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Saturday, October 3, 2026
BETTER GOVERNANCE
LAUNCESTON IS THE FRACTION THAT REPRESENTS THE WHOLE
LAUNCESTON'S CANDIDATES FOR LOCAL GOVT
Made up of 9 councillors, including 1 mayor and 1 deputy mayor.
Melissa Anderson
Kyle Barrett
Alex Britton
Susie Cai
Daniela Cavalletti
Rose Diamond
Fenella Edwards
James Garcia
Matthew Garwood
Jacob Gelston
Martin Gilmour
Tim Gunton
Alan Harris
Jess Hoyle
Paul Mallett
Ross Marsden
Jarad Murray
Andrew Palmer
Joe Pentridge
Krista Preece
Jamie Quach
Gabriel Robins
Frank Rosol
Bob Salt
Paul Swiatkowski
Tim Walker
LAUNCESTON SHOULD & COULD HAVE:
• ... AN ACCOUNTABLE & TRANNSPARENT MANAGEMENT
• ... NOBODY SUFFERING FROM HOUSING STRESS
• ... A RESOURCE RECOVERY CENTRE
• ... A SUSTAINABLE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
BUT ON THE EVIDENCE MANAGEMENT HAS RESISTED SUCH A DEVELOPMENTS IN LIEU
OF MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO
AS FOR THE INCUMBENCY WHY NOT:
• ... ASK THEM WHY THEY DELEGATED SO MUCH OF THEIR AUTHORITY TO MANAGEMENT
APPARENTLY 70 PLUS PAGES OF DELEGATIONS
ALL GUNNAdo CANDIDATES WILL NEED TO CURB MANAGEMENT’S EXCESSES BEFORE
THEY CAN EVEN BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT REPRESENTING THE CONSTITUENCY THAT VOTED FOR THEM
VOTE PURPLE
LINK
Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error... Marcus Tullius Cicero
Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it. ... Peter Lynch
INCEDULOUS INCURIOSITY
When incurious councillors don't read the fine print, ratepayers pay the price.
By Craig Thomson
Updated August 9 2026 - 8:29am, first published 5:55am
The most alarming detail in the City of Launceston councillors' decision to hit some property owners with a 40 per cent rates increase isn't just the size of the rate hike; it's the candid admission by councillors that they voted for a sweeping policy shift without understanding its real-world fallout.
Councillor Tim Walker's admission that he "did not realise the implications" exposes a systemic failure in council governance: approving complex rate strategies on paper without first demanding granular impact modelling. Local democracy breaks down when elected representatives act as rubber stamps for policy documents rather than probing how those decisions affect household budgets.
Launceston Town Hall. Picture by Paul Scambler
Lumping lifestyle properties and cost-neutral hobby farms into the same rate tier as profit-generating commercial hubs fails basic economic logic. Residents like Abby Collins aren't running high-margin enterprises; they are land-rich and cash-neutral. Broad-brush rates strategies designed to "even things out" end up penalising residents who receive few, if any, commercial council services in exchange for their tens of thousands of dollars.
Even the proposed 20 per cent rate cap represents a steep, unbudgeted surge for local families. As Cr Joe Pentridge put it, a 20 per cent cap is nothing more than "kicking someone and then giving them a band-aid." A genuine remedy requires a complete pause and overhaul of the strategy, not a compromise born of political embarrassment.
Local government budget shortfalls should never be balance-sheet problems dumped onto unsuspecting ratepayers overnight. Consider the precedent: the City of Launceston Council previously decided against implementing a differential rate rise for short-stay accommodation owners because an official review concluded short-stays were not a major driver of local housing stress. Where was that basic due diligence before hitting primary producers?
Paying lip service to an unintended consequence doesn't clear a surprise bill of thousands of dollars from a ratepayer's kitchen table. Expecting hobby farmers to swallow a compromise hike to resolve an administrative oversight places an unfair burden on the community.
While it is rare to hear politicians openly admit "we made a mistake," owning up to an error is only step one. If fixing this mess means the council has to absorb the revenue shortfall and tighten its own operational belt, so be it.
The City of Launceston must immediately implement a full 12-month freeze on these revised primary production rates, issue adjusted notices, and fund the difference out of its own budget while a transparent review takes place.
Councillors were elected to scrutinise policy, ask tough questions, and protect their constituents from administrative overreach. Instead, they imposed a crippling financial penalty on more than 500 local properties, then admitted they didn't realise what they were voting for.
That isn't just an administrative blunder; it is a fundamental breach of public trust.
