Perth Voice Interactive

A LOT has been said these last few weeks in Canberra about the housing crisis but here in Perth, we are living it. It’s not academic or theoretical, it’s a harsh reality that is not going away.

Nearly half of all the people in inner Perth are renters, and a staggering 25 per cent of them are facing ‘rental stress’ due to high rental costs. Simply put, many people are struggling to pay rent, and homeowners may have neighbours, friends or family members who are just one setback away from eviction.

It never had to come to this.

Governments from both major parties have played their part in perpetuating a rental system that does not prioritise the needs of renters. Rather, it functions exactly as it was designed to – for the benefit of corporate landlords and property developers.

For decades the Labor and Liberal parties have passed each other on a downward spiral to see who could further commodify our housing market, resulting in a system that is out of control and in desperate need of intervention.

Consider the staggering rent increases in various Perth suburbs: East Perth has seen a nearly $200 per week rise in the median rent, Joondanna 15 per cent, Dianella 17 per cent, and in Stirling the median rent is almost $700. 

Dangerous

Such increases are not just unsustainable; they are downright dangerous.

I have spent the past few months with teams of volunteers, going door-to-door, in our local community and listening to heartbreaking rental stories.

People are forced to make impossible choices between rent and medicine, living in fear of exorbitant rent increase notices that push them deeper into anxiety, debt, or even homelessness.

People have been demanding action from their governments for months, yet all they receive are empty platitudes. 

It’s no surprise when we discover that politicians from both major parties have accepted tens of thousands of dollars in donations from property developers, real estate companies, and corporate landlords to fund their campaigns.

My Greens colleagues and I have taken the voices and stories of our community to the Federal Parliament, advocating for straightforward policy actions that could help alleviate this crisis and provide relief to renters.

Firstly, we want to see an immediate national rental freeze similar to what was implemented during the early days of the pandemic. This freeze will prevent evictions and halt the dangerous rate hikes that are leaving so many without a place to call home.

Additionally, we advocate for limitations on the amount and frequency of rental hikes to ensure the financial accessibility and sustainability of our city for all renters.

The Greens believe there should be a guaranteed minimum annual spending of $2.5 billion on public, community and affordable housing, starting now.

We could do all this by ending the stage 3 tax cuts which predominantly benefit the wealthiest Australians, and by ending the AUKUS deal, which will see nearly $380 billion given to American and UK weapons manufacturers.

Instead, the government has chosen to engage in gutter politics and name-calling, while our community suffers.

It’s time for the Labor Party to abandon the toxic politics and the divisive media segments, and instead come to the negotiating table to deliver meaningful and transformative housing reforms.

By doing so, we can make a positive impact on the lives of tens of thousands of people in our Perth community.

by JORDAN STEELE-JOHN

HEALTH insurer HBF has been squeezed out of the naming rights for Perth Oval during the upcoming Women’s World Cup by soccer’s global governing body, FIFA. 

“HBF Park” has reverted to its non-commercial “Perth Rectangular Stadium” moniker for a month, with FIFA going to extraordinary lengths to make sure only its sponsors benefit from the tournament, which is expected to be watched by more than one billion people.

FIFA bans the display of any other commercial branding, and field-side ads at the HBF Park/Perth Rectangular Stadium/Perth Oval have been covered up. 

Sponsorship banners have even been censored out of digital photos of the Pier Street grounds on website advertising. 

WA Government press releases have also adopted FIFA’s unbranding demands and switched to calling it “Perth Rectangular Stadium. 

We asked HBF about being written out of soccer history and the response was matter-of-fact about FIFA’s policy, saying the company was told the grounds would be a “clean” venue for July.

“It’s part of the hosting agreement between FIFA and the owners of the grounds hosting the matches,” HBF’s reply says, noting it’s the same for Sydney Football Stadium, Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, Wellington Regional Stadium, and Brisbane Stadium.

This means for a short time both FIFA and official government outlets are aligned with the Voice’s usual practice of using grounds’ original “suburb+grounds type” names instead of fleeting commercial names.

FIFA’s unbranding demands caused umbrage this week at the Sydney Football Stadium (temporarily stripped of its Allianz name) where the organisation had directed the SGC Trust to go so far as to cover up the plaques of statues. 

