FOREWORD: This interview was recorded live on Facebook, on Saturday afternoon 22 October 2016 at approximately 2.30 pm. After the announcement in the Examiner newspaper on Saturday about the university’s secret sponsorship deal with the Launceston City Manager and the Mayor, there were more than 280 comments and many more replies on the Examiner’s Facebook page. The Examiner reporter interviews:
• the University of Tasmania’s Mike Calford,
• the Launceston Mayor, Albert van Zetten and
• the Launceston City general manager, Robert Dobrzynski,
The interview itself drew another 87 comments and many more replies. The best parts of the video are the questions by the interviewer and the real time comments from viewers. (The video can be seen at the Examiner Launceston Facebook page, click Videos, “City of Launceston Official – the University of…” )
THE INTERVIEW: (complete with ums, ahs, ers and repeats. Underlined words are to show the emphasis made by the speaker)
Calford: Er, Mike Calford, I’m the provost at the University and this is a great outcome. Ah, we’re working hand in hand with the Launceston City Council in many ways, as we bring about a transformation of education in the north of the state. And it’s wonderful to be able to put our name up early on this site, and also to do something really positive for the community. It er helps us, er, we’re putting something back in and we’re getting a lot from it too, because interstate marketing is an important aspect for the university. The university can’t survive just on the Tasmanian student numbers, there just aren’t enough. We’re bringing international students – about 850 international students currently in Launceston and a number of interstate students – not quite that number; we’d like to increase that number and getting our name well-known, well-understood early on, with potential students interstate is a great marketing outcome for us.
van Zetten: Yes, so, look from a Council perspective we’re absolutely excited, and thank you to the university, the Utas for doing this sponsorship, for doing this sponsorship, and this, this, this facility here is regarded as one of the best in Australia, there’s no doubt about that and we know that when hawthorn come and play here they absolutely love the surface and they love playing here and they have adopted this as their home. So, we see this as a good mix as Mike has said very much so, we’ve, er, education being so important for Launceston and to grow, and we wanna see more people get involved in education locally and hopefully then people will come over from the mainland and specially when with the university now with the move to Inveresk is gunna to be extremely exciting for this whole precinct and, er, the extra programs that they are gunna to be looking at, and especially the ones to do with, relevant areas here in agriculture and relevant to Launceston or the surrounds of Launceston and this is not just about Launceston bur northern Tasmania, and even Tasmania, and we’re hoping, or I’m hoping, very much that people from the mainland who see that will also get to know a little bit about, about Utas and hopefully come to Launceston.”
Dobrzynski: Ah, Robert Dobrynski, general manager of the City of Launceston. Look, it is an extremely exciting announcement um, we have one of the pre-eminent organisations in Tasmania, um, entering into a partnership with the largest council in Tasmania, the City of Launceston, From an operational point of view we see tremendous potential moving forward with the inner city campus being constructed, ah, adjacent to, to this stadium, ahm, that we can, um partner and take our partnership even further in terms of use of the facility and in terms of the development of the facility. So its extremely exciting, um, The university’s essentially contributing financially to the operation of the premiere sporting facility in Tasmania. It gives them enormous exposure in terms of national, and international, markets because certainly AFL games are streamed live overseas, so it provides some really strong mutual, er mutually beneficial outcomes we believe.”
Interviewer: What are some extra details about the sponsorship deal in terms of what each party is getting?
Dobrzynski: Well it’s a five year sponsorship deal, um, and it, um, it provides exposure to the university and in terms of signage, in terms of activities that they’ll be able to undertake at the facilities here at the stadium, um, and it also enables us to continue a dialogue on, as I said earlier, how ah, the university and the stadium can, um, um, partner to provide services to the community, not only to the student community but also to the community of, of northern Tasmania.
Interviewer: Is there any information, about exactly how much the sponsorship deal in terms, of dollars terms?
.
Dobrzynski: Well, it’s significant enough for the mayor and I to be extremely excited, but, um, clearly that’s a commercial in confidence information and it’s not information that we’ve released in the past publicly, um, and um, it’s probably be inappropriate that we do so now.
Interviewer: Were there a number of other sponsors being considered or was the university the only one?
Dobrzynski: Look, um, there are difficult commercial circumstances in Tasmania at the moment and we find that corporate sponsorship is difficult to get so we were particularly excited to get such a good fit as the University of Tasmania interested in sponsoring the stadium.
Interviewer: Um, there’s been a bit of criticism of the Council’s – I speak…excuse me…I speak specifically um of the um, on the Danny Gibson Facebook post where he’s said that aldermen were only informed by about 5.23 pm via email of the deal and weren’t told anything prior to that. What’s your response?
Dobrzynski: Look, it’s disappointing that such a grand announcement is perhaps being hijacked by social media posts. Um, the aldermen are briefed thoroughly in terms of operational, er, in terms of policy and strategic matters, um, in order that they can make decisions on those areas, they are the statutory responsibilities of elected members and the council. Operational responsibility falls exclusively to the General manager and we have an organisation that’s over 100 million dollar budget over 500 million, er, 500 employees and one point four five billion dollars worth of assets and it’s just simply not practical for aldermen to be involved in the operational activities of the council and indeed the code of conduct for aldermen explicitly (RD’s emphasis) excludes aldermen being involved in operational matters, so, um, um, the system works well, ah, um, on occasions we have hiccups.”
Interviewer: Do you think that there should have been um, that potentially, that consultation with aldermen before it was announced, um, by, you know, in the media, so given that the Utas move has been such a sensitive issue for some members of the community?
Dobrzynski: Well, the aldermen were certainly strongly supportive of the, the university’s move inner city campus project and, um, I understand the vote was, as I recall, ah, for the move. We’re in continued discussions with the university at an operational level and at a policy and strategic level. Any of those matters that require council decisions from the legislative point of view under the Local Government Act, aldermen are thoroughly briefed on in order that they can take those decisions fully informed.
Over 90 per cent of the comments oppose the sponsorship and/or the name change to the university name. Where are the funds coming from etc etc. The video and real time comments can be seen at the Examiner’s facebook page under videos.
