$75K JB Hi-Fi crime spree
A MAN who used an angle grinder and stolen Land Rover to steal more than $75,000 in devices from an electronic store will remain behind bars.
Wayne Alexander Wheatley was on parole when he committed the break-in as part of a four-day crime spree in early January last year.
The blitz ended when he rammed a cop car during a police chase, causing $15,000 damage to the police car.
The 30-year-old pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court on Friday to multiple charges including break and enter, stealing and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.
Judge Katherine McGinness sentenced Wheatley to four years in prison with parole eligibility on May 23.
“There were numerous offences committed over a short time and there was a professional quality to some,” she said.
Crown prosecutor Jessica Guy told the court Wheatley stole a Land Rover from Main Beach on January 4 last year and used cards inside to buy a number of items.
The next day Wheatley and two others used the Land Rover to go to the JB Hi-Fi store in Bundall where they used an angle grinder to break in via the loading dock.
Once inside they began to steal phones, cameras and laptops.
“They were unable to open one cabinet so they removed it and put the entire cabinet in the car,” she said.
In total Wheatley stole 141 devices worth more than $75,000.
The insurance company did not pay the full amount for the stock and JB Hi-Fi was left more than $20,000 out of pocket.
On January 6, Wheatley broke into two shops at Mt Gravatt. The next day police spotted the stolen Land Rover. He was arrested after ramming the police car.
Defence barrister Jason Buckland said Wheatley had a troubled childhood. It included his father giving him drugs. He said upon release Wheatley wanted to find work and while in custody had been employed and done a number of building courses.
The court was told Wheatley intended to live with his ill mother when released.
SHE’S the multicultural Muslim mother who was named chief economist for PRD real estate at the age of 29.
She’s a single parent juggling a full-time job, a powerful woman in a male-dominated industry and possessed of an inspirational attitude.
Basically, Dr Diaswati “Asti” Mardiasmo is the incarnation of International Women’s Day.
And it’s impossible not to listen to Asti.
Indeed, anyone invested in the Gold Coast property market – and let’s face it, everyone is (even if they’re not literally invested) – knows Asti by her advice, if not by her name.
She’s the voice of reason, facts and statistics in an industry all too often overwhelmed by passionate emotions. She’s never telling you what to do, she’s just telling it like it is.
And sometimes that’s not what people want to hear.
But for Asti, who moved to Australia from Indonesia almost 20 years ago, she’s used to overcoming obstacles.
Raised by a feminist father in a society where women were often considered second-class, she has risen to the top of her field even as she faces continued exclusion in certain social circles.
“Being an Indonesian Muslim woman, I was taught we are below men, that I can’t look them in the eye. But my father would tell me to see myself as an equal. He would bring me into negotiations when he was in governme nt to show that you don’t fold … he is quite the feminist.
“Even so, I’ll be honest with you, when I started in this position seven years ago and I had the first executive meeting with all of the PRD principals, I remember thinking ‘Asti, how the heck are you going to make these people listen to you?’
“(Former managing director) Tony Brasier had approached me for the job because he liked that I had nothing to do with the property industry … I have never sold a house in my life.
“He wanted someone with no bias, he wanted me for my research and economic skills, my ability to interpret law and political policies – which is great until you’re standing in a room full of property gurus. And you’re 29 years old.
“It did take me a while to gain their trust, to get to the place where I can send anyone a market update for their area and they accept it without question.
“But at the same time, I have had so many men who have been champions not just for me but for change.
“To a certain extent I think that I have been very lucky to be surrounded by great men, men who have put me up for promotion and recognition and have given me flexible conditions as a mother, but I believe I have also played a part in establishing myself as a woman and a professional who can demand that treatment.
“You have to be able to ask for what you need, and I think as women sometimes we don’t own that. Men are great at delegating and saying ‘no’.”
But when it comes to the economy of the property market, Asti is praying that governments will say “yes” to unlocking more supply.
She says scarcity of land is her biggest concern, especially for southeast Queensland and the Gold Coast in particular. And she says skyrocketing property prices due to a surge in demand and fall in supply is not at all ideal.
“It’s unsustainable economically and damaging socially. The gap between the haves and have nots is growing and property ownership is very much becoming that dividing line,” she says.
“It’s not just high sales prices but high rental prices as well, and demand is only growing.
“To be honest, we don’t realise how much the rest of the world has been watching us. Not just in Australia in general but places like the Gold Coast in particular – they can see how good we have it in terms of health, the economy, security … we are where people want to be.
“As international migration opens up again, that’s even more pressure on the market. We need to boost supply as soon and as much as is possible, within sustainable limits. That means new land but also higher density developments.”
However, Asti says she is also worried about the economy as Australia winds back pandemic policies like JobKeeper.
She says it’s also inevitable that the cash rate will rise again once more, a move that will hurt all the more as stimulus packages disappear.
