As it happened: WA news on Friday, September 13

Good afternoon readers, and thank you for following along today.

Last year’s doggo market.

Hope you have a good weekend – road trip to Albany for the country’s best fish and chips as per our last post, perhaps?

Or if that’s a bit far for you, maybe the ninth annual Fur Run at MacFaull Park in Spearwood on Sunday?

It’ll be a free family-friendly outing with activities for pets, including the Fur Run, a 1-kilometre walk, run, or roll around picturesque MacFaull Park, plus the ever-popular pooch parade.

A doggo market with more than 20 stalls will showcase a range of niche animal-oriented vendors including Woofing Wonders, Hillbilly Hound, Pawty Co, Puppa Dolittle, Pampered Paws and Slobberlicious (your guess is as good as mine).

Other attractions include a pooch smooch photo booth, free pet checks and canine agility course.

It runs from 10am-3pm.

If that’s not your thing, we’ve heard that due to unprecedented demand, the Art Gallery of WA has extended the TIME • RONE exhibition until February 2025, as it’s attracted record crowds.

Or are you keener on watching a horror movie tonight in honour of Friday the 13th? That’s my plan.

Whatever your entertainment of choice, we hope you have a beautiful weekend, enjoy this weather and stay safe.

A new live blog will be back on Monday.

I interrupt this programming with some vital news.

Western Australia was over-represented at last night’s National Seafood Industry Awards with finalists in 10 of the 13 categories.

The current executive officer for the WA commercial fishing industry consultation unit, Angus Callander, was inducted into the National Seafood Industry Hall of Fame for his almost 40-year career in the seafood industry. He has transformed remote fisheries, built social licence and community-based initiatives and helped develop innovative businesses.

OK, OK, sorry. I felt like I should recognise Angus’ achievements first before I revealed that Albany’s Hooked on Middleton Beach was awarded Australia’s best fish and chips.

We are so honoured to receive this award and are proud to be able to showcase the quality WA seafood which we have access to … shoutout to our dedicated team of staff, our loyal customers and most importantly our local fishermen,” they wrote on their social media today.

“As a small family-run business, we are incredibly proud of what we have been able to create and achieve over the past eight years at Hooked, and in our 20 years in the industry.”

It’s actually the second time Hooked have won this award, having won it in 2018, so they must be doing something right.

Other WA winners were Brett McCallum for the Health & Safety award, recognising his 40 years of dedicated service.

Sophie Sharland, managing director at Hamilton Hill seafood wholesaler Endeavour Foods, received the Young Achiever award for her commitment to driving positive change and empowering future leaders.

Tassal, which recently expanded operations to include aquaculture of ocean-grown barramundi in the Kimberley, took out the Best Large Business award with Tassal chief executive Mark Ryan also inducted into the hall of fame.

To some science news now and a new fossilised fish species has been discovered in Western Australia by an international team of scientists, which has led to a more profound insight into how humans evolved.

Dr Alice Clement.

Led by Flinders University, the study of an exceptionally well-preserved ancient primitive Devonian coelacanth fish in remote WA has been published in Nature Communications.

Experts from Australian, Canada and Europe say the new fossil from the Gogo Formation in WA, named Ngamugawi wirngarri, also helps to fill in an important transition between the most primitive forms and others more ‘anatomically modern’.

Flinders University evolutionary biologist and palaeontologist Alice Clement, who led the study, said they had discovered that “new species of coelacanth were more likely to evolve during periods of heightened tectonic activity as new habitats were divided and created.”

Flinders University strategic professor of palaeontology John Long said the fossil, dating back between 359 and 419 million years, provided insight into the early anatomy of this lineage that “eventually led to humans.”

“For more than 35 years, we have found several perfectly preserved 3D fish fossils from Gogo sites which have yielded many significant discoveries,” he said.

“Our study of this new species led us to analyse the evolutionary history of all known coelacanths.”

Many parts of human anatomy originated 540 to 350 million years ago, when jaws, teeth, paired appendages, ossified brain-cases, intromittent genital organs, chambered hearts and paired lungs all appeared first in early fish.

WA’s Planning Minister John Carey has joined Gary Adshead on 6PR this morning, not long after Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas was live, to respond to comments a fellow minister made in parliament about Zempilas, and the mayor’s response.

You can check out our post from 10.19am to see what those comments, and the response, were.

“Can I be frank? We’re not talking about the Pope here. Basil Zempilas is not the Pope,” Carey said.

“He’s out there, he’s on this program, on his social media, in his column, making constant attacks on ministers. He’s mocked the Italian surname of Rita Saffioti. Basil Zempilas has a glass jaw.

“He’s very happy at every opportunity to dish it out, but when he’s held to account for opposing a primary school in our city or closing down a women’s shelter, he just doesn’t like it.”

Carey said he wouldn’t give Zempilas a B for closing the shelter, he’d give him an F.

The state’s 44,000-strong public sector workforce has been offered a 12.5 per cent pay rise over three years and nine-day fortnights by the WA government.

Yearly increased would sit at 5 per cent, 4 per cent and 3.5 per cent making the offer marginally better than the government’s first offer that was rejected in June, but the union has failed to convince them of the merits of a full-pay four-day work week.

