1. JOB SHY
WA BUSINESSES FORCED TO LOOK OVERSEAS FOR HARD-WORKING STAFF
“PICKY” job seekers are
leaving WA restaurants and
bars with a shortage of
workers, despite the state
having the second-highest
jobless rate in the country.
Local venues are resort-
ing to hiring kitchen and
wait staff from Asia, Europe
and the Americas.
Continued Page 4
EXCLUSIVE
VETTI KAKULAS
RUNOVER
ONTOURWITHTHE
MELBOURNECUP
PICTURE SPECIAL PAGE 37
Teen hoon mows down
man protecting wife P5
DRAMA IN THE ‘BURBS
EXMOUTH N-W E. STATES $3.90 NT $4.75 *INC GST OCTOBER 9, 2016PRICE $2.70PERTHNOW.COM.AU
TURIA’S
GRIT
TRUE
SHE is living proof that we are capable
“of more than we could ever imagine”.
Turia Pitt lined up for the start of
the gruelling 226.2km Ironman World
Championship in Hawaii early this
morning, five years after suffering
horrific, near-fatal burns in a freak fire
during WA’s Kimberley Ultramarathon.
Regardless of today’s result –­she
should finish some time this afternoon
WA time after about 14 hours of racing
– the former model’s compelling story
is a triumph of the human spirit.
PAGES 14-15
Unbeatable: Turia Pitt, in
training in Kona, Hawaii,
before taking on the
Ironman World
Championship this
weekend.
Picture: Michael Klein

2. 04 NEWS SUNDAY OCTOBER 9 2016 PERTHNOW.COM.AU
Foreign staff oust picky locals
FromPage 1
The shortage comes despite
WA’s unemployment rate hit-
ting 6.3 per cent.
Hospitality industry leaders
said some West Australians
weren’t prepared to do the
“hard work” or evening and
weekend hours.
Australian Hotel Associ-
ation WA chief executive
Bradley Woods said the labour
shortage was evident through-
out Perth, as well as in Bun-
bury and the Kimberley.
Perth’s unemployment rate
was 6 per cent in June, with
68,100 people out of work,
while Bunbury was at 6.2 per
cent and parts of the Kimber-
ley more than 10 per cent.
A search of jobs website
Seek this week returned 570
jobs in “hospitality and tour-
ism” across WA.
That included 338 “chef”
jobs and 73 for “waiter”.
“Hospitality, it’s hard work
and people have to work
nights and weekends, some
people aren’t prepared to do
that,” Mr Woods said. “Inter-
nationally we have the highest
wage rates in the world for
hospitality workers, even with
those high wage rates it’s hard
to attract those people.”
Mr Woods said the decline
in the number of working holi-
day visas made the shortage
worse. The 20 per cent decline
of backpackers coming into
WA in the past year had affec-
ted the availability of labour.
Trattoria Galetto co-owner
Vikram Pahwa said it was hard
finding local staff for his Subi-
aco pasta and pizza restaurant.
“Most of our staff are from
England, Brazil, Colombia and
Italy,” he said.
“West Australians can be
picky, they know more about
the markets, venues and con-
ditions. I’d like to see more lo-
cals working in my restaurant,
locals bring locals.”
Brika owner Simon Psaros
has posted numerous job ads
for his Greek restaurant in
Northbridge with no success.
Mr Psaros said many big
restaurants were opening,
meaning quality staff were
being headhunted from small-
er eateries.
“I’m now looking inter-
nationally, particularly Greece,”
he said. “I’m interviewing guys
on Skype, I have one worker
from Greece currently over
there finding staff for me.
“We have a high turnover
of staff, partly because we’re a
night venue, it’s hard to retain
staff. It’s an industry issue and
there’s an attitude problem.”
Editorial Page 38
Short order: Salvatore Dodeci and
Vikram Pahwa at Trattoria Galetto.
Picture: Bohdan Warchomij
A PERTH adviser to the United
Nations has told how he was left
with a broken shoulder and ribs
after being rammed by a teenager
on a stolen dirt bike outside his
Bassendean home.
And Lee Bell, a 47-year-old
international expert on hazardous
waste, also accused WA Police of a
pathetic attempt to catch the
young bandit, who escaped after
limping away from the crime
scene.
Then, Mr Bell had to wait an-
other five days until police finally
took a statement from him.
The drama unfolded about 1pm
on Monday when Mr Bell and his
wife Jane Bremmer, 50, heard a
dirt bike rider “tearing up bush-
land” in the reserve opposite their
Seventh Ave home.
“It happens all the time and the
rangers tell us to take photos of the
Bike bandit bushwhack
riders, so that’s what Jane went
outside to do,” Mr Bell said yester-
day.
But the rider gunned his bike
towards Ms Bremmer and then
rode at Mr Bell, a father-of-three,
as he ran on to the driveway to try
and protect his wife.
“I started running and that’s
when he turned the bike and
opened it up full throttle straight at
me. I stopped dead and put my
hands up, he could have gone
around me but he looked straight
at me and rammed me at about
50km/h under hard acceleration,”
Mr Bell said.
“I flew up in the air, I came
down on top of him and the bike. It
was a blur to me.
“Jane thought I was dead as the
impact flung me high in the air and
I jacked knifed backwards as I
landed on the motorbike and rider.
She thinks I went about 3m
straight up. She thought I was a
goner. I crawled off the road but
couldn’t move after that.”
Mr Bell suffered a broken
shoulder and ribs, puncture
wounds in his back and scrapes
and bruises. He was taken to Royal
Perth Hospital where he had a
seizure and was kept overnight.
The offender left the bike –
which police identified as stolen –
at the scene and jogged and limped
off into the bush.
Mr Bell, who works for Ameri-
can environmental agency IPEN
and regularly advises the UN on
hazardous waste, said four police
cars arrived within 15 minutes but
he said their efforts to catch the of-
fender were laughable.
“I couldn’t understand why
they weren’t chasing the guy. He
was limping and within a 15-min-
ute range. So they all sat in their
cars, later they did a half-hearted
drive around but no one chased
him into the bush,” Mr Bell said.
“My 21-year-old son Zak chased
him and spotted him at least once.
“Zak covered about 4km bare-
foot chasing the guy and told the
cops which direction he thought
he went, but was ignored and told
to go home.”
Mr Bell and Ms Bremmer then
spent the following days trying to
reach investigating officers from
the Warwick traffic branch. It was
five days before they were inter-
viewed to provide a statement, de-
spite having photos to help
identify the rider, aged 14-16.
“Police were so lackadaisical
and patronising it was a joke,” Mr
Bell said, adding the incident was
“being treated as a pedestrian acci-
dent – not attempted murder”.
“Cops say they are not confident
of finding him. But they could have
had him at the incident scene if they
had made an effort,” Mr Bell said.
The Sunday Times was awaiting
a response from WA Police.
TREVOR PADDENBURG
Trail of woe: Lee Bell, after being hit by a stolen trail
bike, and his wife Jane. Picture: Ross Swanborough
Action image: The rider is captured on camera by Jane Bremmer before he rides the bike directly at Lee Bell in a collision that injured Mr Bell and saw the rider escape on foot, above.
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