2019-03-06
By Hon. Alison Xamon, MLC, Member for North Metropolitan Region
The first weeks of the 2019 parliamentary year have been jam packed with legislation, protests, speeches, committee work and parliamentary questions. On the first day back I joined protestors on the steps of parliament to let the Government know that we are STILL opposed to fracking.
The passage of the Gender Reassignment Amendment Bill was a great way to begin the year and represents another important step towards true equality for the WA LGBTIQ community - and not before time. We must continue to work towards dismantling ALL legal barriers that have prevented the LGBTIQ community from having the same rights as other Western Australians.
The incredibly disappointing saga of the Shenton Park Rehabilitation Hospital site provided yet another recent example of how flawed the planning process is. Despite the community’s committed campaign to save the ecological linkage between Underwood Avenue and Shenton Park Bush Forever sites, greed won and the environment lost.
Despite this, local planning issues remain a key focus for my office. We continue to work on how we should deal with the seemingly endless expansion of urbanisation along the northern coastline. Perth continues to see new developments created by simply clearing large areas of bushland, dividing it up into small blocks and then building a single house on each block. This leads to seas of roofs, a loss of local biodiversity and all the challenges with heat, soil quality and amenity that losing tree canopy brings.
The Government has finally gazetted the first part of Design WA, which establishes a set of design principles for the built environment (State Planning Policy 7.0) and the new policy for new apartment buildings which will replace Part 6 of the R codes. In September last year the Government advised that the draft policies for precinct design and medium density should be available for public consultation early in the New Year. We have yet to see those documents.
Design WA makes an attempt to ensure that new apartment buildings will be required to provide trees and space for large mature trees as part of the landscaping and liveability requirements. Which helps, but by no means addresses all the sources of canopy loss as a result of infill.
I have presented a number of petitions on behalf of community groups affected by infill proposals and local planning scheme changes that fail to properly address community concerns about amenity, bushland and canopy retention. I have no doubt that this will continue to be an issue for communities facing infill pressures with insufficient safeguards for treasured aspects of neighbourhood and lifestyle, including our precious urban forest and urban bushlands.
Last month the Coroner released a report into the deaths of 13 children and young persons in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Tragically, the Coroner found that 12 of these 13 deaths were as a result of suicide. It was truly heartbreaking to read of the circumstances leading up to each of these deaths.
Government must provide long term funding for WA suicide prevention services and ensure access to culturally appropriate mental health services, while also addressing the findings from the Coroner relating to physical health, and to the underlying social determinants of ill-health. These children were clearly loved and their deaths, which were preventable, have had a profound impact on their families and communities. There are no simple answers but I am committed to doing my part to ensure that the Government takes heed of these recommendations and have already done a number of speeches in Parliament on the report.
I recently attended the launch of ‘Gender Equity Insights 2019-Breaking through the glass ceiling’ published by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre. This important report provides the latest pay equity data and modelling for Australian workplaces. While the report demonstrates that there have been some welcome improvements – women are now progressing into management at a faster rate than men – it is very disheartening to learn that some sectors (Rental Hiring and Real Estate) still have gender pay gaps of over 35%. Distressingly, the report predicts that it will be another 80 years until we see an equal number of women in CEO positions.
I spoke at a rally remembering Aiia Maasware, the young Palestinian woman murdered and raped in Melbourne. One woman is violently murdered approximately every 4.7 days in Australia. According to the Counting Dead Women Australia project, by 19 February 2019 eight women had already lost their lives this year due to violence. The seriousness of this issue cannot be overstated. It is a national crisis that urgently needs to be addressed. I will continue to call on the state government to do more to ensure this work including the prevention of family and domestic violence, and the provision of safe refuges for victims, is a priority.
Header photo: At the Remembering Aiia Maasarwe rally. Photo credit Marziya Mohammedali.
Text photo: With Libby Lyons, Director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency at the launch of Gender Equity Insights 2019. From Alison’s phone.