‘Tree man’ to come down soon

Tree man Richard Pennicuik will come down from his tree, but not today.                                                                                                                           

He said this morning it was his “intent to come down” but he now needed to work out “the best course of action” for how to do it.

Mr Pennicuik said he was up until 4am with friends and family discussing what to do.

“What we’re looking to do is we’re looking to get down and we’re going to pursue it in the right direction to get down and that’s going to take us a little while,” he said.

“I’m not going to come down when people tell me.

“I’m going to come down when I want, I’m going to come down on my terms.

“I can’t come down looking like an idiot.”

Mr Pennicuik said yesterday that he needed “time” to think and talk to his friends and family after receiving legal advice that he should come down from a tree he has called home for three months.

Following a brief telephone conversation just after noon with his lawyer John Hammond, who called him from a neighbour’s house, Mr Pennicuik looked down at the gathered media pack yesterday to declare he was staying put.

But this morning he said: “It’s my every intent to come down.”

Whether it happens or not is another thing but that is my intent.”

Mr Hammond advised his client to come down after he received a letter from the City of Gosnells warning Mr Pennicuik could be fined $5000 fine and $500 for every subsequent day he stayed up.

Mr Pennicuik said this morning discussions last night focused on a track “that was completely wrong” but he would not say what that was. He said it was later ruled out.

Early yesterday speculation was growing that Mr Pennicuik would end his now 94-day protest.

But following the conversation with Mr Hammond, Mr Pennicuik said he did not want the council to make an example of him if he came down.

He said he was prepared to go to jail – a possibility if he failed to pay any fines – over his environmental crusade. He said he was also told his house could be seized.

Mr Pennicuik admitted he could not afford the cost of the fines, but insisted: “I can stay up here for the next 20 years.”

He said the council had reneged on a three-month moratorium to take no action.

But the council has said Mr Pennicuik shifted the goal posts when he made new demands for other trees to be spared and a barrier to be erected around the tree outside his house.

The council has maintained the eucalyptus melliodora has a history of being dangerous.

Gosnells mayor Olwen Searle said yesterday she was disappointed Mr Pennicuik had not taken his lawyer’s advice.

She said the council intended to visit him and ask him formally to come down, though she would not say when or give a timeframe for cutting down the tree.

Anyprosecution would be determined in the courts.

“All the council has ever endeavoured to do is to get Richard to come out of the tree and talk to us and we have given him every opportunity,” she said.

Mr Hammond said it was up to Mr Pennicuik whether to heed his advice.

“He is facing prosecution by the City of Gosnells, so Richard needs to make a call on that,” he said.

“If Richard wants to remain in the tree he can but there’s going to be legal consequences in doing that.”

Mr Pennicuik was already forced to remove a tree house in January and had an application to the Heritage Council rejected. 

“All the council has ever endeavoured to do is to get Richard to come out of the tree and talk to us and we have given him every opportunity,” she said.

Mr Hammond said it was up to Mr Pennicuik whether to heed his advice.

“He is facing prosecution by the City of Gosnells, so Richard needs to make a call on that,” he said.

“If Richard wants to remain in the tree he can but there’s going to be legal consequences in doing that.”

Mr Pennicuik was already forced to remove a tree house in January and had an application to the Heritage Council rejected.

Source  :  www.thewest.com.au

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Sunshine Coast family faces deportation

JANNIE and Amanda Klue, their eyes wide with desperation, are staring at two distinctly different futures.

One future embodies the Australian dream: running their own business, living in their own house, building community ties and watching their two children, Jan-Sari, 9, and Pieter-Nick, 6, flourish in an environment that is far removed from their homeland.

The Klues have been living that dream since migrating to the Sunshine Coast from South Africa 22 months ago.

The other future is a bleak one: a barb wire-fenced home with security cameras, guard dogs and streets deemed too unsafe for their children.

The Klues lived that nightmare in South Africa. And now they have been told they must return to it.

Having sold everything before moving to Australian on Christmas Day, 2007, the family must leave the country after their application for a state-sponsored business-owner visa has been rejected.

On Monday, the Klues learned they have until October 19 to get out of the country after they received two-week bridging visas.

In a bid to stave off deportation. Jan-Sari wrote a letter to Anna Bligh this week, in which she pleaded with the premier to help her family.

“We don’t want to leave Australia,” she wrote. 

“My mum and dad has (sic) come to Australia for my brother and my future.”

Mr Klue said on Friday that he had bought a business – Middy’s grocery store at Buderim – as required under the business-owner visa and had ticked every other box, bar one.

He said he couldn’t sufficiently prove to immigration officials that one of the two money-lending businesses he had owned in South Africa was actually his and, as a result, the family didn’t meet the visa’s minimum-assets requirement.

“I thought everything would work out,” Mr Klue said.

“I’m not a fugitive or a criminal … they will show discretion and let commonsense prevail.”

Fighting tears, Mrs Klue described the situation as “unreal”.

“It shouldn’t have come to this,” she said.

Mrs Klue said her children were well-established at Buderim Mountain Primary School and the family now considered themselves Aussies.