They covered up plaques which listed athletes, the sculptor, and the benefactor, before uncovering them on Tuesday following sharp backlash.

by DAVID BELL

ARTIFICIAL intelligence will be tasked with monitoring CCTV cameras as part of a six month trial by Bayswater council.

Two of the AI-monitored cameras have been installed at Birkett Reserve in Bedford in an attempt to cut down on antisocial behaviour, and they’ve been programmed to detect suspicious activity like a large gathering of people after dark. 

A human can then make the call as to whether police need to attend, and the cameras are also hooked up to spotlights and two-way speakers so security staff can talk to park lurkers. 

Bayswater council has more than 250 CCTV cameras but not nearly enough staff to monitor them live, especially at night. Instead they’re usually used after the fact when footage is requested by police, and last year WA Police made 101 such requests for footage. 

“The cameras will be used to detect suspicious activity and unusual behaviour after hours through AI technology,” mayor Filomena Piffaretti said in a media release about the trial. 

“Our rangers and security team will be notified of anti-social behaviour in real time, which will improve our team’s response time to incidents.”

Data will ordinarily be purged after five days, or held for 90 days if criminal activity is detected.

Unlike the City of Perth’s extensive CCTV network, Bayswater’s cameras do not include the facial recognition technology that’s led to concerns from privacy advocates. 

If the trial works out, AI could be tasked with more monitoring throughout the city. 

by DAVID BELL

THE highly damaging shothole borer infestation has spread to Robertson Park’s iconic and towering fig trees.

The polyphagous shothole borer tunnels into trees to farm fungus, leaving branches brittle and often killing the tree.

It was first detected in East Fremantle in August 2021, then detected in trees in Hyde Park in 2022 leading to severe prunings and one mature Plane Tree being removed entirely. 

The bug has now spread to nearby Robertson Park, where the three majestic Moreton Bay Fig trees bear signs of white stains flowing from borer-made wounds. 

We asked Vincent council how many trees at Robertson Park had been infested so far.

Vincent mayor Emma Cole says “a qualified tree pruning contractor engaged by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development will be undertaking work on six trees at Robertson Park this month to help reduce the spread of the Polyphagous shot-hole borer.

“This will include pruning three of the Moreton Bay Fig trees along the walkway on the eastern side of the park and complete removal of one small Eucalyptus tree adjacent to the tennis courts.

“We encourage the community to keep a look out for signs of the borer and report damage via the Department’s MyPestGuide reporter app.”

by DAVID BELL

David Dyke, 80, shares his idea of positive masculinity.

MOST of us have experienced the corrupted energy of noxious masculinity in some way a shape or form in our lives – even if ultra fine or obvious, personal or secondary – that social distortion that tells us a man must be strong, hard, and play to win, that boys don’t cry, and acting tough is being a man.

As we grow, exposure to this noxious masculinity may lead us into an unhealthy relationship with the masculine, and can often leave us denouncing and turning away from the truer expressions of positive masculinity. 

The positive masculine is not concerned with power, possession or aggressive expression of strength.

The positive masculine is the expression of spiritual energy that is concerned with doing, feeling, and being connected.

It is action-driven, embracing both challenge, responsibility, opportunity, and accountability.

It is strong and grounded, yet also compassionate and vulnerable.

It is steadfast and committed, yet flexible when required. 

Most importantly it does not seek to dominate, control, or possess.

My aim is to have these workshops with deep respect and humility for the unique balance of masculine and feminine energy that is held within each and every one of us.

——————-

MEN’S health advocate David Dyke is urging local men to nurture their “positive masculinity” and embrace compassion and vulnerability, before old ideas of manhood put their health and life at risk.

Recently Mr Dyke secured a grant to help bring men’s workshops to Perth, hosted in June by Bayswater council and run by facilitators from healthy blokes company “Tomorrow Man”. 

At this week’s Bayswater AGM Mr Dyke implored the council to continue these kinds of events and put together a formal ‘men’s health and wellbeing plan’.

“The number one killer of men in Australia is heart disease, followed by suicide,” Mr Dyke said. 

“Men can take preventative action to lessen their risk.”

He noted federal and state grants for men’s health and wellbeing would soon be available, and his motion was supported with a vote from the floor. 

