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| https://www.examiner.com.au/story/2399599/council-wants-state-help-with-qvmag-funding/ |
I've written to the Mayor only to get a rendition of his same old, paraphrased, 'we cannot do anything just now and we know that something needs to be done' that's supposed by him to be a positive and credible response.
I'd written to the Mayor acknowledging the current GM's indication that the QVMAG needed, and was about to get, an audit given the alert the 'missing Brett Whiteley drawing' tells us all about. His response was welcomed and it points to there being a lot more than an audit being needed albeit that it is a very important consideration looking ahead.
However, yet again the Mayor offers reasons for ‘doing nothing until something happens’ and we're all left wondering what needs to be done to encourage the Mayor and his merry bunch of Aldermen to acknowledge their obligations as default ‘trustees’. They are happy enough to conscript recurrent funding but are apparently unwilling to be held accountable.
Serially, and surreally, this bunch at Town Hall are consistent in their capacity to miss the point along with almost every opportunity for positive change.
The question waiting for an answer is why would, or could, or even should the City of Launceston's and the QVMAG's constituency ‘trust’ the QVMAG's trustees? That also includes the institution's donors, sponsors beyond the ratepayers and the State government.
By default the Mayor is the ‘default chairperson’ of the 'QVMAG Trustees’. In the life of this Council I cannot recall either the Mayor or the aldermen initiating anything meaningful towards a strategic policy determination with a productive outcome. More to the point, I cannot recall any of the elected representative being prepared to listen to, or even seek ‘expert advice’ relevant to the QVMAG – other than one or two who eventually were dissuaded in their interest.
Sometimes advice came via the GM, arguably, self-serving 'convenient' bureaucratic advice provided by the then GM under SECTION 62 of the local government Act. That was 'advice' he was required to provide under under SECTION 65 of Tasmania’s Local Govt Act.
I do however recall quite well how 'Council collectively' stood in the way of advice inconvenient to management getting any kind of hearing in favour of the maintenance of the status quo. That has brought the QVMAG to its current less than happy circumstances with what is now clearly apparent, questionable accountability.
Accountability is something that the Mayor, and some aldermen, have consistently denied being an issue whenever I’ve brought my concerns to Council’s attention. Now there is clear evidence that accountability, the lack of it, has been an issue all that time.
Standing out front of an iconic building 'crying poor' just does not cut it as an exemplary 'strategic initiative'. Begging for $3Million on the strength of an argument that 'we believe that we need it'. All this and apparently on the GM's 'advice' – not independent expert advice from a credible expert with domain knowledge. It beggars belief and tests the outer limits of credibility.
Moreover, now that it is as clear as it ever has been while I’ve been researching ‘musingplaces’ – with the QVMAG as a case study – that the institution’s governance is totally inadequate and functionally unaccountable – and arguably at times delinquent. No amount of deeming changes that.
The trickle-down to management has not been helpful in that the institution has been virtually, and recalcitrantly, ‘rudderless’ given Council’s collective failures in governance and the blurring of governance's and management's roles.
As inactive – virtually abdicated – default ‘trustees’ Council's inaction and failures have had unwelcome impacts upon not only QVMAG staff but also the wider Tamar/Esk Region – and for that there is no reason for congratulations.
Given that the local government elections are upon us it is time for Council's alderpeople to ‘fess-up’ to their failures and inadequacies. They need to do so in order to clear a way forward without the lead-in-the-saddle the status quo burdens the QVMAG with.
Collectively, incumbent QVMAG Trustees may well want to claim that as ‘trustees’ they have punched-above-your-weight, I’m sorry they didn't and have not.
I look forward with considerable interest to just what judgements the City of Launceston makes given that there is so, so much at stake, and so, so many opportunities to be realised, given all that ratepayers et al have invested in the institution. Council conscripts the QVMAG's recurrent funding from ratepayers and has been doing over a very long time but there is much, much more invested in the institution than this indicates.
OH YES, listen up there is a secret plan in hand to change everything but as ratepayers and residents, donors and sponsors we must be patient until the rabbit is pulled from the hat and then vote for these 'trustees' who are so, so unwilling to take their constituency into their confidence.
So where's the accountability?
Ray Norman
Researcher & Cultural Geographer
Sept 2018
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