Follow our live coverage here.
Follow our live coverage here.
Good afternoon readers, and thanks for following along this week.
Have a great weekend – the weather looks nice and mild and there are plenty of ways to enjoy it, some of which I’ve rounded up for you below:
Perth’s new riverside market experience beneath the Bell Tower at Barrack Square starts this Sunday 7am-12pm and runs each Sunday until April 20. There’s free parking at Terrace Road car park 6am-6pm and more than 20 vendors serving breakfast, brunch, and “wellness offerings”.
Things are about to get hairy as beloved Perth children’s author James Foley tomorrow launches his latest book Bigfoot vs Yeti: A Love Story, published by Fremantle Press. Tickets for the launch event are closed now, but you’ll be able to snag a copy at any of Perth’s indie bookshops. More info here.
The 36th Alliance Francaise French Film Festival is also on this weekend at Luna Leederville, Luna on SX, Windsor Cinema and Palace Raine Square, with details on films, times and tickets here.
Goolugatup Heathcote in Applecross is presenting three exhibitions open 10am-4pm all weekend. In Fall Damage, two Fortnite-obsessed artists have made works by using the freely available video game assets, leveraging the personal agency that comes with building your own Fortnite worlds. In Relic, the first exhibition in the area’s new project space, 18 artists have crafted unique relics that reflect their personal experiences of grief and transcendence. And in partnership with RTRFM, more than 20 local artists are exhibiting at the gallery and auctioning their work to raise funds for the station. More info here.
Finally, Sunday’s free live music at Fremantle Arts Centre this week is the Chris Foster Trio from 2pm – 2.50pm and Quiet Country featuring Helen Shanahan from 3.10pm-4pm. More on that here.
However you choose to spend it, we hope you have a lovely weekend, and we’ll be back with a fresh live blog on Monday.
A dazzling after-dark event in Perth is calling for young creatives to light up the night with their art.
For the first time, Western Australian students will have the opportunity to showcase their artistic talent at Lightscape – the light and sound experience returning to Kings Park this winter
School students have been called on to submit their best painted or drawn pollinators, including the Honey Possum, Red Wattle Bird and the Blue-banded Bee, to be a part of the event’s Lantern Luminance display.
The lantern display joins more than 20 new installations along the 1.8 kilometre-long lights trail.
Director of the WA Botanic Garden Sue McDougall said bugs and birds were the unsung heroes of a happy and balanced environment.
“The botanic garden is uniquely Western Australian so having art pieces created from Perth’s home-grown community is so exciting for us,” she said.
“People can expect to see an even bigger and brighter trail this year full of light and sound displays capturing the best of the botanic garden.”
Submissions close on March 31, with selected pieces on showcase at Lightscape from June 13 to July 27.
Sorry for that headline, because realistically you would have to have already written your book by now to win this jackpot – one of the nation’s richest literary prizes and the only one exclusively for young West Australian writers.
The biennial Fogarty Literary Award has just opened for submissions, following patron The Fogarty Foundation announcing a further six years of support.
Now in its fourth iteration, the award has turbocharged the careers of winners Katherine Allum, Brooke Dunnell and Rebecca Higgie and led to the publication of 10 WA novels.
West Australian writers aged 18 to 35 are invited to submit their unpublished work of fiction, narrative non-fiction, young adult fiction or a verse novel to be in the running to win $20,000, a Fremantle Press publishing contract and book tour, and a fellowship with the Centre for Stories.
Entries open tomorrow and close April 18, and the winning book will be announced at a free community event in May and published in 2026
More details here.
In other bookish news, a new one-day literary festival has been announced for Sunday, April 6 at The University of Western Australia with the aim “to promote art and literature that celebrates equity, diversity and inclusivity.”
Perth Storyfest 2025 and will feature joint Barbara Jefferis Award winner Sarah M. Saleh, TAG Hungerford Award winner Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Dorothy Hewett Award winners Kaya Ortiz and Josephine Wilson and other established and emerging WA writers.
The Writers Collective event includes panel sessions, workshops, author conversations, readings, and book launches for an all-inclusive ticket price of $35 plus a booking fee.
More details here.
Turning to the courts now and Western Power has been fined $220,000 for the unsafe supply of electricity to a house that put “the entire neighbourhood at risk”, according to a magistrate.
In 2022, Western Power workers attended a Wundowie property where a private electrical contractor had installed a new consumer power pole and meter.
One worker noticed the meter had incorrect wiring, but they reconnected the electricity supply without reporting the fault.
Residents in a separate home received electric shocks while in the shower as a result.
At Perth Magistrates Court on March 7, Western Power pleaded guilty to two offences under WA’s electricity regulations following prosecution by Building and Energy.
The penalty is the largest fine against Western Power under laws that prohibit a network operator from supplying electricity to premises without ensuring it is safe to do so.
It follows seven prior convictions against Western Power for the same type of offence.
WA’s Director of Energy Safety Saj Abdoolakhan said it was “beyond belief” that the network operator connected the electricity supply when there was an obvious hazard.
