GETTING A BETTER LAUNCESTON WITH PURPLE

 

SEE ...  https://purplebank7250.blogspot.com/

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

IN THE MERCURY MAY 6 2026: A trio of government bills intended to address the state’s housing crisis are expected to be considered by parliament during its latest sitting week.

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.

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.” 

 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:

1.  Something in the order of 10% of the resource handled by the WMC being post consumer textiles; and
2.  Something in the order of 10% of the resource handled by the WMC being post consumer treated wood product; and  that
3. Within the remaining post consumer resources  an unspecified portion of the post consumer resources goes to  composting; and that
4. Ultimately an unacceptably high percentage of the resource handled by the WMC goes to landfill; and therefore
5. 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  
6. The city’s ratepayers are burdened with a cost centre that need not be there and that is unsustainable; and given that
7. Currently WMC, in pursuit of sustainability in the context of the  CLIMATE  EMERGENCY the CoL declared in 2019;
8. 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:

1. Put into effect the strategic changes that demand the attention of governance; and

2. 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:

1. Has a standing membership of say 9 members randomly invited through a civic lottery with chairperson appointed by the membership; and
2. Has a standing membership that changes completely in not less that 18 months; and
3. Every 9 months 4 members stand down to be replaced by randomly invited members via a civic lottery; and
4. Meets not less than monthly to deliberate upon an agenda determined by its members and formally reports to Council monthly; and
5. Independently publishes its agendas and minutes on the public record; and
6. Is empowered to empanel up to 3 experts per meeting to inform critical deliberations; and
7. 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
8. 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

QUESTION TO LAUNCESTON'S MAYOR AND ALL COUNCILLORS

 CONTEXT NOTE: Albeit that previously the City of Launceston CEO  has asserted that:

1. 1.  The QVMAG is not governed by the elected representatives; and that
   2. The elected representatives are not the QVMAG's default Trustees; and given that
   3. As a result, it falls to the CEO to determine policy and program priorities albeit that she/he may not have domain knowledge of museology; or curatorial practices; or hold the relevant research credentials; and by extension
   4. The CEO ultimately has responsibility for the QVMAG’s budget; and therefore
   5. The QVMAG is a City of Launceston cost centre the operation falls to the CEO; and consequently  
   6. The CEO depends upon the QVMAG’s Advisory Committee for guidance in regard to cultural issues when and if the need arises; and given that
   7. The CEO rarely reports to the 'elected representatives 'in Open Council and who would otherwise appoint a Board of Trustees to appoint qualified staff, to manage projects and the operation's recurrent budget; and given that
   8. It has been determined by the elected representatives that the circumstances set out here are unsustainable given the operation's call on Council's budget and by extension ratepayers' ability to pay rates that deliver social and cultural dividends that arguably are not being delivered to the extent they otherwise might; and given that
   9. The end of the financial year is but weeks away, and Council's budget is currently under review, consequently a number of financial questions arise that seemingly falls to the CEO to answer in respect to the QVMAG operation; and given
   10. The QVMAG'S director Shane Fitzgerald resigned [Reference] in December 2025 causing serious community concern; and given that the
   11. The QVMAG operation depends upon a State Govt grant of approx. $!.4Million to support research; and 
   12. Seemingly the CEO has stalled the process whereby Council had determined to transform the QVMAG into a Company Limited by Guarantee;
   it is very concerning to say the least that as Councillors and the institution's default governance body the situation set out above has been allowed by you to reach this point of unsustainability in the clear light of day.
   
   
   In addition to this, it seems that the QVMAG's Advisory Committee meets irregularly and according to press reports it may no longer exist along with other Council advisory committees that have been disbanded.
   
   
   This backgrounding raises serious questions about the viability, credibility and sustainability of the QVMAG as a cultural entity that has been operating as a Council Cost Centre for decades. Given the extraordinary investment the city’s ratepayers, the State Govt. and the institution’s donors and sponsors throughout its existence. For over 150 years plus the QVMAG has built an extensive Community of Ownership and Interest without whom it would have no reason to exist.

    

   This circumstance backgrounds the Councils need to explain to its constituency just what is the QVMAG’s financial status is and its viability​ as the 12025/26 financial year draws to a close.

