Just as the council elections loom candidates start to worry about who will vote this time, who they can persuade to vote, and for them, and how they can either hang on to their position around the table or win a seat around the table.
Almost predictably someone in some council or other brings up the General Manager's Roll. Thanks the 'OUR ABC' we are getting a broader survey of 'opinion' than the 'regional press' has delivered in the past given its political allegiances and dependence on local government for its advertising etc. ... Click here to link to the ABC STORY.
Hobart's GM, Nick Heath, wants to bail out of his responsibility to determine resident's 'citizens' rights' claiming it is not 'core business' for him to be doing it. Well HELLO, it is in the Act, it IS part of his duty statement and he has a choice. He could forfeit the largess of his 'executive salary' and as they say "get out of the kitchen if it is too hot". You are either 'up for it' and 'up to it' or not. So, let's discount the distractions of the likes and dislikes of GMs looking for an easier ride and pay attention to what's important and what's at stake.
It is a GM's 'role and obligation' to maintain a 'roll' of citizens with a 'right' to participate in civic life within the jurisdiction he manages.
There may well be a role for the electoral office in mediating in contentious determinations of GM's who may have been moved to make a prejudiced determination from time to time. However, such occasions will be rare.
The Speaker in Tasmania's Parliament Sue Hickey, worries that "it [is] too easy to get on the [GM'S] list" is as ill founded as it may be prejudiced. She is an intelligent person and she has been around for a while building a political career. In large part she has been a 'professional loose canon' and her contribution this time, in this local government election and on this subject, raises more questions than legitimate concerns. She may want to appear to be laying her concerns to rest. However, so long as she is imagined to be doing so 'she's on a winner' in the 'being noticed stakes'.
What might she mean by 'too easy' one wonders? Is she, and others, questioning 'blow-in' student's 'citizen status' and if so on what grounds? There's an apparent assumption that these students are all: 'elsewhere people'; non ratepayers; non contributors; culturally irrelevant; young or a member of an unwelcome demographic, etc. These are political determinations and nothing whatsoever to do with social inclusion in a civic sense. The complexities here might not be welcomed by 'simple thinkers' yet the facts are quite simple and straight forward.
However, there is it appears, always someone who wants to 'fiddle the books' for one reason or another – sometimes called out as the rotten apple syndrome.
In all this it is somewhat interesting that Launceston's Mayor Albert van Zetten, apparently, was elected to Council on his 'Launceston citizen status' granted him by the General Manager at the time. On the available evidence he is not eligible as a ratepayer on the electoral role given that, reportedly, he is resident outside the municipality of Launceston. His 'Launceston citizenship' has apparently been determined by the GM and it is assumed that his bona fides persists. Presumably, he votes in West Tamar Council elections where it appears he pays rates as well as in Launceston's Council elections where he receives a stipend as the city's mayor..
So, Sue Hickey's 'worries' in Hobart/Tasmania is an interesting intervention and at this time, It comes at a time when residency/citizen status is getting a bit of a run nationally.
Do we really need to stir the dual citizenship pot cum eligibility debate here and right now?
On several occasions in the past I have raised the proposition with Mayor van Zetten that overseas and interstate students, along with hospital staff, should/could be encouraged the register on the GM's Roll. His response was always been that it wasn't his role to do such a thing. The argument to do it is that these people bring their money to the city in multiple ways and therefore it would be 'good marketing' for the longer term to make these people feel 'at home' here well out into the future. This was an argument put to promote the 'Columbo Plan' in the 1950/60s. It's a class of thinking that might well resonate again in Tasmania/Launceston/Hobart and relevant to the 'marketing' of Tasmania as a 'venue'.
It seems so, so, one dimensional to me to want 'the wealth' these people bring to a place and then want to exclude them on some spurious pretext or other. While this stuff will get called out from time to time as "racism" it's more than that, it is just plain dumb spiced up with a large dose of silliness.
Hobart's current Lord Mayor Ron Christie has said that he had a range of concerns with the GM's Roll. Importantly, in regard to eligibility he has said, "the last thing we want to be accused of is racism".
He went on to say that in Hobart "we have 116 communities ... some of them are not citizens of Australia. Some of them want to be citizens of Australia but they still do invest in our city and therefore under the GM's roll and according to law they have a right to vote," he said. He also indicated that it was possible that there needed to be more scrutiny of the roll.
For me, it is important that those who have an attachment to 'place' for whatever reason need to be welcomed into the 'placemaking' processes that go on within it. Placemaking is the business of a council. Arguably, nothing more and nothing less.
Tourists want to feel comfortable and 'at home' elsewhere 'away from home' and residents from wherever can help do that if they 'feel at home' where they live and work. Increasingly, places like Launceston will need to make visitors to the city feel welcome and 'at home'. Increasingly, the economic well being of places like Launceston need to be more welcoming and less frightened of what, for instance, a 'youth demographic from elsewhere' might expect or indeed have to offer. The issue is bigger than that but no more complex than this example.
Ray Norman
Independent Researcher
Cultural Geographer
HURRY UP AND GET ALONG TO YOUR COUNCIL IF YOU WANT GET ON THE GM'S ROLL - THE ROLL CLOSES SEPT 13.
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