PETITION REGARDING UTAS LAND DEAL NOW LODGED

 CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

  CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Today the citizen's petition with 1493 signatures calling for a Public Meeting in regard to Council's in commitment to gift land to UTas was presented to the city's General Manager.  The Local Govt. Act 1993 requires Council to call a pub;oc meeting if 5% of the electorate, or 1,000 residents on the electoral roll, call for such a meeting.

Council has 42 days to verify the veracity of the petition. The letter accompanying the petition calls upon Launceston City Council to call a public meeting in accord with SECTION 57 of the Local Government Act 1993 for the purpose of: 

1. Discussing Council’s decision to gift land known as Willis Street Car Park and the Old Velodrome site to the University of Tasmania; 
2.  Calling upon Council to rescind the motion passed by the Full Council Meeting 9th November 2015; and to 
3. Discuss the proposal to place this land on the open market via a Public Auction with a Reserve Price of $5milliion. 

 Furthermore, it is requested that:

1. The meeting time be 7 PM 
2.  The meeting be chaired by an independent chairperson; 
3. Council and spokespeople for the petitioners be given adequate time to state their respective cases – 15 minutes; 
4. The meeting accept any motion from the floor for the consideration of Council; 
5.  Council consider the following people as appropriate independent chair people: Hon. Rosemary Armitage MLC; Hon. Don Wing AM; Hon Kerry Finch MLC; and Hon Ivan Dean MLC.

Given that half as many again signatures are required have been provided there should be no inhibitions in calling the meeting promptly. Indeed, there are many reasons to rethink the whole UTas relocation  proposal given the level of community disquiet.

It has been said that the the number petitioners "is only a small number of people who disagree with Council gifting land to UTas" but in the scheme of things it needs to be considered that:

• Only three Aldermen won their seats on council with more votes than there are signature on the petition – Ald. van Zetten, McKkenzie and Finlay;
• Five won their seats with less votes than signatures on the petition;
• With the other four winning their positions with less than 1,000 votes and three with less than half the number of petitioners. 
• See http://www.tec.tas.gov.au/LocalGovernmentElections2014/2014LGResults/LauncestonCity.html
• And only seven aldermen were in attendance to receive the petition.

In any event if the petition makes one point it is that the aldermen, and council by extension, on this issue ate least, are not connected with their constituents and have failed to include their constituents' concerns in their decision making processes.

CLICK HERE SEE EXAMINER STORY

Citizens' Petition To Be Presented To Council March 30

CLICK ABOVE TO ENLARGE

Curiously the Mayor seems to have adopted a position where he is deliberately privileging the "Property Council, the Chamber of Commerce, prominent private developers like Errol Stewart, TasTAFE and many other" (unnamed!) over and above ordinary ratepayers. 

After all these 'stakeholders' might be expected to – or even be expecting to – turn a dollar out the development phase of any large scale development project. Nothing inherently wrong with that except that it is a slanted and self-serving world view.

The Mayor in particular, via his dogged defence of the agreed 'land gift' to UTas, has put ordinary ratepayers' interests to one side. Is the Mayor actually invoking Matthew 12:1-11 were "Spiritual gifts were extraordinary powers bestowed in the first ages, to convince unbelievers, and to spread the [word]"?

If so, ordinary ratepayers, it appears, are being required bear the burden of funding ancillary infrastructure for the benefit of UTas – a non-contributor to the city's recurrent budget albeit that the institution is a significant benefactor in regard to Council services.

Indeed, it can be argued that Council is proactively discriminating against the greater part of the city's ratepayers in failing to consult with them in a meaningful way. It would appear that the risk in doing so, from Council's adopted perspective, would be to receive the kind of unwelcomed feedback embodied in the petition. It is an unavoidable and self-fulfilling prophesy!

Someone, somewhere, has said that the only real mistake is the one from which nothing is learnt. So if as they say, life is a process, not an end, mistakes are an inherent part of 'the process'. Thus mistakes are lost opportunities unless something is achieved via mistakes. Suffice to say unless the lessons learned are put into practice nothing at all can be achieved.

Here it seems that there is a 'Mexican stand off' in play and there a need for something that will break the nexus and perhaps its time to consider Proverbs 28:13: Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

THE ELECTION IS LOOMING AND IT SEEMS THE UTAS PROPOSAL IS ON THE AGENDA

CLICK HERE TO GO TO SOURCE

The Examiner reports that "Mr Bowen said he would swiftly discuss funding for UTAS project with opposition higher education spokesman Kim Carr and funding for TasWater’s sewerage improvement plan with shadow environment spokesman Mark Butler." 