Mr Dyke, 80, was recognised as Bayswater’s senior citizen of the year in 2020 for his work in local wetlands, tackling weeds and replanting native species with the Bardon Park Malgamongup Friends Group. He’s also the state’s most active frog call counter, tracking their calls for the Australian Museum’s FrogID conservation effort, and is known for giving emotional speeches at council chambers across Perth calling for laws to protect wildlife from roaming cats.

He tells us these efforts are driven “deep in my core” by his concept of compassionate positive masculinity, a path he started down some 30 years ago.

“Once I got separated and divorced, I posed the question to myself, ‘Who the hell am I?’” Mr Dyke tells us.

“I didn’t really know who I was anymore.

Compassionate

“So I went down the pathway of personal development, and being involved in men’s groups, the WA Men’s Gathering, all sorts of different things where I delved deeper into myself to the person I want to be.”

He said at the first Tomorrow Man workshop, about 45 men came along and it was heartening to see them gradually open up. 

Along with more men’s workshops, he proposed there could also be workshops for women to understand men and men to understand women.

Bayswater’s councillors will now formally consider implementing a men’s health and wellbeing plan at an upcoming meeting.

by DAVID BELL

WITH the Barbie movie just days from release, toys are in the forefront of the popular consciousness, but for researcher DeeDee Noon toys are always on the mind.

“Toys really are us,” Ms Noon tells us ahead of the opening of her latest exhibition. 

A photographer and PhD candidate at ECU, Noon says a toy is also a lens, a way of seeing relationships between people, objects, and stories.

The exhibition, Toying with Photography: F-Stop Troop takes the lens metaphor a step further, putting cameras and photography into centre frame.

Using 3D printing, Ms Noon has shrunk down well-known Perth male photographers into tiny figurines, “toyifying” them and placing them in playsets not typically expected for male photographers.

Ms Noon’s research and artwork often questions what is a toy, and prompts people to question the line where a toy blurs into a miniature, a model, a doll, a figurine, a sculpture, or a statue. 

Cameras follow that gradient, too, from nonfunctioning play cameras given to kids, to “toy cameras” like the plastic and popular Holga, to high end gear sometimes still referred to by enthusiasts as their new “toy”.

Ms Noon observes that technologies often take advantage of that familiar gradient and the greys around what is a toy, as marketers and designers slot their product into the most palatable stage.

“Driverless cars are made to look chunky and cute to diminish fears around them,” Ms Noon says, and marketing of vaping devices has been “widely criticised for using toy-like appeal”.

Like people, toys change with the times, and amid her renewed wave of popularity Barbie offers a prime example.

There’s now six decades of Barbiemorphs, spanning 60s norms through to modern diverse representations of Barbies with different body shapes, or with disabilities, or wearing hijabs, or the 2022 transgender Barbie. Now Barbie can look like any of us.

“We are all Barbie now,” Ms Noon says.

The exhibition is at Shopfront Gallery, 149 Beaufort Street Perth, running July 18 to August 5. It’s open Tuesdays to Saturdays with artist talks daily, check gallerycentral.com.au for a schedule.

by DAVID BELL

Brickworks

THE extant Maylands Brickworks are well known, but this week the Maylands Historical and Peninsula Association hosts a talk delving into the lesser-known story of a much older brickworks operating on the river banks in the mid-1800s.

Researcher Bevan Carter has dug out the tale of a clay pit, pug mill, brick cutter and kiln run by Henry Gray, a colourful early figure involved in various 19th century stoushes in the newspapers and courts. 

Promising “a fascinating tale of controversy, violence and struggles”, the talk is Monday July 17 at the old dining room of the Old Peninsula Hotel, 7.15pm and it’s free entry with a cash raffle.

Common Ground

THE long-awaited and delayed East Perth Common Ground housing facility finally has a builder contracted, with ADCO Constructions lined up to deliver the $70 million development.

The project will have 112 self-contained apartments on the corner of Wellington and Hill Streets providing a mix of permanent housing for homeless people and low-income earners, plus integrated support services.

The Labor state government first announced Common Ground in 2019 and construction was meant to start in the 2021/22 financial year.

But the search for a tenderer to build it fell apart mid-2022 when no satisfactory contractor was found, and a second search was launched late 2022.

