As it happened: WA news on Wednesday, 5 June

Hi readers, and thanks for following along today.

Hope you’ve had a good day – we’ll be back in the morning with some juicy exclusives, so be sure to tune in.

Turning to some lighter news now, researchers at the University of Western Australia have found magpies that are aggressive towards other members of their group tend to not be that smart.

A magpie studies Dr Speechley. Credit: Lizzie Speechley

A study led by Dr Lizzie Speechley looked at the social networks of WA magpies and investigated how their social interactions and group sizes influenced their intellectual development, and ability to process information from their surroundings to guide their behaviour.

The team studied 18 groups of 80-120 magpies, and tested their intelligence using a grid with colour-coded lids. If the magpie pecked the correct lid, it got a food reward.

They found magpies working together in larger groups performed better.

“Magpies live in cooperative social groups, and this finding suggests being aggressive to your group members is not beneficial,” Speechley said.

“Individuals on the receiving end of aggression performed better, while those involved in aggressive interactions performed worse.”

UWA’s findings suggest magpies will invest more time into finding solutions to new problems, including using aggression, if they are unable to monopolise their resources.

Premier Roger Cook has just held a press conference in Kununurra where journalists have asked him about a development application to build a noxious asbestos waste dump in Mirrabooka within 70 metres of houses and 580 metres from a school.

St Andrew’s Grammar School in Dianella earlier today voiced its opposition for the proposal, which was also rejected by the City of Stirling a week ago.

“Being 580 metres from our playgrounds is a major concern,” principal Craig Monaghan told Radio 6PR.

“I’d hate to think we’re looking back 10 years down the line with health concerns of anyone in this community. Common sense needs to prevail here, it’s just not the right place to be placing that sorry of material.”

However, Cook said the final approval rests with the WA Planning Commission.

“There’s a proposal that’s been put to the WA Planning Commission, and they’ll consider that proposal in due course,” he said.

“But obviously, we understand that that may raise anxieties for the school community, and we’ll continue to make sure the WA Planning Commission takes concerns of local stakeholders into account as part of its decision-making.”

The Alexander Drive proposed depot has been flagged as “inappropriate” by the City of Stirling, who has since written to the Planning Minister John Carey and the WA Planning Commission to voice concerns the application is “incompatible with the reserve for parks and recreation within which the application site is located”.

Despite the site once being used as landfill for bricks and manufacturing, the city said in the years since, residential housing had expanded, creating a conflict.

The proposed facility would sort and segregate waste, with that unable to be recycled being landfilled. The site would include an excavation pit and dozens of trucks coming and going each day.

The man accused of attempting to murder a woman inside a Gooseberry Hill home last night has just appeared in Perth Magistrate’s Court.

Christopher Sullivan, 72, allegedly stabbed a 60-year-old woman, who he lives with, multiple times before she tried to seek help, collapsing in a front yard where neighbours rushed to her aide.

She is in a critical condition in hospital.

The Gooseberry Hill house where the alleged attempted murder occurred. Credit: Google Maps

Wearing a blue jumpsuit, Sullivan told the magistrate he did not need legal representation because he wanted to “plead guilty to the charge anyway.”

“Would you like to speak to a lawyer?,” Magistrate Tanya Watt asked.

“Not really,” he replied.

“You are needing legal advice for this matter,” Watt said, before standing the matter down for Sullivan to speak to a duty lawyer.

When the matter was recalled, Sullivan’s appointed lawyer said he would be applying for a grant of Legal Aid. He did not formally enter any pleas or apply for bail.

He was remanded in custody to appear in Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court on June 26.

Outside the Gooseberry Hill property, neighbour Lorraine described the victim as a warm and delightful woman.

“She’s a very warm lady, she does a lot of work with the church as well,” she said.

“She goes to the church and actually works in domestic violence, she helps the ladies.”

Read more here. 

Turning to politics now, and Domestic Violence Minister Sabine Winton has fronted the press to stress the state government’s domestic violence system overhaul is being dealt with as a matter of priority amid a spate of murders in Perth.

But the press conference was dominated by questions about what she knew about the possible systematic failures that led to the deaths of Jennifer Petelczyc and her daughter Gretl, who were shot inside their Floreat home by Mark Bombara two weeks ago while he was searching for his estranged wife.

WA’s domestic violence minister Sabine Winton speaking with media this morning.Credit: Charlotte Vinson

Winton declined to be drawn on the three attempts Bombara’s daughter, Ariel, claims she and her mother made to alert WA Police about fears for their safety and a Glock handgun missing from Mr Bombara’s extensive gun collection, repeatedly stating that she would not preempt the findings of an internal probe.

The Minister also confirmed her office had not reached out to the Bombara family, and that she had not requested to review any of the interactions the family had with police.

