Author: Ashleigh Fielding

A KOJONUP worker has had his car seized and received a second date with a Katanning magistrate after allegedly driving to Kojonup police station on Tuesday to check an initial court date after he was charged with drink driving and served with a disqualification notice.

New officer in charge at Kojonup cop shop Rik Lok told The Weekender that, like him, the man was new to town but working in Kojonup.

Sgt Lok said the man allegedly parked across the road from the police station behind some buildings.

Asked how the man was nabbed, Sgt Lok said “our public is very helpful”.

He advised anyone else thinking of driving while disqualified to think again.

“It gets expensive, because you lose your car,” he said.

“It gets seized, so he’s lost his car for a period of time.

“It’s gonna cost him money and all those flow-on things for a moment of stupidity.”

On Monday, Sgt Lok took over from Sgt Phil Cartledge, who is the new officer in charge of Rottnest Island.

Sgt Lok has come across from Augusta.

“I’ve looked for the ocean around Kojonup but I can’t find it,” he quipped.

SOME drongo has vandalised a sign erected by an octogenarian to commemorate the recently heritage listed spot where his long-gone relative Major Edmund Lockyer raised a flag to claim Frederickstown, later known as Albany, as part of the British Empire.

Colin Lockyer, 81, is three generations removed from his well-known relative, who has a well-known Albany suburb and a well-known Albany avenue named after him.

“I got a call on Sunday morning from the householders of the home here to tell me the plaque that I’d put up has been pulled out, thrown on on the footpath and smashed,” Mr Lockyer said at Parade Street on Monday.

“I came ‘round and saw them and ended up having a lovely cup of coffee with them.

“They are very friendly, and very nice people.”

The framed commemorative information the vandals had so brazenly smashed had only been in place for four months.

The Weekender recently revealed that the site where the flag was raised has now been added to the City of Albany’s heritage list (Heritage list swells by 48, April 12).

“I think that the people of Albany really need to know that this relative of mine, three generations before me, gave the whole western part of Australia to King George IV,” Mr Lockyer said.

“He proclaimed Frederickstown for King and Crown.

“And we’re so proud of that.”

Mr Lockyer said that until his sign went up, a green lectern erected some time before by the city was “in a very poor state”.

“Those two screws, we had to put in because this had fallen off,” he said.

He said the hole where Major Lockyer raised a flagpole still existed, beneath a yellow cap on the road beside the lectern.

“This is a very valuable tourist site and people come here and find something that can’t explain what went on,” he said.

“I’ve done, in layman’s terms, the best I can do to make it a bit more understanding, then we find out that some vandals have come along and ripped this out and smashed it.

“It’s just a bit devastating.”

But heritage buffs never say die.

“I’ll go down to Red Dot and get another A3 frame and cut out another picture, and put it back into place, and screw it up and try to replace this flag that’s gone,” Mr Lockyer said.

A REPORT commissioned by the City of Albany on whether local Noongar people support water skiing on Lake Mullocullup east of Albany reveals the “root of discord” between some Noongars and the City over the matter is their lack of a say early in the decision-making process.

In his 27-page report, anthropologist Myles Mitchell advises that “feelings of humiliation and anger” resulted, leading to “a less constructive conversation”.

“Whatever the final decision, some Noongar community members who are passionate about this place feel that they had to agitate for their position to be heard, rather than being engaged in a constructive dialogue from an early stage,” Dr Mitchell reported.

“It should be noted that not all Noongar community members shared these concerns.

“Nonetheless, consideration for improved processes in future is provided here.”

The report notes that at a recent meeting with Noongar people at the lake, chief City engineer Matthew Thomson conceded the City did not do well on its initial consultation.

Asked by The Weekender how his organisation intended to right things, City CEO Andrew Sharpe said Dr Mitchell’s report had “given us valuable feedback”, and would help the council decide whether to recommend that the Department of Transport approve water skiing at the lake.

“We respect the cultural significance of Lake Mullocullup to the local Noongar people and, learning from our experiences, are striving to not only improve our consultation with them regarding the lake, but also to employ better practice into the future,” Mr Sharpe said.

“The independent consultant’s report is part of a more rigorous process council has resolved to undertake to consult the Noongar community about the recreational use of Lake Mullocullup.

“We are now waiting on the outcome of an assessment by the Department of Land and Heritage in relation to the registration of Aboriginal sites at the lake before preparing a further report for council.”

Carol Pettersen, a former Albany city councillor whose Noongar mother was born beside the lake in 1917, told The Weekender she had lodged papers with the State to have the lake listed as an Aboriginal heritage site.

Mrs Pettersen anticipates the listing process will take about three months.

Image: Carol Pettersen has lodged papers to have the lake listed as an Aboriginal heritage site. Photo: Chris Thomson