As it happened: WA news on Monday, May 19

We’re bringing our live blog to a close for today. Here is a wrap up of the top stories:

• The Combat Sports Commission is mulling a decision to allow the world’s biggest bare-knuckle boxing organisation, partially owned by UFC fighter Conor McGregor, to stage a major fight in Perth next month.
• Housing Minister John Carey has moved to assure Inglewood residents his department is taking the issue of crime at a trouble-plagued social housing complex seriously.
• A Perth man has been accused of keeping more than 100 dogs at an unattended property in Canning Vale in an alleged puppy farm operation.
• The mental health charity that former Eagles player Adam Selwood embraced has offered to work with the former AFL player’s family to ensure the legacy he wanted will be realised.
• Mineral Resources Limited appointed Malcolm Bundey has its new chair of the board.
• And the iconic Leeewin tall ship, destroyed by a container ship nine months ago, departed Fremantle Port today as it marked a major milestone in its repair journey.

We’ll see you back here bright and early tomorrow with the next live news coverage.

Housing Minister John Carey has moved to assure Inglewood residents his department is taking the issue of crime at a trouble-plagued social housing complex seriously.

The block of 24 apartments on Ninth Avenue in Inglewood was purchased by the state government and turned into social housing last year.

157 Ninth Avenue Inglewood.Credit: Google Maps

Residents say there have been more than 300 police callouts since the complex opened and police arrested a 28-year-old man last week after he allegedly smashed a window of one of the units last Tuesday.

Carey revealed the Department of Communities had been issuing banning notices which allowed police to charge anyone on the Ninth Avenue premises who was subject of a ban.

He said the department had also banned liquor consumption in common areas and they were looking at improving CCTV in the complex.

“I do want to say this, we do take it seriously,” Carey said.

“We are working on a number of fronts, I cannot speak about the individual tenants, but the Department of Communities is taking action, but it must follow due legal process because if we don’t, then we risk an eviction failing.”

To state politics now and the sod has just been turned on the $150.3 million redevelopment of the Perth Concert Hall, but it was another project less than a kilometre away that became the talk of the press conference.

Well, it was actually a pile of rubble that was turned by Premier Roger Cook, Arts Minister Simone McGurk and City of Perth chief executive Michelle Reynolds.

McGurk said the concert hall redevelopment is still expected to be completed by 2028.

But questions soon moved to the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Centre project on the site of the nearby Perth Terrace Road car park.

The project was first announced by former Premier Mark McGowan, but there has been very little public movement since then.

It will be partly funded with money donated by mining and gas companies to the Resources Community Investment Initiative.

McGurk said the project remained on track for completion in 2030.

“As you can appreciate with the cultural centre, it has sensitivity because we want to include representation from all the language groups that are represented around our state and that’s meant a significant amount of consultation and teamwork,” she said.

McGurk said the project would be priced up after they have a better idea on the design.

McGurk said the state was “only limited by our imaginations”... and money.

“It’s not an open checkbook but of course, we want to be ambitious in this project,” she said.

A hazardous materials alert has been issued for the Great Eastern Highway just east of Hines Hill after a truck carrying chemicals lost its load this afternoon.

A three-kilometre exclusion zone has been set up as the Merredin Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service mop up the scene.

The incident was reported just before 1pm.

A Perth man has been accused of keeping more than 100 dogs at an unattended property in Canning Vale in an alleged puppy farm operation.

The RSPCA WA received a cruelty report from the City of Canning about the property in December, with council rangers advising there were a large number of dogs roaming outside the property, two which had been taken away for urgent vet attention.

When inspectors attended, they found two cocker spaniels inside the house, one pregnant, and a build up of dog faeces. There was no furniture inside and no one appeared to live at the address.

In the backyard, inspectors allegedly found multiple kennel blocks housing a range of puppies and adult dogs including golden retriever x poodles, golden retrievers, corgis, french bulldogs, cocker spaniels and other mixed breeds.

Some of the dogs had severely matted and overgrown coats and others appeared fearful of inspectors.

The owner allegedly refused to take the dogs to the vet, forcing RSPCA WA staff to seize 92 of them last month, which in total, eventually led to 117 once more puppies were born.