“That’s the interesting thing about being an economist – you don’t look at an issue from one angle but from 20,” she says. “The government has been stimulating the housing market during COVID, with the result that we’re in a boom that no one predicted 12 months ago, but what happens when we stop?
“What happens when the cash rate goes up and people have overspent? A lot of economists would argue that we have been in a property bubble now since about 2015 … we were just starting to trend down before COVID but now it’s spiked up even higher.
“I think – and I do hope – that we will see a correction at some stage because what we have right now is not sustainable. We want to avoid the high highs and low lows and have a more gentle increase.
“If prices do drop, that’s not a crash – you’re still making money in the long-term, it just means better affordability which is better for any city.
“Nobody wants a crash, we just want to see that people can own houses and be in the market again.”
Inclusion is always a priority for Asti, especially as it has not always been extended towards herself.
As a multicultural-Muslimsingle-working mother, Asti ticks so many boxes that she never fits neatly into one.
“I confess that as much as my natural state is to be a social butterfly, I am excluded from certain communities because I don’t fit the mould.
“In Indonesian communities, I’m too westernised or too ‘high up’. In the Islamic community I don’t wear the hijab and I’m a dancer, I’m always that little bit different. I’m a researcher but I post hip-hop videos on social media. But all of these differences mean that I’ve created my own world, I’ve developed a lot of resilience from the rejection and I’ve learned to create my own tribe.
“My friends are from every walk of life, there is no label you could apply to us all except to say that we share core values. And the great thing about Australia is that you don’t have to be apologetic for that, you can be different and still accepted.
“I might be a chief economist now, but one day I might not be – and my friends will be my friends regardless of my title in society. We are women supporting women no matter what.”
Asti says her role as chief economist has helped her to look past short-term obstacles and to play the long game.
But she says her role as a mother and daughter also informs her job, helping her to remember the human cost of economic decisions.
Aside from her marketspecific work with PRD, Asti regularly collaborates with university and government researchers to help create future solutions as well as being a part of PRD’s work with the Cooperative Research Centre’s Longevity Program, which is targeting improvements to aged care.
“Part of my job is to monitor price growth trends and look at optimal investment areas,” she says. “But the other part is analysing government policies – whether at a local, state or federal level – and look at how they impact the market moving forward.
“Economists see all the angles, we have that long-term vision and are also very realistic – which is not always what people want to hear.
“But as an economist, I see the pain of others – I see what happens in booms and busts, so it’s my job to analyse all the facts to help find the best path forward. And that’s how I live my life as well.”
In Indonesian communities, I’m too westernised or too ‘high up’
FACE masks and plastic takeaway containers were literally the stuff of life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But millions of these items are now in waterways and natural areas, creating a daunting task for Clean Up Australia volunteers on Sunday.
Used masks have become a dispiriting sight across suburban Australia since the pandemic hit, and have even been spotted in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Clean Up Australia spokeswoman Pip Kiernan, daughter of the movement’s founder, Ian, said many volunteers would be taking a count of face masks at the event.
Olympic silver medal-winning swimmer Taylor McKeown, 25, is just one of the thousands of volunteers pitching in for this year’s Clean Up, set to be the biggest ever, with 300 more sites registered than the previous record.
She is vying for a Tokyo Olympics squad spot at the trials in Adelaide in June, and said she was moved to help by seeing rubbish in the ocean. “They say everything flows to the sea and that’s become more evident the more diving I do, not just in Australia but around the world. Any time I go diving if I see debris I’ll clean it off the reef. I can’t ignore it, I have to grab it and take it with me.”
COVID-19 lockdowns fuelled increasing concern about litter, with households producing more packaging waste as a result of increased supermarket shopping and takeaways replacing eating out, Ms Kiernan said.
“Last year saw immense disruption to our lives and the environment. The uptick in single-use plastics including face masks, coffee cups, food delivery packaging and takeaway utensils has been concerning. The damage of
single-use plastics left in the environment will outlive us all and action is urgently needed,” she said.
A survey showed 55 per cent of Australians were more concerned about packaging waste now than in 2019. Other research showed we use 3.4 million tonnes of single-use plastics a year. Last year, Clean Up Australia’s 683,000 volunteers pulled 17,000 ute loads of litter from the environment, and single-use plastics constituted 18 per cent of the haul, Ms Kiernan said.
The pandemic prompted many of us to change behaviours, with shoppers opting for
packaged fruit and vegetables at the supermarket rather than loose items, and cafes refusing keep cups, with concerns some of those changes have now become habit.
“We adopted some habits that really were very damaging to the environment,” she said. “You don’t need to have your fruits and vegetables swabbed in plastic to be safe; they come in their own beautiful packaging, they can be washed, and it’s no safer to wrap them in plastic. Of course human health and safety is of paramount concern but … we need to revert back to those good habits.”