Mr Hart said water quality needed to take precedence over the aesthetics of the estuary’s silt problem.

Mr Bowen also said that “Today has been more of a listening exercise for me.” so let's hope that there were some informed people around for him to listen to. In case they were not, well we had better write to him ASAP (swiftly!) and perhaps Senator Kim Carr as well.  Anyway read the Examiner story and the contact these people and let them know what YOU think just in case they haven't met anyone with your point of view.

CONTACT INFORMATION

•eMAIL: Chris Bowen 

Chris.Bowen.MP@aph.gov.au

eMAIL: Senator Kim Carr

senator.carr@aph.gov.au

To contact Mark Butler 

Go to: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Contact_Senator_or_Member?MPID=HWK

Go to Ross Hart's FACEbook

https://www.facebook.com/rosshartforbass

A UTAS CONVERSATION ABOUT NORTHERN TRANSFORMATION

[We're wondering just who is invited and who this event is designed for] RSVPs are essential by Friday 8 April 2016 The University believes that lifting educational attainment is key to a more skilled, productive and prosperous Tasmanian community. Join us for refreshments and networking followed by an update and Q&A conversation about the Inveresk campus developments and how we aim to attract more students into higher education by providing high quality, relevant and affordable university courses in a contemporary learning environment. For further information please contact: Natalie Nimmo - Alumni Relations Office E: alumni.office@utas.edu.au P: +61 3 6324 3052  W: utas.edu.au/alumni

The Passive Parish Pump Infrastructure ATM Looks Like It's Going To Close

Go to The Guardian Story

We might say that "Tasmania is different" but is it? Or, is it so different?

Malcolm Turnbull is right on the money when he says that infrastructure money needs to be spent well and in partnership with the regions where it is to be spent.

So the Prime Minister tells us that the Federal Government will “no longer be a passive ATM doling out grants for infrastructure”,  in a lecture lauding the economic and social potential of transport infrastructure to “make cities [regions?] wonderful places to live”.

In Northern Tasmania we might well ask how the bucket of dollars that the university is asking for right now might stack up given the kind of scrutiny the Prime Minister is now talking about. 

As 'the plan' stands the modelling that's apparently informing 'the push' is something of a mystery.

Click here for the ABC story

An ABC report tells us West Tamar councillor Peter Kearney has said that he was concerned the new development would reduce the university's research capacity. It reported that he wanted to know if the university planed to continue having senior academic staff in Launceston.

Reportedly, Councillor Kearney went on to ask "are we going to go on having research at highest level? Are we going to go on having doctorates, masters produced and are they going to go on moving things from their back offices to Hobart?" 

The report said that Councillor Kearney also claimed the university had been keeping its plans a "secret". 

"Why has this been a secret? Why didn't they come out earlier?" he asked.  "They've [UTas] talked to the Launceston City Council but they've talked to no-one else in the region." 

These are all very good questions. And given Malcolm Turnbull's enunciations today you do have wonder how the UTas game of 'gigerypoker' might play out in the end. 

When it comes down to it, it seems that there is too little known about the programs to be offered, the delivery methods, their cost, the value created in the community and just where the funding will actually come from.

If you know these things then you can compare and contrast this infrastructure proposal agains all comers.

UTas says relocating its Launceston and Burnie campuses will process an extra 12,000 students over the next decade. But on what modelling, from where and on what evidence?

Again UTas estimates that 3110 jobs will be created through its plans for Northern Tasmania. Again, on what modelling and what evidence?

The business proposal''s total cost is estimated at $300 million all coming from tax and ratepayers. The question does have to be asked "for what bang for their buck?"

The Financial Review Monday 18th. January 2016 Charter Hall has acquired the development rights for the new Western Sydney University at Parramatta from Leighton Properties. Interestingly, this sounds so, so unfamiliar in Launceston.

When finished next year the Western Sydney project will have an end value of $220 million, be 100% pre-leased to Western Sydney University for 15 years and be home to more than 10,000 students. There are some resonances here but in a different context.

UTas wants the Federal Government to un-cap the number of places for associate degrees. This is where it expects most student growth to come from. Again, on what modelling and what evidence?

