Category: General News

COLES says it would employ more people at its two Albany stores if the city council allowed it to trade longer.

A spokesperson for the Wesfarmers-owned retailer said extending Albany’s shopping hours would give customers greater convenience.

“We believe deregulated shopping hours in Albany would benefit Coles customers and result in additional local employment opportunities across our two stores,” the spokesperson said.

“Coles welcomed the extended shop trading hours previously granted across various public holidays and the 2017/18 Christmas period.

“These extended hours were well received by our customers, providing them with greater convenience, choice and flexibility.”

Coles, along with Woolworths and potentially ALDI, are locked out of Sunday and late-night trading except for Thursday nights, while Albany’s three supermarkets in the national IGA network are permitted to trade on Sundays and every night of the week.

In response to questions from The Weekender, a spokesperson for Australian-owned Woolworths said the company “welcomes the general liberalisation of trading hours, as we believe it would provide our customers with greater choice and convenience”.

A spokesperson for German-owned ALDI – conspicuous by its absence from Albany given it has supermarkets in the regional centres of Australind, Bunbury, Busselton, Mandurah and Northam – said the company was “eager to bring our unique shopping experience to more Western Australians”.

“We are continually reviewing and updating our network plans and Albany has been recognised as a potential long-term future opportunity,” the spokesperson said.

“When deciding on locations for ALDI stores, trading hours are an important factor we take into consideration.

“It is our preference to be able to offer customers convenient shopping hours.”

Albany Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Caroline Hayes said her association had always supported every business’s right to trade whenever they like.

“We [cover] everything from your small, your micro businesses through to relatively large businesses,” she said of the Chamber’s membership base.

In July 2016, six city councillors – including current ones Paul Terry, Ray Hammond, Bill Hollingworth and Alison Goode – narrowly voted down a plan by city tourism development manager Matt Bird that in 2019 the council consider consulting the community on extended shopping hours.

The plan was rejected just six councillors to five, with recently defeated councillors Janelle Price and Nicolette Mulcahy the other two who opposed it.

Yesterday, Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington refused to comment on whether extended trading could help or hinder employment in his city, as he was the proprietor of a shop.

Subsequent efforts close to deadline to contact the only other person authorised to speak on behalf of the city, CEO Andrew Sharpe, were unsuccessful.

Owner of the York Street and Spencer Park IGAs Paul Lionetti declined to comment on potential employment impacts of liberalised trading hours.

North Road IGA proprietor Bob Cybula referred The Weekender to a spokesman who did not return calls.

Albany is the only place in the south-western corner of the continent where Coles and Woolworths are prohibited from trading on Sundays and most weeknights.

A CEMENT truck that caught fire while travelling from Mount Barker to Manjimup on Tuesday provided a timely reminder for passing motorists to observe Western Australia’s new slowdown law.

Officer in charge of Cranbrook police station Laurie Seton said the truck, owned by a Mount Barker company, was being driven to the firm’s Manjimup office along Muir Highway.

“The driver became aware of smoke coming from the rear of the truck, and she pulled over, stopped and tried to put the fire out but she wasn’t able to,” Sergeant Seton said.

“So two local bush fire brigades – from Rocky Gully, and Unicup, I think it was – put the fire out.”

Sgt Seton said Cranbrook cop shop received a call about the fire at 6.20am.

He said that while traffic at the scene – about 15km west of Rocky Gully – was sparse, observance by passing motorists of the slow-down law helped ensure a potentially dangerous situation did not escalate.

“The problem with the new slo-mo laws; they’re brilliant laws, but uptake on them has been very slow,” he added.

“Truckies are the best; with them we’ve probably got 60 to 70 per cent take-up on it, but everyone else, not nearly as good.

“We pull vehicles over on Albany Highway, and we’d be lucky if one in 20 slows down.”

Sgt Seton said delays to getting a heavy recovery vehicle to the site from Albany meant the truck was stranded on Muir Highway until about 11am.

He urged motorists seeing stationary emergency vehicles with emergency lights activated on their side of the carriageway to slow down to 40kph.

A PARLIAMENTARY recommendation that a FuelWatch-style website be set up to help consumers compare regional airfares has been accepted by the State Transport Minister and supported by the boss of a major Albany tourism attraction.

This week, Minister for Transport Rita Saffioti said the State either fully supported, or supported in principle, 12 recommendations by the Parliamentary Inquiry into Regional Airfares.