 

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 CEO please provide ratepayers, donors and sponsors with a financial summary of the QVMAG operation that includes:

• The estimated total operating cost for the QVMAG for 2025/26; and

• The estimated total operating budget for the QVMAG for 2026/27; and 

• The equivalent full-time staff employed by the QVMAG; and
• The number of grants the QVMAG received, and the total amounts of grant monies received 2025/26; and
• The cost to ratepayers et al of providing the QVMAG as a  cultural destination and research entity … the metrics … the total cost divided by attendees; and
• The total amount of earned income, donations and cash sponsorships received in the 2024/25 financial year; and
• When will Council move strategically to ether appoint QVMAG  Trustees or a aQVMAG Commissioner to oversee the transformation of the QVMAG into a standalone Company Limited by Guarantee?

WOOD SMOKE PLAN/POLICY(?)

 

Please click on the image to enlarge

https://tomorrowtogetherlaunceston.com.au/launceston-domestic-wood-smoke

Purpose-driven companies evolve faster and outperform competitors: Future focused leaders know the value of being purpose-driven – Fortune, Forbes, McKinsey, and Harvard Business Review have all validated this approach. But clearly articulating the enterprise's 'purpose' only achieves significant results if the shareholders and constituencies who invest in the operation have a means to assess performance outcomes as a consequence of purposefulness being put it into practice – Key Performance Indicators

GOODconsultants guiding leaders and their teams in the development of their purpose strategy using their proprietary approach in order to achieve transformational change can expect to be able to measure outcomes against purposefulness. When high performing professional consultants are engaged typically they drive impressive and tangible results. In the corporate world operations such as the DuluxGroup, Goodman Group, Nippon Paint Holdings, Workwear Group, Fire and Rescue NSW, et al report that their outcomes for clients and others has been the result of embracing PURPOSFULplanning.

Typically PUBLIC SERVICE OPERATIONS, and the politicians who rely on them to deliver 'policy outcomes', avoid statements of purpose in deference to MISSIONS and VISIONS. Both are elastic and unmeasurable and failure to achieve has less consequence. As a metaphor here, ask almost anyone what Apex Gold Mining Ltd is there to do and most/many people will to tell you that they are there to make a profit. That is quite wrong as they exist to recover gold as a resource from the earth's crust albeit that their OBJECTIVE might be to deliver a profit and dividend for investors and as a consequence of THEcompany fulfilling its PURPOSEFULNESS.

Anyone who wants to test this idea could take themselves to a bank and/or along to a group of investors asking them lend them say $1Million in a mine in order to pay them back with interest as an outcome of being lent THEmoney. As is said in THEbush ... GOODluck with that strategic approach!!

That said, it is clear to see that without consulting MEANINGFULLY with the municipality's constituency, and purposefully, the strategy in hand is faulty and putting any KPI's in place will no doubt be the equivalent of 'herding cats'.

Council's constituency has a right to expect ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY but this plan arguably has all the characteristics and distinguishing traits of an investigation being carried out in smoke filled room with mirrors flashing. Ratepayers, residents and investors deserve something more than what is on offer!

In short, this STRATEGIC POLICY INITIATIVE is a CLAYTONSplan – what you have when you are not really having one!!

Tandra Vale: mycommunitytasmania@gmail.com

https://tazmuze7250.blogspot.com/2026/02/institute-43-references.html

INSTITUTE 43

LINKS

https://www.facebook.com/ponrabbel/timeline

https://ponrabbel.blogspot.com/

LINKShttps://www.facebook.com/ponrabbel/timelin

https://ponrabbel.blogspot.com/2014/10/mud-or-treasure_3.html

https://ponrabbel.blogspot.com/2014/11/tamar-water.html

https://ponrabbel.blogspot.com/2020/03/interrogating-and-navigating-culture_2.html

https://wallless7250.blogspot.com/

https://wallless7250.blogspot.com/p/the-longploem.html

https://i43y1899.blogspot.com/

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the 

real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

Plato

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

Isaac Asimov

link 1.  link 2

COMMUNITY SOCIAL ENTERPRISE IN PROSPECT

 

WATCH THIS SPACE

LINK TO BACKGROUNDING

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST PLEASE

eMAIL launcestonPROJECTS@bigpond.com

???