If the Prime Minister is actually telling us that the Federal Government will “no longer be a passive ATM doling out grants for infrastructure,”  when UTas goes inside to the branch accountant and goes looking for the kind of money their aspirations tell them they want, they had better have some answers for such questions.

If there are alternative infrastructure propositions then consortium putting this "campus move push" together had better do their numbers, and the modelling and get the social license. It'd be a good idea if they took the community into their confidence as well.

"Trust us we are the university" just might not cut it this time and in the 21st Century.

UTas, Nikolic and Hart: Grasping The Issues

Dr. Powell's FACEbook

An Infrastructure Game Changer For UTas And Launceston

Wouldn’t it to be better if that $225M was spent on a bridge across the Tamar linking the UTas at Newnham to Riverside, Legana, West Tamar and via Ecclestone Road to Westbury and the NW Coast. 

The present bottleneck at Paterson Bridge over the Cataract Gorge and then the commonly gridlocked area around the edge of the CBD, would be avoided and a great number of transport and potential developments including the UTas at Newnham would be achieved. 

Now that would be a real infrastructure project and a significant game changer for Launceston’s expansion and Northern Tasmania in general. 

 Doreen Bowen

Sample Of Community Thinking!

Click here to go to the Examiner's Letters Today

Move

 MY sentiments exactly Ivan Webb (The Examiner March 1). ......... The millions available for a modern building to be placed in an area of historical and heritage significance could be better spent to make our present university sustainable. ......... An underground car park with new buildings on the present car parks would seem to be a good way to recycle the present site, which already has all a university student needs in the Mowbray/Newnham area. ......... If the new building goes ahead, how much thought has been given to the traffic movement? ......... Already Invermay Road, the Tamar Street Bridge and the Esplanade are areas of concern. ......... The Northern Outlet and entry/exit roads to the present sight has been money well spent to make traffic movement viable. — E J SPENCE, Norwood.

Elder loans 

AS A compassionate country we support those who have inadequate income. ......... Many income-poor students get student loans to support themselves through their studies. ......... Many income-poor older people get pensions to support themselves through the later years of their lives. ......... Students are required to pay back their loans when there is a capacity to do so. ......... The same should apply to asset-rich pensioners (or their estates). ......... Currently inheritors are the ultimate beneficiaries of pensions for asset-rich elders. ......... We have student loans. ......... If our nation's finances are dire, it may be time to also consider elder loans. — IVAN WEBB, Launceston. .

Locations

I HEARD on the radio (City Park FM) the Mayor Albert van Zetten state that modern universities are in the centre of cities. ......... I have no idea where he got that idea from. They are not. ......... Only the very old universities notably Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide universities and only those formed from some technical colleges such as RMIT are there. ......... The University of Queensland is seven kilometres out and the University of Western Australia 5 kilometres out. ......... All the other newer universities are well out of the city centre because of scarcity of land. ......... The most prestigious of the new universities James Cook (created by personal Royal Charter of the Queen) is 13 ½ kilometres out of Townsville, a city of similar size to Launceston. ......... The other renowned country university New England is 3 ½ kilometres out of Armidale (the same distance as Newnham). ......... Lastly, Inveresk is not in the CBD but in the zone of transition. — MALCOLM SCOTT, Newstead.

The Utas Burnie Experience

Make the link here

Launceston Developer And The Examiner Tell It Like It Is ... Sort Of

Click here to read this EXAMINER story
This story also talked about the plan to disamalgamate the uni's campuses ... Click Here 

This is one of those occasions that one says “well he would say that wouldn’t he/she”. As for the journalism, it’s as good as money can buy in a place like Launceston. 

Whenever there is a hint of fly-in money cargo cultists like Mr. Stewart get all excited at the prospect of growing their empire, and the empires of associates in ‘The Lonnie Cabal’. 

On occasions like this, if the ship comes in, there’s lots, and lots, of gravy to pass around. Yes, yes, it’s a disgusting mixed metaphor but there you go, that’s the way of it. 

It seems that this “developer” is prepared to go all the way with whoever just so long it gets more builders on the job with fat pay packets and the end of the week so they can spend, spend, spend in his, and the cabal’s, businesses. 

The interesting thing here is the developer has a business plan and that is something the university is still working on – so they say. 

The university’s administration is keen on one thing and only one thing it seems – it seems they didn't think they needed one ... a plan that is. They, the university over-lords, need this thing they understand as a business/university to keep on going, ideally keep on growing too, just to keep them in salaries and benefits – and only that it now seems. 