An immigration spokeswoman said the Klues simply didn’t meet the criteria for a state-sponsored business-owner visa, and then failed to lodge their appeal against the ruling on time.

She said applicants must show they owned and directly managed a business with a turnover of at least $300,000 for two of the past four fiscal years, or had a successful record as a senior manager.

“Entering Australia on a temporary visa does not mean you have an ongoing right to remain in Australia,” she said.

A spokesman for Ms Bligh said while immigration was a federal government matter, state officials were talking to immigration officials about the Klues’ case.

Source  :  http://www.finda.com.au/story/2009/10/10/sunshine-coast-family-faces-deportation/

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Perth resort restaurant named and shamed

A Swan Valley tourist resort is the latest outlet to be named and shamed on WA’s ever-growing filthy restaurant register.

The Swan Valley Oasis Restaurant and Function Centre at Henley Brook is the 46th eatery to be so exposed on the ‘Notifications of Convictions’ list published by the the WA Health Department.

As revealed first on WAtoday, the venue was fined $8,750, and ordered to pay $1571.70 in costs, for hygiene breaches including:               

– allowing vermin into the restaurant;
– exposing food to possible contamination; and
– failing to ensure the premises and appliances were clean.

The restaurant is part of the Swan Valley Oasis Resort, which also boasts a golf course and boutique brewery.

The eatery serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, and is a popular wedding reception venue.

Testimonials on the venue’s website include one from Helen, of Hong Kong.

“Clean, relaxed and family-friendly – really pleased to have found a nice, reasonably-priced place to stay before heading out of Perth,” Helen wrote.

According to the website, Rebecca, of Paynes Find, was “pleasantly surprised by the quality of the meals and service”.  Samantha, of Albany, found the venue “very clean and neat” and said she would “definitely be back”.

Since September 2006, the 46 prosecuted food outlets have together been fined in excess of $170,000.

However, this might only be the thin edge of the potato wedge, because it is not compulsory for local authorities to report breaches to the government.

Hence, only hygiene breaches in 11 of WA’s 139 local authorities appear on the government’s dirt list.

After WAtoday.com.au exposed the initial 41 list inductees in January, Health Minister Kim Hames rejected a call by consumer group Choice to post hygiene ratings on restaurant doors.

Mr Hames said that hygeine breaches from every local council would be added to the list when mandatory reporting was introduced under a new Food Act that is being drafted.

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New Smiths Beach plan ready for council

The controversial Smiths Beach tourism development in Yallingup, which has been dogged by scandal in its 10-year history, is set to enter the spotlight again with new plans to be released today.
  
Shire of Busselton planners will release a report on yet-to-be revealed modified plans for the Smiths Beach project, after rejecting previous proposals.   
  
Councillors will debate the plan next Monday.
  
The new plan will be released just days before developer Canal Rocks and the Shire of Busselton go before the State Administrative Tribunal on June 11 for a 12-day hearing into the multi-million dollar development.
  
Canal Rocks wants to build 272 tourist units, 104 homes, two 50-bed hotels, a 60-bed backpacker lodge and about 50 camping sites on 21ha at the southern end of Smiths Beach. 
   
Busselton shire rejected a modified proposal to the plan last December.
  
The Environmental Protection Authority rejected the project in April and said it would affect views of the coastline.
  
But EPA chairman Paul Vogel said a smaller development might be acceptable.
  
Canal Rocks would not comment on the new proposal.
  
The developer has never commented on the EPA’s rejection of its plan. 

 Source : www.thewest.com.au

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Daylight Saving Result

The votes have been counted and WA has again rejected daylight saving.

For the fourth time in 34 years West Australians gave daylight saving the thumbs down.   West Australians have rejected daylight saving in what will be the final referendum during the Barnett Government’s  power.

Results showing No vote has a lead – 531,786 votes against daylight saving compared to 426,531 for Yes to save  daylight saving. 

Premier Colin Barnett post an early vote  placing a ‘Yes’ on his ballot paper, although he said a ‘Yes’ vote was unlikely to win.

Mr Barnett described the poll as a lifestyle issue and said whatever the outcome it would not really effect people’s lives.

The Yes cause fared best in northern coastal suburbs such as Joondalup, Mindarie, Ocean Reef and Hillarys.

In WA’s agricultural region the no vote had a massive 83.84 per cent of the vote.

Three per cent of WA voters were undecided.

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Saturday’s daylight saving referendum : May 16th 2009

WEST Australians have been urged to read Saturday’s daylight saving referendum question and instructions on how to vote carefully after No campaigners claimed ballot papers were biased.

Voters are instructed to write Yes or No in response to the question asking whether WA should have daylight saving, but the WA Electoral Commission confirmed that a tick could be counted as a Yes vote while a cross would be ruled invalid.

Premier Colin Barnett, who will vote against daylight saving, urged voters to read the ballot paper carefully.

He also told 6PR Radio this moreferendum werrning that West Australians should not allow politicians to come up with questions for future referendums.

Electoral Commissioner Warwick Gately rejected accusations the referendum was being manipulated, saying legal principles that applied at the 1992 daylight saving e being applied.

www.inthecommunity.com.au

 

 

 

 

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