects. This year Perth council will chip in $17.75m, or 6 per cent of its total expenditure, on contributing to the WACA pool and Perth Concert Hall redevelopment. That’s a partial payment on the $25m and $4m total contribution to those projects which are being handled by the state and federal governments.

They council will also have to pay about $18.3m to the state government’s Perth Parking Levy, a fund set up to tax every paid parking bay to help cover public transport projects like CAT buses. 

Perth council has long complained about having to pay ever-increasing amounts into the parking levy despite a lack of state spending on public transport. 

This year the council was vindicated by an auditor general report released in February which found that there was inadequate planning to spend the money, which ballooned from $30m to $190m in the past five years.

 There was also “a lack of consistent consultation with the City of Perth, as required by legislation”, auditor general Caroline Spencer said.

On the back of that report, and faced with yet another year’s budget being eaten into by the parking levy and only a few new electric CAT buses to show for it, Cr Brent Fleeton said “every single ratepayer has been dudded here” because every dollar that’s sent to the state is a dollar they need to collect from ratepayers.

The undertone of an election year was also ringing at Monday night’s budget meeting during a speech by councillor Sandy Angie, who’ll be competing against Mr Zempilas for the lord mayor’s role in October.

Cr Angie said, “[I’m] proud to see that several initiatives that I’ve put forward as notices of motion in the past few years have also been included in this year’s budget, and I’m excited to see them coming to life.

“These are things that are aimed at making our streets, laneways, and neighbourhoods even more people-focused and business-friendly, improving the street-level experience for city workers, residents, visitors and the like.” 

Cr Angie noted projects including the Main Street Refresh, laneway upgrades, lighting projects, and the tech action plan, had “started as a notice of motion I put forward”.

Mr Zempilas appeared to obliquely reference that in his closing speech, saying “everything that this council has achieved in our nearly-three years has been achieved together, and as a team, with support from one another.

“None of what happens as a result of this city’s hard work happens in isolation. It happens because of the team approach which has served us all so well.

by DAVID BELL

TURTLE tracking volunteers are needed for a project to save the snake-necked turtles in the Maylands and Bayswater wetlands.

The south-western snake-necked turtle lives in patches like the Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary, Maylands Lakes and Baigup Wetlands, but the population is in decline.

Anthony Santoro from Murdoch university researches the threats facing the turtles.

“There’s a multitude of threats,” Dr Santoro says. “Urbanisation is one of them: Infill, building, habitat degradation. Turtles live in the water, so if you fill a wetland in, you’ve just deleted that population of turtles.”

Another threat stems from turtle reproduction habits: “They nest on land. They come out of the water and travel sometimes up to a kilometre from water to lay their eggs.

“So what we’ve done is removed the habitat they need for nesting, and replaced it with housing, lawns, and roads, and it’s making it really hard for them to find suitable places to lay their eggs.”

Those trips also make them more vulnerable to introduced species like foxes, cats, and dogs, and even some native predators like the raven. Ravens adapted well to urbanisation: Their numbers boomed and they now have an easier time spotting a turtle crossing a road, lawn, or a block where the undergrowth has been cleared. 

Researchers are working on ways to help turtle populations survive in the city – a recent promising study by Dr Santoro looked at how to make road underpasses more attractive to turtles so they don’t die on roads – but not much is known about their movements. 

Murdoch University has now teamed up with the South West Metropolitan Alliance for the “Save our Snake-necked Turtle” project to gather that data with the aid of ‘citizen scientists’ – volunteers keen to help track and tag turtles.

It’s a two-prong approach; first through the TurtleSAT app where people can upload information and photos of turtle sightings. Sightings of live adults, hatchlings, and especially dead turtles can help paint a picture of where interventions are needed. 

The second more intensive program is recruiting volunteers to undergo training to patrol these wetlands and ethically monitor the turtles more closely. 

“They’ll patrol around the lakes during the nesting season looking for the females, then when they find a female they’ll follow them from a distance so as to not disturb them, help them if a raven tries to attack them, and eventually they’ll nest, and then we’ll protect that nest,” Dr Santoro says.

The lack of juvenile turtles is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the population, and the death of one breeding-age female is devastating to their numbers.

“If you take out one female, you’re taking out decades of nests and reproduction,” Dr Santoro says.

Bayswater council is hosting training nights in August for teams to patrol Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary, Maylands Lakes, and Baigup Wetlands, email sosnt@murdoch.edu.au if you’re keen.

by DAVID BELL