Councillor calls for reimbursement of membership fee for alternate local government group - PerthNow

A clash erupted in the City of Nedlands council after a controversial councillor tried to get the city to reimburse membership fees for a group that the deputy mayor claimed was focused on “attacking staff”.

Cr Andrew Mangano — who has snatched headlines for his hardline anti-development stances including towards a children’s hospice — failed in his bid to have ratepayers reimburse councillors $60 for annual membership fees to the Local Government Elected Members Association.

The association started in 2019 - essentially in opposition to the WA Local Government Association which is supported by most local authorities - and its president is Town of Cambridge mayor Keri Shannon.

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Its website states it is “dedicated to supporting elected members achieve the best possible community outcomes”.

The group has recently claimed local government CEOs “are placed in serious conflict of interest situations” by the Local Government Act and complained that WALGA — the leading body representing mayors and councillors — is not audited by the WA Auditor.

Nedlands staff said the city was already a member of WALGA and paid an annual subscription of $20,403.48 plus $25,542 for annual subscriptions for procurement, council connect, employee relations, local laws and governance that provided “access to workshops and training, a large range of professional development for both elected members and city officers”.

Cr Mangano claimed the LGEMA provided services that WALGA did not.

“I don’t know what services WALGA does provide. We need an organisation that does advise us on governance issues,” he said.

“For $60 per year, it’s not much to ask.”

Deputy mayor Leo McManus blasted the proposal and lashed out at the LGEMA.

“If people want to join organisations they can spend their own money, not ratepayers’ money,” Cr McManus said.

“This is a mob of disaffected former parliamentarians and local government people mostly aimed against staff involved in local government.”

LGEMA deputy chair and former Cottesloe councillor Sandra Boulter said Cr McManus “has not had any interaction with LGEMA to my knowledge, so we are curious to know how he reached his erroneous generalised opinion”.

Cr Rebecca Coghlan said the LGEMA had approached her when she was elected in 2019 and “strongly recommended other councillors go”.

Cr Noel Youngman defended the group, saying “it isn’t just disaffected people, it’s councillors, mayors and lawyers who make it quite interesting”.

Cr Fergus Bennett said the organisation was a “resource for councillors” and “the best money spent in terms of a resource for councillors there is”.

“We are able to spend money much more than this by going to conferences and things like that. To have this resource for only $60, why wouldn’t we?” he said

Cr Rajah Senathirajah said he had “nothing against this organisation” but didn’t see why ratepayers should pay for it.

“I belong to organisations and I pay my own fees,” he said.

Cr Oliver Basson also opposed the reimbursement and said if the membership would make him a better councillor, he would pay for it himself.

The motion was rejected 6-7.

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Port Adelaide legend Robbie Gray signs with local Melbourne club for 2023 - SEN

Port Adelaide legend Robbie Gray has announced his next move after calling time on his AFL career last season.

While Gray will no longer feature at the top level, the 34-year-old will still continue playing with Eastern Football League club Doncaster.

Hailing from Melbourne, Gray joins the Sharks to play under club coach and lifelong friend Chris Annakis.

“The Doncaster Football Club is thrilled to announce the signing of Port Adelaide and AFL great, Robbie Gray," the club released via a statement.

“Robbie managed an impressive 271 games and 367 goals at Port Adelaide to go along with 4 All-Australians, AFLCA champion player of the year and 5 showdown medals just to name a few.

“We're excited to have Robbie involved and onboard at the Sharks. He and senior coach, Chris Annakis have been lifelong friends and have always wanted to play together one day. They're very much looking forward to taking the field together in 2023.”

After accepting a position in Port Adelaide’s list management department, Doncaster says Gray will play for them when his work commitments allow.

“Robbie has recently taken up a position in Port Adelaide's list management and recruiting team and when time permits between work commitments he is excited to represent the sharks,” the statement continued.

“Welcome Robbie and family.”

Gray played 16 games in 2022 for the Power, kicking 14 goals and averaging 14.2 disposals.

Photo: @DoncasterSharks Twitter.

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Port Adelaide legend Robbie Gray signs with local Melbourne club for 2023 - SEN
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Davey Street upgrade contract awarded to local business thanks to the Liberals' Buy Local Policy - Premier of Tasmania

20 November 2022

Michael Ferguson, Treasurer
Minister for Infrastructure and Transport

Davey Street upgrade contract awarded to local business thanks to the Liberals' Buy Local Policy

Important works will get underway in the coming weeks to complete the rebuilding of Davey Street between Antill Street and Molle Street, which will be carried out by local contractors.