A 40-year-old man has been charged with 36 counts of animal cruelty and will appear in Armadale Magistrates Court next month.

After being bombarded with hundreds of public submissions, the state’s Environmental Protection Authority will conduct a public environmental review regarding the proposed massive expansion of Talison’s Greenbushes lithium operation, already one of the world’s biggest, with eight weeks of community consultation.

The Greenbushes mine is owned jointly by IGO, China’s Tianqi and Albemarle.Credit: Getty

Last month the global miner, the cause of recent controversy over the dust, noise and light of its existing operation, referred a proposal to the EPA to increase production at the mine 250 kilometres south of Perth, including constructing “waste rock landforms”, realigning roads and corridors, developing stockpiles and expanding dams.

EPA Chair Darren Walsh said the mine had operated for 30 years, but this expansion would increase its footprint more than 25 per cent, clearing up to 541 hectares of native vegetation.

He said other potential significant effects included dust, noise, light, vibration, traffic, permanent changes to visual amenity and pressures on local services.

“The EPA also acknowledges the significant community interest in this project,” he said.

“When we published this referral for a seven-day public comment period nearly 95 per cent
of the 364 submissions received were calling for an assessment.”

The EPA will now prepare a scoping document for the environmental review to occur mid-2026.More information on the proposal is here.

Greenbushes is co-owned by Tianqi, IGO and Albemarle and operated by Talison.

Italian soccer team AC Milan will return to Perth this winter for an Australian-exclusive showdown against Perth Glory at HBF Park on July 31.

The friendly will be the only match played in Australia by AC Milan this year, with thousands of fans expected to travel to Perth to see the team play.

AC Milan’s Tammy Abraham celebrates after scoring the opening goal during an Italian Cup quarterfinal soccer match between AC Milan and Roma at the San Siro stadium, in Milan, Italy.Credit: AP

Supported by the WA government, the match comes off the back of AC Milan’s blockbuster game against AS Roma at Optus Stadium in May 2024, which drew 7,500 people from interstate and overseas, injecting nearly $9 million into the economy.

Mineral Resources Limited has appointed Malcolm Bundey has its new chair of the board.

Currently the deputy chair of Brickworks, Bundey has been selected to rebuild the depleted board following an off-shore tax scandal.

 Malcolm Bundey

In an ASX announcement this morning, the mining company confirmed Bundey will immediately become a non-executive director and will then succeed outgoing chair James McClements on July 1.

MinRes board nominations committee chair Zimi Meka said Bundey was a standout candidate following an extensive international search.

“He brings a multidimensional background in finance, corporate restructuring, general management and M&A, with broad geographic experience as both a previous CEO and current NED in complex private and ASX listed businesses,” he said.

In case you missed it, an off-duty police officer has won the race to find a meteorite that lit up the skies over southern Western Australia last weekend, dubbed the Mother’s Day meteorite.

Marcus Scott drove for two hours and trekked over a salt lake just east of Norseman to discover the tennis ball-sized space rock over the weekend.

He said the presence of a plane above him helped him know he was in the right place, with a team of scientists from Curtin University’s Desert Fireball Network already honing in on the fireball’s location from the sky.

The group mapped the meteorite’s trajectory and estimated the impact point as being about 460 kilometres east of Perth in the Goldfields.

The iconic Leeewin tall ship, destroyed by a container ship nine months ago, will depart Fremantle Port today as it marks a major milestone in its repair journey.

The sailing vessel was crushed by a 332-metre ship as the larger vessel came into port in August, leaving the Leeuwin de-masted.

But Leeuwin chief executive Lawson Dixon told 9 News Perth to ship would be leaving port today for the first time in months.

“It’s a full on job, essentially everything above deck needs to be replaced,” he said.

“It’s stopped us from sailing. We had big plans this year, we’d hoped to go on quite a few voyages and get about 2500 trainees sailing this year, but unfortunately, we’ve had to delay that.

“Today is an exciting day, for the first time in months, we’re able to leave the berth here at Fremantle Port, and we’re heading down to Henderson where companies will be helping us with repairs.”