As it happened: WA news on Monday, July 8

To crime news now and an ex-AFL player who was charged over his alleged involvement in a car crash that killed two women in their 80s in WA’s north has had his charges upgraded.

Ex-Collingwood player Shannon John Cox was initially charged with dangerous driving occasioning death but has now been charged with manslaughter.

On June 7 around 8.55am, Cox was allegedly driving a white Toyota Prado south on Brand Highway in Cooljarloo.

At the same time, a white Volvo road train and a white Suzuki Ignis were driving north on the same road. The three vehicles were involved in a crash near the intersection of Waddi Road.

Two women in the Suzuki, Thelma Clausen and Coral Seinor from Jurien Bay, died at the scene.

The 31-year-old male driver of the Volvo truck and Cox were not injured. A 12-year-old girl believed to be Cox’s daughter, also received minor injuries and was assisted by St John.

Cox, who lived in Spalding, is due to appear in Geraldton Magistrates Court on Monday to face his upgraded charges.

In case you missed it this morning, our data team has compiled an interactive that can tell you more about your job and where you live.

You can take a deep dive into the latest census data to discover the median full-time income of more than 1000 professions – and the most popular jobs in every suburb across WA.

It also compared the median income of the job you are in to other jobs which have a similar wage, and tells you what the highest-earning profession in Australia is – and it’s one that you might not even know the official name of.

Click here to find out how your job compares.

To some property news and the size of the average new owner-occupier mortgage in WA has hit a record high, as borrowers sign up to bigger debts than ever before.

ABS lending indicator data, released today for the month of May, shows the average new owner-occupier mortgage for the state clocked in at $538,860 – the highest level in ABS records.

Records were also hit in Queensland and SA.

For WA, this was an increase in payments of $947 per month and an overall increase of $67,371 since RBA hikes in April.

RateCity research director Sally Tindall, said Australia’s teflon property market continued to rise, dragging the average new loan size along for the ride, despite the rate hikes.

Here is what she had to say:

It’s astounding to think owner-occupiers are, on average, taking out larger loans than ever before despite the fact the cash rate is sitting at a 12-year high.

The average new owner-occupier rate is 6.27 per cent – a difficult benchmark to clear. What’s even more staggering is that these borrowers are passing the banks’ stress tests at an average rate of 9.27 per cent.

A mortgage is for up to 30 years – that’s a long time to be living off bread and water for someone who’s overstretched the budget at an overheated auction.

A Broome crocodile sanctuary has assured park visitors they are “extremely safe” after a video of a curious crocodile climbing a fence at the park went viral.

In the video, watched almost 200,000 times worldwide, the giant creature tries to scale a wire fence just a metre from visitors.

Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park tour guide Owen Douglas told 9 News Perth all staff were well-trained and visitors had nothing to worry about.

“Often these crocodiles are really aggressive so for a crocodile to climb up over the feeding bay like that is something somewhat common at the park,” he said.

“I’m sure the tourists when they are around there are secretly hoping a tour guide’s arms gets taken off.

“I’m sure they would thoroughly enjoy watching that. But fortunately, it won’t happen.”

The crocodile park’s famous daily feeding tour showcases some of the largest crocodiles on display in Australia.

The park is a refuge for problem crocs, some more than four metres long.

“These crocodiles should still be in the wild, they should not have been in captivity, but the reason they’re in there is they’ve been saved from being killed for being problem crocodiles in the wild,” Douglas said.

Perth audiences will get one last chance to see legends of the ice Torvill and Dean when they return to Australia for the Our Last Dance farewell tour in 2025.

The dynamic ice-skating duo are retiring from the sport, more than 40 years since they captured the hearts of millions of viewers worldwide at the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean said they were delighted to come back to Australian shores for the first time since their last tour in 1994.

“Performing in Oz has always been very special for us,” they said.

“So ‘Our Last Dance’ will be a final opportunity to celebrate and say thank you to all of our wonderful fans over there who have supported us consistently for many years.”

