What's happening in Perth

Could your cat soon be confined to your home? Here’s where councils across WA currently stand on cat containment.

The two teenagers faces are visible in the video, which has been widely shared across social media, and appeared to show the bird pinned to the floor.

The state government made the announcement just five days after opposition leader Basil Zempilas said locals were tired of waiting for the station to begin construction. The station will be built in the electorate of Secret Harbour.

Police say St John Ambulance were called about an unresponsive man found at a bus stop on the Boulevard in Australind just after 1 o’clock Sunday morning.

In a separate incident, Joondalup Detectives have charged a 15-year-old male after a ride-share driver was the alleged victim of a spray attack.

Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn said there have been more than 2400 reports to the WA Emergency Animal Disease Hotline since June 19.

The Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon 2023 scored 97 out of 100, carries a 25-year cellaring window, and sells for $36.99. It took Best of the Best in Ray Jordan’s Top 100 Reds 2026, ahead of the Evans & Tate Redbrook Estate Shiraz 2023 on 96.

This year’s tasting to find the best wine selling for less than $50.00 a bottle was “a real shootout between the 2023 West Australian vintage and the 2024 vintage from other states”, Jordan wrote. The four wines that made the final taste-off all came from Western Australia, showing the state’s depth when it comes to Australia’s best red wines.

When someone like Ray Jordan gives us a list of wines that he thinks are the best drops, we listen and take a lot of notes. But who is Ray Jordan?

Four decades of tasting notes

Jordan has been writing about wine for more than 40 years. His first articles ran in early issues of the national wine magazine Winestate in the late 1970s, while he was working in Sydney as a newspaper correspondent. Between 1989 and 2023 he wrote more than 3,000 columns as a regular newspaper wine columnist. He is the author of the WA Wine Review, and of its earlier title, the WA Wine Guide, which he wrote from 2000 to 2022. 

He authored (and co-authored) multiple books about wine, and in 2011, the WA Wine Press Club awarded him the Jack Mann Memorial Medal for his contribution to the state’s wine industry. He currently writes a regular column for Business News and contributes to the wine platform Wine Pilot.

To say he knows wine is an understatement. It’s like saying the other Jordan knows how to play basketball. 

How does he judge the Top 100?

Every wine in the tasting sells for less than $50.00, and the list is split across four price brackets to make it easy to navigate your own wine journey: 

• under $15.00
• $15.00 to $25.00
• $25.00 to $35.00
• $35.00 to $50.00

Each wine carries a score out of 100, and Jordan judges each bracket on its own terms. And he shows that you don’t always have to spend a lot to get a great bottle of wine. “Quite simply, you can get highly drinkable wines selling at less than $15.00 in Australia,” Jordan says. 

Cabernet came through strongly across every bracket. “We should be drinking a lot more of this great grape variety,” Jordan says. That, of course, is no secret to anyone who’s made a trip to Margaret River, where the cabernets are part of the region’s soul.

Our picks from Ray Jordan’s Top 100

We’ve pulled a few wines from each price bracket based on what we like the most, and what we think you will enjoy. They are obviously all from WA, and we’ve added some notes so you know what to put on the table alongside them. 

$15.00 to $25.00 WinePairs withNikola Estate Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre 2025Roast lamb, charcuterie, or spiced slow-cooked dishesForest Hill Highbury Fields Cabernet Sauvignon 2024Roast beef, grilled steak, or hard aged cheesesWills Domain Mystic Spring Cabernet Sauvignon 2023Slow-cooked beef, winter casseroles, or grilled red meatFerngrove Estate Shiraz 2023Roast lamb, grilled meats, or mushroom dishes $25.00 to $35.00 WinePairs withAmelia Park Shiraz 2023Braised beef, rich stews, or venisonLeeuwin Estate Prelude Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2023Roast duck, game birds, or herb-crusted lambVasse Felix Filius Cabernet Sauvignon 2023Rack of lamb, roast beef, or mushroom dishesFrankland Estate Shiraz 2023Roast lamb, beef ragù, or mushroom dishesFervor No Royalty Syrah 2023Mushroom risotto, roast pork, or charcuterieLenton Brae Cabernet Merlot 2023Cheeseboards, roast chicken, or lighter red meatsForest Hill Vineyard Malbec 2025Barbecued lamb, grilled meats, or anything with chimichurri $35.00 to $50.00 WinePairs withXanadu Cabernet Sauvignon 2023Standing rib roast, aged steak, or slow-roasted lambEvans & Tate Redbrook Estate Shiraz 2023Roast lamb, duck, or mushroom dishesCherubino Laissez Faire Syrah 2023Duck, charcuterie, or roasted vegetablesWills Domain Eightfold Shiraz 2022Kangaroo, game meats, or peppered steak Download the Top 100 Catalogue Now