The press conference comes just hours after a Perth man was charged with attempted murder over a stabbing in Gooseberry Hill and just days after 61-year-old Evette Verney was allegedly bludgeoned to death by her son in Byford.

Winton also spoke to Radio 6PR a short time later:

In good news for tenants, there are signs the rental market is easing with Perth’s median rents remaining unchanged for the second month in a row.

REIWA chief executive Cath Hart said the latest data showed the median weekly house rents held steady at $650 per week in May, while the median unit rent was stable at $600.

Perth’s heated rental market seems to be simmering. Credit: AFR

“Members are reporting properties in higher price brackets taking slightly longer to lease, with fewer offers of higher rent and, in some cases, discounting,” she said.

“There is some new supply coming onto the market, particularly in the northern corridor. Plus, some tenants are finally able to move into the homes they have built, which is also slowly freeing up some established supply.”

Hart said it was too early to know whether the recent stability in rental prices would continue.

Rents remain significantly higher than a year ago.

The median unit rent recorded the most growth, up 20 per cent since May 2023. The median dwelling rent rose 18.2 per cent over the same period, while the median house rent rose 14 per cent.

The suburbs that saw the most growth in their median weekly dwelling rent price in May were Como (up 8.3 per cent to $650), Armadale (up 5.8 per cent to $550), Balga (up 5.5 per cent to $580), Bentley (up 5.4 per cent to $620) and Cloverdale (up 4.3 per cent to $605).

There were 2,409 properties available for rent at the end of May, 11.3 per cent higher than April and 20.5 per cent higher than the same time last year.

Nandos Willetton has copped a whopping $160,000 fine over a series of health breaches.

In what is believed to be one of the biggest fines recorded for violations under WA’s Food Act, the Department of Health found the Portuguese chicken venue failed to eradicate pests or maintain a standard of cleanliness.

It was also found to have sold food that was past its used by date, and did not have accessible handwashing facilities for staff.

The violations occurred in September 2023 during two visits from City of Canning health inspectors.

The store’s convictions were recorded last week.

The mother of Claremont serial killer victim Jane Rimmer has passed away, aged 81.

Jennifer Rimmer died on May 28, just days short of the 28-year anniversary of when her daughter became the second woman to be snatched off the streets of Claremont after a night out in 1996.

Jennifer was the one who raised the alarm with police after Jane, 23, failed to show up to a Sunday lunch event. Her daughter’s body was found three weeks later in bushland south of Perth.

The grieving mother waited more than 20 years for her daughter’s killer, Bradley Robert Edwards to finally be arrested and eventually found guilty of murdering the former childcare worker.

Jennifer, despite her deteriorating health, attended parts of the trial, and the verdict day. Jane’s father Trevor died nearly 20 years ago.

Jennifer Rimmer attending the trial of her daughter, Jane’s, murderer in 2020. Credit: WAtoday

In a victim impact statement read by Justice Stephen Hall at Edwards’ sentencing, Jennifer said she believed the trauma of losing Jane had made Trevor more susceptible to his battle with cancer.

“She says that losing Jane made a huge difference to all the people in her family. She reflects on what might have been,” he said.

“She believes that Jane would have married and had children, she says that Jane would have been a wonderful mother, she says that Jane having children is something that she thinks about often and misses.”

Jennifer is survived by her two children, Lee and Adam, and her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A Perth man has been charged with attempted murder over the stabbing of a woman in Gooseberry Hill last night, in yet another suspected family violence incident.

The 72-year-old is accused of stabbing the 60-year-old woman, who is known to him, multiple times in the neck and torso.

It’s alleged he then barricaded himself inside a Jessie Road property, with tactical response group officers attending the scene to coax him out.

A neighbour told 9 News Perth they heard screams and discovered the victim injured in a front garden around 5.30pm.

Neighbours applied pressure to the woman’s stab wounds until emergency services arrived.

The woman underwent emergency surgery last night and is in a critical condition.

The man is due to appear in court this morning.

Here’s what’s making news this morning:

• The National Disability Insurance Scheme’s head of fraud and integrity has revealed at least 5 per cent of the scheme – more than $2 billion – was being spent in error, including cases when dodgy providers have taken participants to ATMs to withdraw cash for illicit drugs.

• A convicted kidnapper who worked with gangland boss Tony Mokbel has been saved from deportation by a tribunal decision on Monday to restore his visa, sparking a blame game in federal parliament.

• The peak body for yoga teachers in Australia says the country has too many instructors despite a national skills body created by the government bending over backwards to put them on a migration list of needed occupations.

• In international news, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alliance raced to a majority in early vote counting in India’s six-week general election counting yesterday, but the numbers were well short of the landslide predicted in exit polls.

• And two people were arrested after a milkshake was thrown over divisive populist figure Nigel Farage while he was launching his candidacy to win the parliamentary seat of Clacton in Essex in the UK general election.