The Tasmanian Liberal Government is supporting local businesses like DCS Civil, to create jobs and stimulate the economy around our great State.

A $4.6 million contract has been awarded to DCS Civil for the project, which will complete the second and final stage of these vital and long overdue works.

This includes relocating some services, strengthening structural weaknesses and restoring the road’s condition to improve ride quality and safety and reduce ongoing maintenance costs.

We took this road (together with Macquarie Street) from the Hobart City Council in very poor condition, in order to take firmer action to deal with traffic congestion in a coordinated and sensible way. Those measures are starting to work, but the actual surface and sub-surface has needed major improvement.

We understand how vital Davey Street is to the flow of Hobart’s overall traffic network and wants to deliver a safer and longer lasting Davey Street for all road users well into the future.

It also is just one of the many projects being delivered to improve the road network around Hobart, linking in with the Government’s Hobart City Deal – Southern Projects initiative, which will provide an end-to-end solution for people travelling between the CBD and Hobart’s southern suburbs.

Our Buy Local Policy enhances opportunities for local suppliers around Tasmania.

On 31 July 2020, we made a number of improvements to the Buy Local Policy to increase support for Tasmanian businesses and the community more broadly as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the September 2022 quarter, contracts awarded by agencies under an open procurement process were awarded to a Tasmanian business 91.7 per cent of the time, with a combined value of $655.2 million.

I’m also pleased to report that for all contracts awarded (not just by open procurement) in the 2021‑22 financial year, Tasmanian businesses were awarded 78.2 per cent of contracts valued at $50,000 or more with a total value of $1.4 billion.

And in the year to 30 September 2022, contracts awarded by agencies under an open procurement process were awarded to a Tasmanian business 87.7 per cent of the time, with a combined value of $1 billion which is great for Tasmania.

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Wherefore art thou Juliet? Indigenous star leads local rendition of hit Broadway show - Sydney Morning Herald

When Lorinda May Merrypor was nine years old she watched High School Musical for the first time, and it changed her life.

“It was the first time I remember watching a musical,” Merrypor says. “I vividly remember sitting there with my mum being like, ‘That’s what I’m going to do. I want to do that, where there’s singing and dancing and acting all the same time’. And so, I started singing lessons straightaway.”

Lorinda May Merrypor will play the lead role of Juliet in ‘& Juliet’ in Melbourne next year.Credit:Eugene Hyland

Four years later she, along with her entire school year group in Rockhampton, watched Shakespeare in Love, the Oscar-winning film depicting William Shakespeare’s turbulent love life while he was writing Romeo & Juliet.

The meta and historically loose take on Shakespeare’s life and work was Merrypor’s first experience of the play. So, what do you do when your defining creative experiences are High School Musical and Shakespeare? You get yourself cast as the lead in a self-referential, musical interpretation of one of the world’s most iconic love stories: & Juliet, which takes over Melbourne’s Regent Theatre next February courtesy of the Michael Cassel Group and the Victorian government’s major events fund.

An already accomplished 26-year-old musical theatre performer, Merrypor is equally excited about the opportunity to belt out her favourite pop songs as she is about playing the titular character.

“Never in a million years did I think I would be singing Britney Spears and Ariana Grande [on stage],” Merrypor, an Aboriginal and South Sea Islander woman, says.

“This show gives me the opportunity to be very different things: a popstar, but also a musical theatre performer. And then I also get to do Shakespeare. I get the opportunity to do these three amazing things that I’ve always wanted to do… at the same time.”

If you’re wondering what Britney and Ariana have to do with Shakespeare, well, welcome to the wonderful world of the Olivier-award winning & Juliet.

The musical was written by David West Read, an Emmy-award winning writer and producer of Schitt’s Creek, and imagines a scenario where Juliet doesn’t die at the end of the original play, and instead goes on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, liberated from the conservative norms of the time.

The real genesis of the production was the music of Max Martin, the prolific Swedish songwriter who has written or co-written 25 Billboard number one songs including ...Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry and Pink’s Raise Your Glass.