However, the state has offered the union a nine-day fortnight which would be available to public sector workers who work Monday to Friday.

The offer would not reduce the hours worked but would require staff to work eight hours and 20 minutes per day to get the tenth day off.

The union representing the state’s broader public sector workforce the CPSU/CSA will take the offer to its members over the next fortnight.

Staying with the parliamentary sledging match over the planned East Perth Primary School now.

Cottesloe MP David Honey has slammed the school’s plan over a lack of play space, implying a lack of sunlight could contribute to depression in students.

“The principal cause of preventable depression in children is, in fact, an absence of enough vitamin D,” Honey said during debate yesterday.

“And an absence of enough vitamin D is primarily correlated with children not spending enough time in the sun.”

Housing, Planning and Homelessness Minister John CareyCredit: Hamish Hastie

Planning Minister John Carey hit back, calling the comments “Trump-like”.

“I kid you not, we have seen the member for Cottesloe say in this chamber that East Perth kids are not getting enough sun, that they are at threat of vitamin D deficiency and that this school will exacerbate that.

“I have never seen a more limp-wristed, weak campaign than these arguments against a public primary school and its location.”

Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas has promised if he is elected as the Liberal candidate for Churchlands, he would do everything to “raise the bar, not lower it” in parliament, in response to comments made by a Labor MP calling him a B-grade celebrity.

Member for Cockburn David Scaife claimed Zempilas had backflipped on supporting the East Perth Primary School plans after announcing his candidacy, and accusing him of using the plan as a political football.

Basil Zempilas hits back at personal comments made about him in parliament.Credit: Holly Thompson

When this masthead raised the comments with him, Zempilas said he had been confused and had believed Scaife was a race car driver.

“I have literally never heard of him, honestly, and I have heard of, I reckon, most of the Labor MPs,” Zempilas told Gary Adshead on 6PR this morning.

“The first person to call me was … WAtoday, and I actually wasn’t even being flippant – they said, ‘have you heard what Scaife said about you?’ And I said, ‘what, the motor racing driver?’ I said, ‘what’s he talking about me for?’,” he said.

He said people carried on “like pork chops” in parliament and vowed he would never act in a similar way.

“I will do everything to try and raise the bar, not lower it, because that sort of stuff sets a shocking example for our community,” Zempilas said.

“You don’t always have to have everybody say, ‘that’s brilliant. Oh, that’s magnificent.’ You know, it’s okay in our society to question whether the government is doing the right thing, and that’s what I have done.

The WA Liberals continue to press health as a major election issue after committing $400 million for regional health

WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam is in Bunbury today announcing the initiative which she said would “improve the overall well-being and sustainability of regional communities, reducing disparities between urban and regional health services.”

Mettam said the Margaret River Hospital would be the first beneficiary of the fund with $60 million to be spent on upgrades and improved services.

The struggling health system opened up as the first battleground between the two major parties after Mettam last year committed to reversing the government’s decision to move the women and babies hospital from Nedlands to Murdoch.

WA’s iron ore sector could descend into the same industrial chaos that plagued the Pilbara in the 1980s – that’s the fear of the minerals sector, as union bosses demand its workers get $10,000 annual bonuses along with pay rises.

9 News Perth reported that the Western Mine Workers Alliance is demanding BHP pay its workers the additional $10,000 as a retention bonus.

Iron ore trucks parked up at BHP Mt Whaleback mine in Newman.Credit: Krystle Wright

The company will need to negotiate under new industrial relations laws, sparking concern from industry and politicians.

This week, iron ore prices have hit their lowest levels since 2022.

“We can’t have the threat of forced union bargaining interfering with the ability to provide those jobs,” Chamber of Minerals and Energy chief-executive Rebecca Tomkinson said.

“We feel it is very important that any wage growth is related to productivity outcomes.”

Liberal Party leader Libby Mettam said she was worried about a summer of “industrial chaos”.

But Unions WA assistant secretary Owen Whittle said the “sky isn’t falling in.”

“They will continue to make significant profit,” he said. “We just want workers to get their fair share.

“The resources industry is brutal on the down cycle. They will slash jobs without a second thought.”

The union only represents about 10 per cent of the workforce in WA, but their demands could cost BHP $140 million per year. BHP is reviewing the claims.

A 28-year-old man who allegedly drove a blazing car into a home in Perth’s south, leaving a teenager with serious injuries, has been charged with attempted murder.

Just before 2am, the man allegedly drove his white Toyota Utility into a home on Gould Place in Parmelia. The tray of that car is believed to have been on fire when the car crashed.

Detectives at the scene on Sunday.Credit: 9 News Perth

A 19-year-old woman, who police say knew the man, was inside the house and was injured in the crash. She was taken to Royal Perth Hospital for treatment via St John Ambulance.

About 9pm last night, the 28-year-old was arrested at a residence on MacKay Place in Cooloongup.

Rockingham Detectives have since charged the man with attempting to unlawfully kill, stealing, no authority to drive and assault occasioning bodily harm.

He was refused bail and is due to appear in Rockingham Magistrates Court today.