QUESTIONS TO CITY OF LAUNCESTON COUNCIL

QUESTION 1

In the light of increasing reports that at Council’s Waste Management Centre that compostable cellulose materials, masonry and metals plus other recyclable and upscaleable material is going to landfill on a regular and uncontrolled basis, some say hourly basis, that is material arriving at the centre as unsorted rubbish and carelessly mixed, thus causing it to go inappropriately to landfill and as a consequence mitigating against this material’s recoverability as a resource and seriously impacting upon council’s ability to recover and utilise these resources and diverting them to appropriate resource recovery regimes towards the benefit of ratepayers and 21^st Century resource recovery strategies with win-win benefits going to not only ratepayers but also mitigating against sustainable ‘environmental management strategies’ and towards achieving ‘zero waste strategies’ :

• will council now, and expeditiously, initiate appropriate regulations resulting in both substantial fines for inappropriate resource disposal behaviours and a rewards system for exemplary resource recovery outcomes as well as revisiting past refusals to re-contextualise the “Waste Management Centre” as a RESOURCE RECOVERY CENTRE and employ appropriately qualified staff to oversee and implement the strategic change?

QUESTION 2

In the light of increasing concerns regarding the city’s dismal fiscal performance and the reported, projected, and planned10% plus operating deficit for 2020/2021, plus the reported serial past budget ‘over runs’ of extraordinary proportions in the order of 30 plus average Launceston mid-range housing properties, and a similar number of senior salaries in council’s management structure, plus the city’s mounting debt level, not to mention the extraordinary unsustainable and development proposal for a transit exchange, touted by the GM/CEO as viable on the grounds that Local Government is not required to make a profit given that all costs can be passed on to ratepayers who must pay for all unanticipated costs, all of which has all the hallmarks of a ‘fiscal folly writ large’ at ratepayers expense both in the short and longer term, against the disruptive background of the COVID-19 Crisis and the escalating unemployment figures and the increasing numbers of small business failures:

• will council take immediate steps to appoint an independent forensic auditor to identify the root causes of the city’s apparent fiscal ineptitudes and tasked to report expeditiously to ratepayers and residents in a staged manner over nine months in order that the fiscal failures and weaknesses can be addressed and allow council to reset its rate demands and fees regime to fit the now clear economic circumstances of ratepayers, residents and regional business now struggling to survive?

QUESTION 3

Given the growing community disquiet and disgust in regard to council taking money from a dedicated drought relief funding grants program designed to alleviate the impact of Australia’s unprecedented and prolonged drought that has been compounded by unprecedented bush fires and further compounded upon by the COVID-19 Crisis and given council’s behaviours that are deservedly being charactorised as unconscionable, and arguably as unethical and immoral behaviours in the light of all this, all of which is ultimately diminishing to ordinary citizens trying to find a positive way forward but are being blighted by council’s predisposition to take the money and run and to hell with the consequences while apparently being unconcerned at the plight of communities elsewhere who are suffering profoundly while Launceston essentially misrepresents it ‘drought status’ relative to those communities suffering very real distress in multiple ways:

• will council confess to its misdeeds, return the money, the entire $10 plus million, to the fund it now so very clear that Launceston is unethically and immorally benefiting from in the face of the published evidence in the press, and citizen’s real-world experiences, that is that Launceston DID NOT and has not experienced ‘drought at any level’ albeit that the city and region may have experienced some but limited rainfall deficits, and consistent with this attempt to negotiate a fiscal way forward that is defendable, moral and ethical?

Ray Norman

Launceston