Martin’s back catalogue makes up & Juliet’s soundtrack, with some of the world’s most iconic pop songs used to both skewer and celebrate Shakespeare’s portrayal of Juliet and the story of the original play.

“I think …Baby One More Time is the one that I’m probably most excited for because of the way that it fits into the story and the arrangement that they’ve done,” Merrypor says. “It’s very dramatic. It’s almost like a ballad for Juliet.”

Merrypor graduated from the Queensland Conservatorium in 2016, and most recently performed in a touring production of The Sapphires. & Juliet will be her debut lead role, and she describes it as a “dream”.

“Every woman has this dream of being completely able to be herself in any circumstance and take control over the situations that she’s put in. So, it’s really exciting to get to tackle that. It’s something that I’m working towards in my personal life, having that agency.

“I think this show will be very inspirational to a lot of girls growing up”: Lorinda May Merrypor Credit:Eugene Hyland

“I feel like this is a role that I’m going to bring a lot of myself to, it feels very close to home and even throughout the audition process, I had a Zoom with Luke Sheppard, the director, and he was very much telling me, ‘Sing it as yourself, we want to hear Lorinda’. It’s amazing to be able to bring so much of myself to a role.”

“I met a wide range of folks,” says Sheppard, who directed & Juliet on London’s West End, Toronto and Broadway, as well as UK productions of Rent and In The Heights. “But from the moment Lorinda started singing ...Baby One More Time I just remember going like, yeah, that’s it.”

The casting of the & Juliet productions running in London and Broadway have been praised for their focus on diversity, but Sheppard says inclusivity on stage is a “constant journey” and the creative team aren’t the kind of people to pat themselves on the back when it comes to representation.”

“For me, it’s just as simple as representing the world that we live in today – and that’s why I was particularly excited to work with Michael Cassel Group, because I know that that’s something is incredibly important to them– as well as [having] an understanding that inclusivity and diversity does mean something different in each part of the world.”

The casting of an Indigenous woman as a lead in such high-profile production is still rare in Australian theatre, and something Merrypor has been thinking about since joining the production.

“If I got to go and see an Indigenous woman playing the lead in a musical I was watching as a teenager, yeah, I would absolutely cry. Because that representation would mean so much to me.

“I think this show will be very inspirational to a lot of girls growing up. Getting to have a role model like Juliet, who takes agency over her own life and story, it’s very inspirational.”

The author travelled to New York City to view the Broadway production of & Juliet. Flights and accommodation were courtesy of the Michael Cassel Group.

& Juliet debuts in February 2023 at The Regent Theatre in Melbourne. Tickets are on sale now.

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Wherefore art thou Juliet? Indigenous star leads local adaptation of hit Broadway show - Sydney Morning Herald

When Lorinda May Merrypor was nine years old she watched High School Musical for the first time, and it changed her life.

“It was the first time I remember watching a musical,” Merrypor says. “I vividly remember sitting there with my mum being like, ‘That’s what I’m going to do. I want to do that, where there’s singing and dancing and acting all the same time’. And so, I started singing lessons straightaway.”

Lorinda May Merrypor will play the lead role of Juliet in ‘& Juliet’ in Melbourne next year.Credit:Eugene Hyland

Four years later she, along with her entire school year group in Rockhampton, watched Shakespeare in Love, the Oscar-winning film depicting William Shakespeare’s turbulent love life while he was writing Romeo & Juliet.

The meta and historically loose take on Shakespeare’s life and work was Merrypor’s first experience of the play. So, what do you do when your defining creative experiences are High School Musical and Shakespeare? You get yourself cast as the lead in a self-referential, musical interpretation of one of the world’s most iconic love stories: & Juliet, which takes over Melbourne’s Regent Theatre next February courtesy of the Michael Cassel Group and the Victorian government’s major events fund.

An already accomplished 26-year-old musical theatre performer, Merrypor is equally excited about the opportunity to belt out her favourite pop songs as she is about playing the titular character.

“Never in a million years did I think I would be singing Britney Spears and Ariana Grande [on stage],” Merrypor, an Aboriginal and South Sea Islander woman, says.

“This show gives me the opportunity to be very different things: a popstar, but also a musical theatre performer. And then I also get to do Shakespeare. I get the opportunity to do these three amazing things that I’ve always wanted to do… at the same time.”