One of the supported recommendations – that the Department of Transport report to Ms Saffioti on the viability of a website to help consumers compare airfares to regional destinations – received the thumbs up from the General Manager of Albany’s Historic Whaling Station Elise van Gorp.

Ms van Gorp, who in August last year made a submission to the inquiry, told The Weekender a ‘Farewatch’ website could provide an easy point for visitors to check airfares to and from Albany at different times.

She said even though only one airline serviced Albany, the website could help tourists compare the cost of flying to Albany with travel costs to competing regional destinations.

“It could assist in promoting Albany as a destination, particularly if the cost of flying here stacked up favourably against other places,” she said.

“It could support visitors’ choices if they want to come to Albany. They might think: ‘Yay! We could go there for the weekend.’

“It might assist in raising their awareness of how easy it could be to arrange a getaway weekend, perhaps, where they hadn’t thought of it before.”

Ms Saffioti said the State would review each recommendation as part of an updated State Aviation Strategy she expected to be released in 2020.

A STAND-OFF between the State Government and Telstra over the location of a mobile phone tower at Salmon Holes is delaying implementation of a recent Coroner’s recommendation into improving mobile phone coverage at the treacherous rock fishing spot.

During her recent inquest into the 2015 death of rock fishermen Chunjun Li and Jiaolong Zhang at Salmon Holes, Deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker heard the area had emergency telephones, but mobile coverage was erratic.

Ms Vicker recommended that Telstra be asked to install a mobile phone tower at nearby Eclipse Island to service the area around Salmon Holes.

However, on Friday with Federal Communications Minister Mitch Fifield at Albany Town Hall, Federal Member for O’ Connor Rick Wilson said planning issues had complicated the delivery of six phone towers in and around the Great Southern, including one at Salmon Holes.

“There have been some issues with planning, but we are fighting to keep the towers for the promised sites,” he said.

Telstra Area General Manager Boyd Brown told The Weekender the giant telco had received funding under the Federal Mobile Black Spot Program to build a new base station at Salmon Holes.

He said an application to build on a chosen site at Salmon Holes had been refused by a State Government department.

Mr Brown said Eclipse Island would not deliver the best coverage and was not economically viable.

THE spot where Edmund Lockyer claimed the western third of the continent for England, a house owned by Regional Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan and the York Street HQ of the Albany Advertiser are among 48 places set to be inducted into Albany’s heritage hall of fame.

Senior city planner Tom Wenbourne has recommended that the “long overdue” additions to the list be approved when Albany councillors next convene on April 24.

A quirky but profoundly historic addition to the list is the non-descript spot on the road outside 11 Parade Street where in 1827 Major Edmund Lockyer raised the Union Jack to annexe the western third of the continent for Mother England.

CEO of the Albany Historical Society Andrew Eyden said he welcomed formal recognition of the site, for which his group had lobbied for many years.

“It’s been a bit of a disgrace, really,” Mr Eyden said of the spot currently marked by a rough yellow arrow and the word ‘flag’ spray-painted on the street surface.

The heritage survey lists the site as having “exceptional” heritage significance.

Considered to have “considerable” heritage value is the former police inspector’s quarters on Brunswick Road now owned by Ms MacTiernan.

The Victorian Georgian-style building was erected in 1885 and has long been associated with politicians – with one-time Albany councillor Dennis O’Keefe being the original owner and his son-in-law Andrew Cuddihy, who later became mayor, moving in after his wife Emily inherited the house.

Ms MacTiernan was contacted for comment on her stewardship of the historic property.

The heritage survey says the Albany Advertiser’s Federation Free Classical-style building on York Street, that it has occupied since 1897, is also of “considerable” significance as part of a diverse range of structures that form the city’s commercial and civic heart.

City of Albany Executive Director Development Services Paul Camins said property owners and the wider community were invited to suggest places that could be added to the list.

“The addition of 48 new places to the heritage survey is the result of the feedback we received from the community about the buildings and places that are important to them and that reflect Albany’s long and rich history,” he said.

Other notable places on the draft list are Albany Golf Course, Breaksea Island, the Albany Snake Run, remains of the Frenchman Bay Whaling Station, and virtually the whole of Stirling Terrace.

The list offers no statutory protection for the properties but will inform the imminent development of another list under Albany’s planning scheme that does.

IT’S HARD to believe Albany shutterbug Michelle Barnes has only been dabbling in photography for five years – her stunning image of a pair of roosting male blue banded bees was judged the best in show for South Coast Natural Resource Management’s recent Capture Nature Photography Competition.