Construction’s now scheduled to start late 2023.

Not so snap

SNAP, send… someday solve? The new quick and easy ‘Snap Send Solve’ app to report minor problems to councils has been criticised for taking far longer than a phone call to get a response.

Noranda resident Harvey Tonkin told Bayswater councillors and staff at the July 10 AGM that he’d recently reported broken glass at a playground using the app.

He heard nothing back. At some point in the following days the situation was rectified, “but it was about five days later I received a response from a staff member advising that we’ve notified the staff in the particular department” that’d be responsible for removing the glass.

He said if he’d called them he’d have likely got a same day response, meaning the quick and simple ‘smart’ phone technology was outpaced by the more traditional use of the phone.

Bayswater CEO Jeremy Edwards pledged to look into it and see if they could speed up the tech/customer interface.

THIS week the City of Vincent Local History Centre continues the story of soccer in Vincent with a focus on the tumultuous post-war era.

IN the 1950s, the mass migration of post-war Europeans changed the face of soccer in Western Australia.

The number of metropolitan teams and divisions increased, and the players and spectators came from a more diverse range of migrant origins.  

The Daily News reported in 1953 that ‘New Australians’ had established 10 new teams in the WA Soccer Association competitions across several divisions.  

Other new teams representing migrant communities included the Windmills (Dutch), Kiev (Ukrainians), Athena (Greek), Pannonia (Hungarian), Sokol and Cracovia (Polish), Tricolore (Italian) and Azzurri (‘The Blues’) who started playing in 1948 at Dorrien Gardens in West Perth. 

Named after the Italian national soccer team whose traditional team colours were royal blue, Azzurri quickly became a powerhouse first division team.  

Soccer games were played on Saturdays at parks and ovals around Western Australia, including Dorrien Gardens and Woodville Reserve in North Perth. 

The new teams were praised for raising the standard of play with their soccer skills and dynamic style of play which attracted growing number of spectators. 

While soccer was gaining attention, it also sometimes attracted controversy.  

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, occasional altercations took place on and off the pitch involving the referees, spectators and players affiliated with so-called ‘New Australian’ teams.  

Tensions erupted most spectacularly at a game between Azzurri and North Perth in 1952 in what a local sportswriter described as “the most heated controversy soccer has known in WA‚Äù (The Daily News, 30 July 1952).  

The incident happened during a semi-final for the Charity Cup at Dorrien Gardens on 21 June 1952. 

Azzurri was leading 1-0 when North Perth goalkeeper Ken Day became “engaged in a fracas‚Äù with an Azzurri spectator who attacked him during play, forcing him to fight back in self-defence. 

Police removed the spectator and the referee sent Day off the field for fighting with the spectator. 

With no one in the goals during the final minutes of the game, Azzurri scored twice to win 3-1.  

North Perth lodged an official protest with the WA Soccer Association which over-ruled the referee’s decision and insisted the game be replayed.

This attracted criticism from local referees and soccer enthusiasts who believed it set a bad precedent for overruling referee decisions and was an unfair attack on ‘New Australians’.  

The game was replayed in September and resulted in a draw. It was then replayed again on neutral ground at Perth Oval on 4 October 1952.  

After months of simmering tensions, in front an unruly and brawling crowd of 5000 spectators, Azzurri beat North Perth 3-1 to take out the 1952 Charity Cup.  

Throughout the 1950s, rivalries continued between the various old and ‘New Australian’ teams with reports of hotly contested matches and sledging of players on all sides. 

Many of the new wave migrant teams and players argued that the WA Football Soccer Association were biased against them.  

Frustrations with the old-school administration of the game reached breaking point in 1960 when eight clubs (including Azzurri, Cracovia, Tricolore, Olympic, South Perth, Swan Athletic and Windmills) formed their own new semi-professional league with new administration under the Soccer Federation of Western Australia.  

From the late 1960s, the Soccer Federation of WA had their headquarters in Leederville underneath the grandstand at Lake Monger Velodrome (later called Litis Stadium).  

The Federation’s records from the 1970s show that it leased the pitch at Leederville to the School Girls Soccer group and the Women’s Soccer Association, ushering in a new era of soccer that included women.  

Learn about the origins and history of women’s soccer in WA in our next story.