If you’re wondering what Britney and Ariana have to do with Shakespeare, well, welcome to the wonderful world of the Olivier-award winning & Juliet.

The musical was written by David West Read, an Emmy-award winning writer and producer of Schitt’s Creek, and imagines a scenario where Juliet doesn’t die at the end of the original play, and instead goes on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, liberated from the conservative norms of the time.

The real genesis of the production was the music of Max Martin, the prolific Swedish songwriter who has written or co-written 25 Billboard number one songs including ...Baby One More Time by Britney Spears, I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry and Pink’s Raise Your Glass.

Martin’s back catalogue makes up & Juliet’s soundtrack, with some of the world’s most iconic pop songs used to both skewer and celebrate Shakespeare’s portrayal of Juliet and the story of the original play.

“I think …Baby One More Time is the one that I’m probably most excited for because of the way that it fits into the story and the arrangement that they’ve done,” Merrypor says. “It’s very dramatic. It’s almost like a ballad for Juliet.”

Merrypor graduated from the Queensland Conservatorium in 2016, and most recently performed in a touring production of The Sapphires. & Juliet will be her debut lead role, and she describes it as a “dream”.

“Every woman has this dream of being completely able to be herself in any circumstance and take control over the situations that she’s put in. So, it’s really exciting to get to tackle that. It’s something that I’m working towards in my personal life, having that agency.

“I think this show will be very inspirational to a lot of girls growing up”: Lorinda May Merrypor Credit:Eugene Hyland

“I feel like this is a role that I’m going to bring a lot of myself to, it feels very close to home and even throughout the audition process, I had a Zoom with Luke Sheppard, the director, and he was very much telling me, ‘Sing it as yourself, we want to hear Lorinda’. It’s amazing to be able to bring so much of myself to a role.”

“I met a wide range of folks,” says Sheppard, who directed & Juliet on London’s West End, Toronto and Broadway, as well as UK productions of Rent and In The Heights. “But from the moment Lorinda started singing ...Baby One More Time I just remember going like, yeah, that’s it.”

The casting of the & Juliet productions running in London and Broadway have been praised for their focus on diversity, but Sheppard says inclusivity on stage is a “constant journey” and the creative team aren’t the kind of people to pat themselves on the back when it comes to representation.”

“For me, it’s just as simple as representing the world that we live in today – and that’s why I was particularly excited to work with Michael Cassel Group, because I know that that’s something is incredibly important to them– as well as [having] an understanding that inclusivity and diversity does mean something different in each part of the world.”

The casting of an Indigenous woman as a lead in such high-profile production is still rare in Australian theatre, and something Merrypor has been thinking about since joining the production.

“If I got to go and see an Indigenous woman playing the lead in a musical I was watching as a teenager, yeah, I would absolutely cry. Because that representation would mean so much to me.

“I think this show will be very inspirational to a lot of girls growing up. Getting to have a role model like Juliet, who takes agency over her own life and story, it’s very inspirational.”

The author travelled to New York City to view the Broadway production of & Juliet. Flights and accommodation were courtesy of the Michael Cassel Group.

& Juliet debuts in February 2023 at The Regent Theatre in Melbourne. Tickets are on sale now.

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Local support for foreign aid - Ballarat Times - Ballarat Times

THE local founder of a non-profit emergency service organisation is aiming to raise funds to provide community members of a Fijian village with defibrillator access and training.

Heroes Need Heroes founder and executive president, Michael Fawcett, said their latest initiative was inspired following the drowning death of a child outside Matacawalevu.

“We met the mother of the child during a visit to the Yasawa Islands a few weeks ago when we went to teach CPR. She wanted to raise funds for this,” he said.

“Currently, they don’t have access to emergency response equipment in the village where that child drowned so we want to purchase a couple AEDs to improve emergency accessibility for that area.

“That includes training students and teachers in CPR which they can hopefully take back to their villages as well.”

More than $1600 has been raised out of the fundraiser’s $5000 goal, accessible via a GoFundMe page.

Since its establishment, the organisation has donated more than $500,000 worth of emergency equipment and taught first aid and CPR training to more than 50,000 people in disadvantaged communities.

When not running the organisation, Mr Fawcett works as executive manager of emergency communications for ESTA’s Mount Helen site and has been a paramedic since 2006.

He said Heroes Need Heroes is “a proud achievement” for him.