Craig Thomson is the editor of The Examiner.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
NISSEN HOUSING AND THE STEEL ARCH
VIDEO ... PLAYING MERRY HELL... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eIOuXtSnDw
“Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'” is a famous quip by Ronald Reagan criticising existing political and social conditions. Reagan used the line to mock the current state of affairs and advocate for bold, conservative change rather than preserving the existing way government operated. It aligns with Regan's core belief that big government and entrenched bureaucracy were the sources of society's problems rather than the solutions. Looking at the "mess" that politicians, and especially their 'functionaries, have made in regard housing and homelessness, it is time to "play merry hell with the status quo".
At a Local Govt level accountability and transparency must be what elected representatives MUST pay very close attention to. The STATUS QUO is unsustainable and it is NO JOKE that those who work so hard to maintain itare asv sucessful as they have been!
The blatant self-serving prejudices in play in regard STEEL ARCH HOMES should be indictable and the perpetrators need to be shamed and shunned given the misery thev cause what they call the UNDER CLASS to suffer at their whim.
ABC STORY ...https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-08/nissen-hut-belmont-north-remembered-as-houses-renovated/102061336
ROMNEY ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romney_hut
NISSEN ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissen_hut
“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible,” ... Maya Angelou.
Monday, September 14, 2026
DELEGATED AUTHORITIES IN LOCAL GOVERNANCE
PLEASE KNOW The link by which one might download the 70plus pages of DELEGATED AUTHORITIES was not functional at 2pm Tuesday Sept 15 or at 11.08 am Sept 16 or Thursday Sept 17 at 9.30 pm 2026 and Council Reception indicated that in due course the dysfunction would be attended to. Otherwise ratepayers and intending candidates can attend Town Hall and ask for a hardcopy of the 76 pages in order that they can be better informed about just what authority an elected elected representative has to exercise their democratic right as an elected representative in their governance role. Similarly they can be informed about what their representatives are unable to do or initiate on their behalf.
THAT WOULD BE AN INCREMENTAL STEP FORWARD
TOWARDS DIRECT DELIBERATIVE GOVERNANCE
IN THE STATE OF TASMANIA. GOVERNANCE
NEEDS TO GOVERN AND MANAGEMENT
NEEDS TO DELIVER AND
CONSTITUENTS NEED TO
BE SERVED GIVEN THAT
THEY PAY TO BE!!
Friday, September 11, 2026
Wednesday, May 6, 2026
THE MINISTER'S SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
IF we are to believe the Minister here he is looking for a silver bullet that'll get him out of a political bind. ALL politicians who have invested heavily in the status quo that hangs its credibility on INVESTMENTdriven development aught to spending sleepless nights as well!!
Clearly, all together they got that wrong but somehow, and that's the political class who've thrown their hats into that ring, who've missed the point. That's so albeit that they together have up to now grown their wealth.
However, in many cases, a lot of their 'wealth' is invested in the houses and housing that the HOMEless cannot afford to live in despite being gainfully employed.
It may be a bitter pill to consider but IF the Minister were ti consider fr a moment that the 'experts' he relies upon, and his Dept, lack the wherewithal to hand him a 'silver bullet' or anything like it. However, there are experts out there in the constituency he is there to serve. They just do not work for him but they are there!
Representational democracy is failing in sync with the advance of the new technologies and IF the Minister was to give the Local Govt. Act he is trying to make work a moment's thought he will see that it was invoked before Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web while working at CERN in 1989 – just four years before the LGA was framed.
Tim Berners-Lee proposed a "universal linked information system" using several concepts and technologies, the most fundamental of which was the connections that existed between information. IF he were to think about all this in terms of the disruption of the status quo and how many WEBsites ever nano-second come online he'd quickly know that the status quo is not fit-for-purpose.
The "experts" identified here are the people the newDEMOCRACYFoundation pull together to form the CITIZEN'Sjuries who aim to deliver solutions to difficult/intractable problems – see https://www.newdemocracy.com.au/category/library/research-papers/.
So, if the Minister where to contemplate meaningful change there are three things he might consider doing:
• ... Firstly, make contact with the newDEMOCRACY Foundation, or like service provider, seeking advice on establishing a Citizen's Jury or a Standing Citizen's Assembly ; and
• ... Secondly, invite all Local Councils to follow in his footsteps; and
• ... Thirdly, work Local Councils towards fundamental change and specifically in such a way as to incrementally embrace more direct deliberation and engagement with Communities of Ownership and Interest that reflects the diversity cultural realities
within them.