Revelations this week about Prof Peter Rathjen's personal excesses ought to be enough to send any investor to the fiscal advisors or at least those with some 'street smarts' and/or those without an axe to grind. 

There is plenty of advice on offer out there but the trick is picking the good stuff. Launceston’s good aldermen do not appear to be good at it. Then again, they may well be relying on their own collective experiences. 

Either way you have to ask, would you invest in one of their schemes if it didn’t have a business plan? Indeed if there was no evidence of a SWOT TEST ? Would you lend them you life’s savings? 

The only way that you would (might?) is if you had no choice like Al Capon's investors didn't. 

It’s just the case that there are choices and not all of them are to do with the next election!

ALSO, if you wish to read how history, hubris and humbug can catch up on you if you can read between the lines CLICK HERE

LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER

Dear Prime Minister,

RE: The establishment of a new Northern Tasmania institution of higher education and training

A group of concerned citizens has come together in Launceston Tasmania to express their concerns and to question the merit of proposed changes and relocation of the Northern Tasmanian Newnham campus of the University of Tasmania.

The site for relocation away from the established site at Newnham – Newnham being just a 6/7 minutes driving from Launceston’s centre – is towards the commercial centre of town and located on two flood-plain sites connected by a proposed footbridge across the North Esk River.

These small parcels of land are:
• sites of former railway terminuses and industrial workshops –now owned by Launceston City Council;
• a Federal Government $10.28m ‘Better Cities Site’ a rehabilitated former industrial site project from1994; and
• are sites where there is considerable flood risk.

The city’s ratepayers, indeed Northern Tasmanian residents more generally, have expressed serious concerns that the $4.5M worth of land will be gifted to UTas.

Moreover, the concern is that the whole purpose of the ill-conceived plan is an apparent disguise for the continued ‘dumbing down’ of the university facilities in the north of Tasmania. The imperative seems to be a transfer of upper level courses from Launceston to the UTas Hobart campus.

A proposal by UTas to offer new Associate Degree courses only at the Northern Campus seems to be the basis upon which UTas say an additional 10,000 students will be attracted to the two new sites.

There is no evidence that this number of new students could ever be achieved via this strategy, particularly as the completion of graduate programs would require students to later move to the UTas Hobart campus or indeed interstate.

It is the view of a growing number of northern Tasmanians that the very significant investment in buildings and infrastructure at Newnham must not be abandoned. Furthermore, it is believed that any new facilities that may be required into the future can be located at Newnham where there is 51ha already set aside for educational facilities.

If necessary, we believe that the Newnham campus ought to be divorced from the UTas Hobart administration so as to be allowed to compete on a fair and more economic basis, much like has occurred with Southern Cross University interstate.

Many people believe that the handsome sum being sought by UTas for their relocation project could be better spent by building onto the present infrastructure at Newnham campus and on other more important projects in Northern Tasmania.

Attached is an open letter that we believe illustrates the Northern Tasmanian community’s concerns, and puts some perspective into the provision of tertiary educational facilities and services in this region.

In preparing this open letter, input has been invited from a broad spectrum of the Northern Tasmanian community including past academics of UTas, and other institutions, all of whom are willing to speak up. Furthermore, the group has facilitated the production of an online OPEN LETTER – http://pmopenletter.blogspot.com.au/

Consistent with the precedent establish by Southern Cross University in 1992 we ask that via your good offices you facilitate the establishment of:
• An Advisory Group to consider the implications of a proposal to dismantle the now amalgamated campuses of the University of Tasmania; and In due course
• An Independent Advisory Group to advise ‘government’ on the establishment of a new university/institute in the North of Tasmania; initially as
• As an academically integrated institution incorporating another university/institution with the potential to establish additional sites at other northern Tasmanian sites as required; and
• Federal and State Ministers jointly appointing an Implementation Advisory Panel to advise on the strategies necessary to give effect to the proposed new structures and announce the successor institution to the UTas network.

It also proposed that the new university/institution develop under the sponsorship of a major metropolitan university for, say, the first three years, while operating under its own name and Council and awarding its own degrees in the longer term.

We welcome comment and feedback on this matter.

 Sincerely,

For and on behalf of concerned citizens of the Tamar/Esk region in Tasmania
EMAIL: [LCC C/- LP] LAUNCESTONprojects@bigpond.com 
LINK: http://pmopenletter.blogspot.com.au/