The Ray Jordan Top 100 Red Wines 2026 catalogue is available here and at most Liquor Barons stores, with specials running from August 1st to 16th. Many of the wines are limited releases and stock varies by store, so availability won’t be the same everywhere. 

After you pick up a bottle from the list, we’d love to know what you thought about it.

The post Who Is Ray Jordan, And Why His Top 100 Reds Is The Shortcut To A Good Bottle appeared first on So Perth

Amy Nicholls runs sunrise yoga sessions at Mosman Beach. Over the past year, her classes have grown from around 20, to as large as 200 people.

The interest in a British YouTuber on trial in Perth for rape has raised questions about the role of social media and the legal complications of court reporting.

ETU WA secretary Adam Woodage said his workers had not taken the decision to strike lightly.

The CCTV footage captures the moment the British YouTube star returns to the Intercontinental Hotel moments before it is alleged he bit, strangled, hit and raped a Perth woman.

Follow our live coverage of the day’s news here.

Former WA Regional Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan and former Fisheries Minister Dave Kelly have appeared in court.

Federal Liberal MP and Member for Canning Andrew Hastie has appeared in court in a defamation case brought about by Perth property developer Greg Poland.

On Thursday, an Aboriginal man who cannot be named for legal reasons told the court that he went to the bishop’s Broome home with a group of other young men for a barbecue when he was a teenager.

The Dockers (17-2) will be almost uncatchable in the race for the minor premiership if they can secure victory over the Western Bulldogs (12-7) in Friday night’s blockbuster at Optus Stadium.

A 46-year-old man died three days after he was allegedly assaulted on a Koondoola street corner earlier this month.

The eight-storey proposal on William Street is the first approved under the City of Vincent’s new planning framework.

Follow our live coverage of the day’s news here.

Up to four grouped houses or apartments could be built without development approval under a package of planning changes the Cook Government announced on Tuesday. Where a proposal meets planning standards, only a building permit would be needed.

That exemption currently applies to single houses only. Western Australia is the only state with a clear-cut planning exemption of that kind, and the State Government says extending it to other forms of housing puts WA further ahead of the rest of the country.

Also in the package is a new deadline at the subdivision stage. Local governments would have 28 days to respond to proponents after receiving engineering drawings for road design and waterways, a stage of the process where applicants have long waited without a statutory timeframe.

The rest is a mix of legislative, regulatory, policy, and practice changes aimed at the slow points in the system. More local planning and region scheme amendments would be able to progress concurrently, which the State Government estimates could save around 12 months in approval timeframes. Structure planning and subdivision practices would be streamlined, condition clearances sped up, and the Western Australian Planning Commission would gain stronger powers to modify, progress, or cancel structure plans.

“By expanding opportunities to progress local and region scheme amendments concurrently, we will significantly reduce the time it takes to move from rezoning to subdivision and development,” Planning and Lands Minister John Carey said.

Carey said the package would not lower the bar for what gets built. “We’re also pursuing exemptions and shorter approval timeframes for lower-risk residential developments, without relaxing standards,” he said.

What it means for councils

Development approval is the point at which local governments apply their own planning policies, including things like tree retention rules which a number of Perth councils have adopted in recent years. WALGA’s model tree retention policy, revised in early 2026, works by requiring development approval for tree-damaging activity on private land. The release doesn’t say how policies like that would apply to developments that no longer need approval.

Perth has the lowest tree canopy cover of any Australian capital city, and a WALGA analysis rated WA as having the weakest protections for trees on private land of any state in the country. Most infill development in WA is medium density, with duplex and triplex projects replacing single homes and clearing the mature canopy that came with them.

The local government sector has not yet responded to Tuesday’s announcement. When the State Government widened the authority of development assessment panels in 2023, WALGA argued the changes would erode local government’s role in planning.

The post WA’s New Planning Reforms Would Let Up To Four Homes Skip Planning Approval appeared first on So Perth