The Minister's reports of sleepless nights thinking about Tasmania's housing dystopia would be nothing more than disingenuous, self-serving and hollow rhetoric IF he were keep on thinking that somehow someone from within the status will hand him a silver bullet. If you change nothing, nothing of substance changes albeit that change is inevitable. Nonetheless change is inevitable but it is growth that's always there as an option. And then there is always magic to rely upon
This first bill – which will belatedly allow Tasmanian first home-buyers to access the federal Help-to-Buy Scheme – passed the House of Assembly on Tuesday.
Also on the notice paper is the government’s bill to place a levy on short-stay accommodation and a bill to allow tenants to more easily make safety upgrades to their rental accommodation.
The state’s housing crisis has been worsening for the last decade, marked in particular by high unmet demand for social, affordable and rental housing along with rapidly deceasing affordability.
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| FILE IMAGE |
Minister Kerry Vincent. Question time in the Tasmanian house of assembly. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones
Minister for Housing and Planning Kerry Vincent told parliament he was losing sleep trying to find solutions.
“We need to concentrate and work as a parliament as a whole to make sure we tick as many of those boxes as we can, and I’m happy to take any suggestions from anybody on it,” he said.
“I’m lying awake for many hours at night reading, understanding, and listening to everything I possibly can to fine-tune everything that is in my ministry.”
Mr Vincent hailed the passage of the Help-to-Buy Bill.
“Help-to-Buy will complement our highly successful MyHome Shared Equity Program, which has already helped over 1,000 households,” he said.
“I want to again thank the constructive approach from my Federal colleagues for helping us get to this point.”
The government took on notice a question from independent Helen Burnet about why information required to be provided by operators under the 2019 Short Stay Accommodation Act appears to no longer be published.
Independent for Franklin David O’Byrne said the government needed to take more decisive action on short stay accommodation.
“According to the latest Anglicare Tasmania rental Affordability Snapshot, there are only 770 properties currently advertised for rent in the whole of Tasmania,” he said.
“In the past year, there has been a nine per cent decline in rental availability driven by an 18 per cent decline in Southern Tasmania.
“Over the past decade, the number of rentals has halved.
“In contrast, the number of short stays has skyrocketed, with over 8000 properties listed.
“Given the undeniable crisis in the private rental market, it is now incumbent on the government to come up with a coherent strategy to ameliorate the impact of short-term stays.”
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
CONTEXT NOTE:
Against the background that the City of Launceston’s Waste Management Centre consigns something in the order of over 50% of the waste stream (AKA post consumer resource deposits) to LANDFILL and that currently it is already possible to divert 100% of a jurisdiction’s post consumer resources away from LANDFILL the city’s Waste Management Centre (WMC) is arguably no longer fit for purpose. SEE https://oncycling2025.blogspot.com/
Based on evidence gleaned from research the City of Launceston WMC sees:
- Something in the order of 10% of the resource handled by the WMC being post consumer textiles; and
- Something in the order of 10% of the resource handled by the WMC being post consumer treated wood product; and that
- Within the remaining post consumer resources an unspecified portion of the post consumer resources goes to composting; and that
- Ultimately an unacceptably high percentage of the resource handled by the WMC goes to landfill; and therefore
- The City of Launceston WMC that operates as a non income generating cost centre that requires the operation to be funded entirely by the city’s ratepayers and resident; and consequently
- The city’s ratepayers are burdened with a cost centre that need not be there and that is unsustainable; and given that
- Currently WMC, in pursuit of sustainability in the context of the CLIMATE EMERGENCY the CoL declared in 2019;
- The status quo is unsustainable, uneconomic, and furthermore is delinquent given the evidence that the WMC operation depends heavily on landfill.
It is very concerning to say the least that as Councillors as the directors of policy determination and strategic planning has allowed the WMC to reach this point of unsustainability in the clear light of day and in the light of incrementally mounting evidence that WMC need to be converted into Resource Recovery facilities.
This backgrounding raises serious questions about the viability, credibility and sustainability of the WMC as an operation operating as a Council Cost Centre. Given the extraordinary investment the city’s ratepayers, have made in then city’s WMC with diminishing sustainability, it bis well past the time to be proactive in this space. Indeed ratepayers and residents can no longer afford to see their representatives erring in their governance role.
This circumstance backgrounds the Councils need to explain to its constituency just what is the WMC’s financial status is and its viability as the 12025/26 financial year draws to a close in order to:
Put into effect the strategic changes that demand the attention of governance; and
- Draw clear and distinct differences between governance and management.