“Every dollar goes to the frontline, and it’s good to know we’re making a small difference,” he said.

“We rely heavily on our home heroes. This is really about helping those first responders in the field.

“They need heroes too, and that’s us, many of whom are from Australia and donate towards the cause.”

The next Heroes Need Heroes initiative will be to raise $100,00 to rebuild a clinic in the Yasawa Islands.

To donate, visit bit.ly/3X5o1r2.

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Video: Local leaders and Africa's climate challenge - chinadialogue

Perched on a steep hillside overlooking Regent Village in Freetown is Mortomeh, a densely packed community that was once brimming with life. Behind this urban suburb of Sierra Leone’s capital stood lush green forest full of biodiversity. The view was breathtaking, but not any more.

On 14 August 2017, part of the hill collapsed, bringing down huge piles of earth and boulders on top of Mortomeh. Over 1,000 people lost their lives that morning, with thousands more displaced and millions of dollars worth of damage to property and infrastructure. Abnormally heavy rainfall was the main cause of the tragedy, echoing examples from across the world of the worsening impacts of extreme weather as global temperatures rise.

In Sierra Leone, the effects of climate change are already being felt through unusual rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and heatwaves. In the capital, the impact of these changes is aggravated by deforestation and poor urban planning, which increases the risk of flooding and landslides and reduces shade.

In 2017, a devastating landslide killed over 1,000 people on the outskirts of Freetown. The scar remains a painful reminder of the growing impacts of climate change in Sierra Leone. (Image: Abdul Samba Brima / China Dialogue)

In August this year, heavy rain again caused flash floods and landslides in parts of the city, killing dozens and displacing hundreds. According to USAID, flooding alone accounts for85% of disaster-related mortality in Sierra Leone, followed by landslides and storms.

High levels of rural to urban migration, driven in large part by the negative impacts of changing weather patterns on farming, is contributing to the growth of informal settlements and rates of deforestation around the city, exacerbating the risk of tragedies such as the 2017 landslide.  

Freetown’s population doubled over the last two decades, now standing at over 1.2 million and continuing to grow. Around 35% of the city’s population live in informal settlements. These sprawling communities are often built on reclaimed land and with substandard building materials.

In the face of these problems and the mounting impacts of climate change, Sierra Leone’s updated national climate plan (known as a nationally determined contribution, or NDC) estimates that the country will need to spend US$1.1 billion between 2021 and 2030 for adaptation needs alone.

Local leaders will be at the front line of planning and implementing the adaptation required.

Currently, 85% of funding towards climate action is going to the global north. That needs to change.

Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr

In 2020, Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr launched the “Transform Freetown” initiative, her flagship mayoral programme with 11 priority sectors, including environmental management and urban planning. As part of this, under the #Freetown-the-Treetown campaign, Aki-Sawyerr set out to increase vegetation cover around the city by 50% over two years. She hopes that by October next year, her target of planting 1 million trees will be achieved.

“A million trees in two years will not fix the climate challenge we face, but they will reduce the risks of landslides and flooding, [and] they will reintroduce biodiversity and protect our water catchments,” the mayor tells China Dialogue.

Mayor Aki-Sawyerr’s efforts to find solutions to this is just one example – governments and local leaders across the continent are stepping up to do the same. Last week at the UN climate conference in Egypt, a panel of elected representatives from across Africa highlighted the importance of action and engagement at the local level.

But local solutions will only go so far. As the continent hosts COP27 in Egypt, Africa’s position within the global climate crisis has come into sharp focus. What are the continent’s expectations and demands?

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Mayor Aki-Sawyerr notes that the flow of climate finance from the developed to the developing world will be key for Africa’s fight against climate change. According to the African Development Bank’s most recent economic outlook, the continent requires between US$118.2 billion and US$145.5 billion in climate finance per year up to 2030.

“Currently, 85% of funding towards climate action is going to the global north, and that needs to change, because there has to be equity and justice in the way we respond to climate,” she says.

Africa has contributed just 3% to cumulative global carbon emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In contrast, the US, Europe and China have contributed 25%, 22% and 12.7% respectively. Yet Africa is experiencing some of the most devastating impacts of the changing climate.

China Dialogue spoke with Mayor Aki-Sawyerr ahead of COP27.

Video filmed and edited by Abdul Samba Brima.

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