“Someone could have paid the ultimate price for this serious breach, which clearly shows why electrical safety laws and requirements are in place,” he said.
The state’s biggest-ever ‘fatberg’ has just been pulled from a Water Corporation plant this week – weighing in at a whopping 30 tonnes.
The congealed mass included non-flushable products like wet wipes, paper towel and sanitary items, fats and grease.
It was removed over two days by an excavator from the Woodman Point Water Resource Recovery Facility in Munster – the biggest wastewater treatment plant in WA.
Non-flushable material causes blockages in the sewer network and clogs wastewater pumps, which can result in wastewater overflows.
The Water Corporation spent more than $1 million last year unclogging blockages from its sewer network and expects this figure to increase this year – costs ultimately borne by taxpayers.
A timely reminder to dispose of non-flushable items in a bin.
The state’s health department has sounded the alarm over a spike in cases of a gastro bug, urging anyone who has been sick with diarrhoea to avoid swimming pools and water parks for at least two weeks after they have recovered.
WA Health has recorded a “significant increase” in cryptosporidiosis, an illness caused by a microscopic parasite called cryptosporidium that leads to gastro symptoms, including diarrhoea, stomach cramping, fever, nausea and vomiting.
An average of 70 cases a week were notified in February, well above the summer average, according to the department.
Dr Michael Lindsay, the department’s executive director of environmental health, said the parasite could transfer to others if contaminated water was swallowed at a swimming pool.
“An infected person can pass on cryptosporidiosis to other people if they don’t wash their hands properly after going to the toilet,” he said.
“People may not realise they remain infectious for some time after diarrhoeal symptoms stop, so that’s why we’re asking people to avoid swimming for two weeks after their symptoms cease.”
The parasite is also not destroyed by regular chlorination, and can survive for long periods in water.
Younger children, pregnant women, and people with weakened immune systems are at risk of severe illness if they catch the bug.
Sticking with the press conference with the prime minister, and he has addressed the growing union movement happening at a Pilbara mine site.
The Western Mine Workers Alliance has claimed it has support from well over 400 workers from the Paraburdoo mining town on its side to force Rio Tinto to the bargaining table – a huge feat in a traditionally un-unionised industry.
One key organiser of that unionisation has come under fire from the WA premier for calling the prime minister “Albo Nazi” in an online post.
Albanese was asked about that comment and said it was “obviously an assessment I don’t agree with”.
“Unions, like employers, like everyone, should behave in a civil way, should obey the law,” he said.
When questioned over the unionisation itself, he said people had a right to join a union, and it was encouraged in a democracy.
“One of the things that my government has done is back workers wage increases so that we’ve had three increases in the minimum wage, we’ve seen real wages increase for five quarters in a row,” he said.
“I’m very proud of our economic management.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has backed the carve-up of GST funnelling extra money to WA, despite it being on track to reach $60 billion.
This masthead revealed before latest allocation of the $94 billion GST pot, the Morrison government-era arrangement to funnel extra money to WA is now on track to be 17 times more expensive than originally promised.
“We support the WA arrangements. I’ve been very clear about that, and it’s also clear and we provided advanced funding for no disadvantage,” he said.
“So we had that. So we are providing increased support for WA without any of the other states being a disadvantage because of the arrangements.
The Grants Commission are independent of government. They make their determinations independently. But as I said, we support two things.
“We support the deal for WA and we support no state being worse off because of that deal.”
A man has been bitten by a shark this morning near Yallingup, prompting a warning to be issued for swimmers in the area.
But don’t worry – after some awful news this week from Esperance, this attack was much less severe.
Around 6.45am a man was bitten by a one-metre long wobbegong at The Lagoon.
The incident was reported to Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development three hours later.
Officers, along with staff from other agencies, will continue to monitor the situation.
Swimmers are advised to take additional caution in the area and adhere to any beach closures.
Stay informed by checking for shark activity on the SharkSmart website.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hit back at a suggestion from a journalist people were “abandoning” the major parties in the lead up to the federal election, using WA Labor’s results in the state election as an example.
“Are our voters abandoning the major parties?,” he was asked at a press conference at Curtin University on Friday.
“WA, the Labor Party has just won 46 seats at least out of 59, and I get a question saying ‘are they abandoning the major (parties)’,” Albanese responded.
“Looks to me like they’re supporting the Australian Labor Party. That’s what it looks like to me. I don’t know how anyone else sees it, but I reckon it looks like a pretty good result for Roger Cook.
“There are two opposition parties here, the Liberals and the Nationals. They don’t seem to like each other and they don’t seem to like each other within the Liberal Party as well.
“It’s pretty amazing that you had a leadership coup among the rump that was left of the Liberal Party during the last term. I’ll allow them to keep fighting each other.”
Despite Labor’s landslide win, Perth metropolitan seats did see a swing towards minor parties, most notably to the Greens and teal-style Independents.
Albanese addressed the unfolding situation in the seat of Fremantle – a tight race between Labor’s Simone McGurk and Independent candidate Kate Hulett.
While it is yet to be officially called, Albanese said it looked like McGurk would retain it.