MORAL RIGHTS STATEMENT: For the question I am submitting to Council here, I assert my moral rights as an author under Australian copyright law. Consequently, should Council decide to either edit, paraphrase, or otherwise alter my question it will cease to be my question and therefore it must not be attributed to me under any circumstance. Likewise, the question is directed to the city’s governance and not to the city’s management team given that they do not have the delegated authority to answer on Councillors’ behalf.
QUESTION:
Will the City of Launceston’s Councillors now be proactive in:
The establishment of a standalone corporate entity tasked to recover the resources currently going ton landfill via the city’s WMC; and
Ensure that the entity employs a professional Materials Engineer; and
- Ideally ensure that then entity is a Community Social Enterprise; and
- Appoint a Commissioner tasked to Project Manage the implementation of this strategic determination; OR alternatively
- Outsource Recourse Recovery to a for profit corporate entity with the wherewithal to deliver ratepayers with savings and sustainable recourse recovery.
Ray Norman
QUESTION TO LAUNCESTON'S MAYOR AND ALL COUNCILLORS
CONTEXT
It can no longer be claimed that in the background there isn't an increasing need to update Tasmania’s outdated and outmoded Local Government Act 1993, and with it a need for governance to be more engaged with the governed. Consistent with that Council neee to mechanisms that afford 'the governed' to have a a more proactive voice in the initiation of the policies and purposeful strategic planning that impacts upon placemaking and by extension homemaking within cultural landscapes.
Local governance is by-and-large where cultural landscaping goes on and specifically within each jurisdiction's layered and the layerings of cultural realities. Arguably, representational democracy does not afford significant components of the layered cultural landscape to have an adequate enough voice in the shaping and modelling of strategic planning and especially so when it comes purposeful planning. Self-nominated representatives are not by necessity equiped to, or inclined to, provide a voice for those layers of a cultural reality that fail to have their aspirations considered within an Act that is at the very least a decade out of sync with contemporaneous realities.
With the upcoming Local Govt Elections, and the State Govt's flagging of legislative change there is little to no encouragement to entertain a shift away from the political mindset that seeks to endorse the status quo albeit with tinkering at the periphery. Within that mindset it is feasible for a Local Govt jurisdiction to initiate change and do so to enable the otherwise voiceless to have their voices heard in ways that are meaningful in ways that shape cultural realities and the cultural they exist within.One purposeful strategic initiative open to Local Govt in LutruwitaTasmania being that Council empanel a Standing Citizen's Assembly (SCA) that:
- Has a standing membership of say 9 members randomly invited through a civic lottery with chairperson appointed by the membership; and
- Has a standing membership that changes completely in not less that 18 months; and
- Every 9 months 4 members stand down to be replaced by randomly invited members via a civic lottery; and
- Meets not less than monthly to deliberate upon an agenda determined by its members and formally reports to Council monthly; and
- Independently publishes its agendas and minutes on the public record; and
- Is empowered to empanel up to 3 experts per meeting to inform critical deliberations; and
- Is empowered to appoint a special purpose assembly with its membership randomly invited through a civic lottery and that has a tenure of no more than 6 months; and
- That a SCA operates in continuum irrespective of Local Govt elections and their outcomes until such time as an alternative to the current elected representative model is replaced.
A second option being that Council initiate protocols that ensures the Council, that is the elected representatives, again empanel purposeful advisory network with their agendas and minutes of ALL Council networks/committees being placed onthe public record.Nonetheless, there is an increasing need to draw clear distinctions between the roles and functions and roles of governance and management. It is especially so in Launceston as increasingly what differentiates between the roles and functions of governance and management have become increasingly blanded and blurred.
REFERENCE See https://dddtasmania.blogspot.com/ circa 2022
MORAL RIGHTS STATEMENT: For the question I am submitting to Council here, I assert my moral rights as an author under Australian copyright law. Consequently, should Council decide to either edit, paraphrase, or otherwise alter my question it will cease to be my question and therefore it must not be attributed to me under any circumstance. Likewise, the question is directed to the city’s governance and not to the city’s management team given that they do not have the delegated authority to answer on Councillors’ behalf.
QUESTION:
Given the clear and present need for meaningful change in local governance's structure to enable increasingly dynamic and diverse cultural realities to be appropriately and better served, will the City of Launceston's elected representatives take whatever steps required to empanel a Standing Citizen's Assembly that gives effect to granting voices to the layers of cultural and social realities within the constituencies they purportedly represent?
Regards,
Ray Norman
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