While they will continue to work together off the ice, the tour will be the final time they skate together.

Tickets for the single Perth show at RAC Arena on June 27, 2025, will go on sale on Thursday.

To the Perth courts this morning where a man is due to appear on a string of offences after allegedly firing a home-made firearm at a member of the public in Moora.

WA Police say the 31-year-old South Carnarvon man failed to pay for diesel fuel at a service station on Roberts Street before driving away in a Toyota Hilux.

It will be further alleged the accused was driving the Toyota utility on the Bindoon Moora Road when he pulled over about seven kilometres south of Moora and pointed a firearm at a member of the public who had been following the vehicle from the service station.

The accused allegedly fired a shot in the direction of the man, who got back into his vehicle and drove away.

He was later stopped on Grey Street in Bassendean and taken into custody.

Police located and seized a black home-made firearm which contained one spent .223 calibre cartridge, four live rounds of .223 calibre ammunition and a small amount of cannabis in the vehicle.

He will appear before the Perth Magistrates Court today charged with two counts of unlicensed firearm possession, one count of carrying or possessing firearm while under the influence of drugs, one count of unlawfully discharging a firearm and one count of discharging a firearm to the danger of, or in a manner to cause fear to, the public.

He is also charged with possessing cannabis and stealing.

A grieving Perth family has fallen victim to scam artists, with their late son’s name and image used to dupe the community into donating online.

Levi Tracy, 19, passed away last week after a gruelling battle with cancer. Then, ruthless scammers created Facebook pages calling for donations, seeking to replicate the original “Lifeline for Levi” page, set up to keep family and friends updated on his condition.

His father, Mark Tracey, told Gary Adshead on 6PR their original page was not about money at all.

“They’ve also personally reached out to a number of people in our friends and families network and asked them for a donation, which again is not something that we did,” he said.

“We had a couple of people contact my wife directly questioning us about our integrity. He passed on Tuesday, this started on Wednesday. It’s been a rough week.”

The scammers had also reached out to his wife and demanded $12,000, before threatening to pay the family a visit and “sort them out.”

Tracy said they and family and friends had reported the pages to Facebook, but they were not shutting them down because they did not breach their community standards.

He said they had also reported the page to police, but it was difficult to keep talking about the issue while still processing what had happened and planning Levi’s funeral.

Levi was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkins t-cell lymphoma aged seven.

He went through 2.5 years of chemotherapy which put him in remission but 10 years later he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. He rebounded from that as well.

“He was living life at 100 miles an hour because he’d spent so much time in hospital. Then in March of this year, he relapsed,” Tracy said.

“The lasting legacy that Levi wanted was awareness around the needs of blood products and potentially organ donation such as stem cell donation.

“Without the support of the blood products over the journey, or the stem cell donations, we would have lost him much earlier.”

WA senator Fatima Payman says she doesn’t have any current plans to form an independent coalition, as she fronts the media for the first time since leaving the Labor party to sit on the crossbench.

“This is day five as an independent for me, I haven’t thought about forming any coalitions at this stage,” Payman told ABC News Breakfast.

“The crossbench senators have been very welcoming, sending messages of solidarity and making sure that I’m OK. It really has been a tough past few weeks, but after coming back home, I know that I’ll hit the ground running, and I’ll do what’s best for West Aussies.”

Payman was asked for her message to people who might be frustrated she has left the party, given the overwhelming majority of Payman’s votes came above the line for the Labor ticket, not for her as an individual.

“A lot of Western Australians have been reaching out to me wanting to share their experience, but also their thoughts and sentiments on the ground that the Australian Labor Party that they elected is not serving their best interests,” Payman said.

“They voted for a change in government, they wanted to see values of justice, equality and freedom upheld, and they’re just not seeing that. So for me, it’s important to prove myself, which I will, and in that, I will be consulting with people on the ground to hear what’s - what their concerns are and how I can best represent them.”