The macro-photography enthusiast said she was thrilled to be awarded the top prize for the competition that celebrates the region’s natural environment.

Ms Barnes’ love of bugs shone through in her image that was captured with a relatively affordable digital SLR camera and 60mm macro lens.

“Blue banded bees are my favourite little bee. I just love bugs and I’ m right into macro photography,” she said.

Although Ms Barnes entered just one image in the competition that featured 147 entries, she remembers the particular shoot when she captured the bees settling in for the night.

“I probably took another 100 photos of them,” she said.

The local nursery worker said she was prompted to enter SCNRM’s competition because of its association with the environment.

“It’s nature and there’s nowhere better than down here,” she said.

SCNRM Regional Landcare Facilitator Sally Forbes said she was blown away by the diversity of subject matter and the quality of entrants.

“It shows the love and passion people have for their environment, the places they live, and the places they choose to visit,” she said.

“The competition plays an important part in the larger Landcare and natural resource management story and what can be found in our environment when you take the time to look.”

RANDOM inspections of businesses in Albany, Denmark and Manjimup by the Fair Work Ombudsman have found more than half to be in breach of fair work laws.

Of 147 businesses probed by the Fair Work Ombudsman in central Albany, Centennial Park, Denmark, Lockyer, Orana and Manjimup, 76, or 52 per cent of them, were in breach.

Among the 106 individual contraventions, 50 businesses were not paying workers correctly, while 40 firms breached record keeping and pay slip requirements.

Back payments totalling $47,379 to 147 workers were extracted from 28 Great Southern and South West enterprises.

Acting Fair Work Ombudsman Kristen Hannah said non-compliant firms were “now on notice”, and her agency would follow up to ensure breaches were rectified.

In one matter, inspectors assessed the wage records of a winery and learned three workers were being paid a flat hourly rate below the mini- mum set under the relevant award.

The winery workers received no additional penalty rates for weekend and public holiday work.

Inspectors calculated they were underpaid a total of $8,750.63.

The winery was slapped with a compliance notice and agreed to back pay the workers in full – the largest amount recovered from a single business in the Ombudsman’s sweep of the south of the State.

Ms Hannah said that there are no excuses for such errors.

“All employers in Australia must be aware of their obligations under Australia’s workplace laws,” she stressed.

“They have a responsibility to ensure they are doing the right thing by their workers.”

Inspection of an architectural firm found there were inconsistencies with its overtime records.

The business offered workers time off in lieu for overtime worked, but had not kept records of overtime accrued.

The firm told inspectors it took an informal approach to overtime records because it was a small business with good relationships between staff and management.

The firm was formally cautioned.

The Ombudsman’s report into the breaches revealed businesses belonging to an industry association had a 67 per cent compliance rate, compared to 41 per cent for those that did not, and also stated that firms with 15 or more workers had a 58 per cent compliance rate, while 45 per cent of smaller businesses were fully compliant.

According to the report, the Albany and Manjimup areas were selected for inspection partly because they had the lowest median incomes in Western Australia.

THE doors were opened to the Albany Tourism and Information Hub in time for the influx of Easter visitors on Friday, following a last-minute scurry to get it across the line.

With construction of the building taking just over a year to complete under the watchful eye of passers-by in the CBD, locals and tourists alike have been eager to inspect the new facility.

The Weekender was fortunate enough to get a sneak peek before the opening as the finishing touches were being applied to the state-of-the-art building.

Visitors can expect the latest in tourism technology right at their finger tips with touch screen kiosks to book accommodation, tours and to find out what’s happening in the region upon arrival.

One of the most innovative promotional tools, however, is a virtual reality experience that takes visitors to places that they just can’t get to in real life.

City of Albany Visitor Services Project Leader Hamish Fell said the VR experience was a different way of thinking about promoting the region.

“It took about a week to shoot all the footage we needed for the VR video,” he said.

“During the experience you go places where you wouldn’t be able to in real life.

“There’s a part where you go swimming with killer whales at the Bremer Canyon.

“No one has ever done a 360 degree film of killer whales before the technology only just came out and we used that for the film.”

Pedestrians along York Street will also be treated to a display, with the distinct upper-level windows fitted with special glass.

“Our windows are built with the capability to project images on to,” Mr Fell said.

“So we’ll be able to link up with social media and see what people are posting with links like #amazingsouthcoast and share the photos they’re taking.

“People are taking amazing photos and footage of the region and it will be great to share it with everyone.

“There’s nowhere else in Australia with this glass.”