BACKGROUND LINK

LINK

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” 

African Proverb

BRIDGE TOO FAR PERHAPS ... ARThack

 

Mindless Scribble

Very long acronym

PUBLIC ART THAT MUST BE HAD

link

RAY NORMAN

LAST POST: DARE WE FORGET

 

LAUNCESTON'S TURTLE TOWN AWARD

 

CLICK  ON AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE

What is being done speaks so loudly as you just cannot hear a pin drop

Dear Mr Johnson and whoever this may concern,

 

Here is a version of a question that I have been putting to Council in various contexts for quite a long time but always grounded on Council’s declaring a CLIMATE EMERGENCY in 1998. Like:

·       “By polluting the oceans, not mitigating CO₂ emissions, and destroying our biodiversity, we are killing our planet. Let us face it, there is no planet B.” Emmanuel Macron, President of France

·       “We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it.”  Barack Obama, Former US President

·       “Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.“  Desmond Tutu, Former Archbishop of Cape Town

 

Serially and somewhat surreally my questioning overtime has been met with well-rehearsed obfuscation. It needs to be said that if you're defending a lie, you can only defend it with obfuscations and other lies. You can't defend a lie with the truth – and that is the truth. Indeed, Council has turned questioning relative tostrategic matters into opportunities to exclude its constituency - and it is a Machiavellian exercise spiked with assertions confidentiality.

 

All this is so much so that there are officers at Town Hall who have for whatever reason developed expertise in avoiding anything that might exhibit transparency and accountability. Sadly, all this has evolved into Town Hall culture.

 

On the available evidence it seems as if there may be conflicts of interest in play and thus considerations of wastefulness come into play as a consequence. Given this, it gets to be even more concerning when:

 

·       Councillors’ direct knowledge and experience is as limited as officers’ given that it appears that the appetite for meaningful research and/or any consequent change is compromised for a litany of reasons; and 

 

·       Councillors are not always being provided with appropriate independent expert advice with contemporaneous backgrounding by relevant experts in accord with SECTION 65 of the Act – elastic as that has been proven to be; and

 

·       Questions are put to Mayor and Councillors and officers respond on their behalf without consultation with Councillors, without seeking appropriate expert advice, and without current contextualisation – especially so when the expertise is not held by staff.

 

No doubt what I’m submitting here will be contested. However, I submit that it is timely that Council now takes the opportunity to review its protocols and to facilitate opportunities for deliberations with more direct referencing of CITIZENresearch as if it had a modicum of veracity. 

 

By-and-large, and all too often community consultation processes can be characterised as aCLAYTONSconsultation process – and sadly so.

 

Informally and formally, on the subject of Launceston’s WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTRE, I have been informed that:

• Council has no intention of changing the nomenclature of the WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTRE to RESOURCE RECOVERY CENTRE and I’m serially informed that there is no marketing imperative or benefit in doing so; and that

 

• Officers are too busy maintaining a WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTRE that endorses landfill as the‘time honoured’ management strategy and too busy to contemplate change at any level at this time – albeit that Government policy takes a totally different view; and that

 

• There are no current economically viable alternatives to maintaining a WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTRE despite the officer being directed to other jurisdictions where RESOURCE RECOVERY CENTRES are maintained and profitably by all accounts – some that I have had occasion to visit and engage with their managers; and

 

• There are classes of WASTE/RESOURCES that are too difficult to process and that is unsustainable rhetoric, and moreover administratively, that self-serving. I have knowledge of a marketing strategy where people delivering ‘postCONSUMER resources to a RESOURCE RECOVERY CENTRE were rewarded IF delivered in the desired condition – and heavily penalised if not – and as likely as not having access to the centre denied; and

 

• It is just not feasible or viable to achieve something when the officer has no engineering or like experience and there being no realistic access to it; and

 

• Formal consultation processes such as Citizens’ Juries/Assemblies don’t work and can’t work given the lack of people in the community with the appropriate skills, experience which is not the case; and

 

• Very recently I have been informed that collectively textiles, soft/difficult plastics, and contaminated wood is represented (60%?) in the waste stream going to landfill plus large amounts of glass are going to landfill when none of any of this should be if appropriate simple separation strategies were to be put in place;  and more still. 

       

The concerning subtext to be found in all this is there as evidence of bureaucratic blocking in ways that impacts upon elected representatives’ ability to adequately, and appropriately, represent their constituencies. 

 

Even more concerning is Launceston’s WASTE MANAGEMENT CENTRE being an unsustainable ‘basket case’ contributing, in a local sense, disproportionately to ‘climate emergency’ that Council has acknowledged but has in essence has sat on its hands since doing so.

 

In the 21^st C in a worldwide context looking to maintain the status quo in any context is a denial of the real-world issues where attempts are being made to be mitigate against catastrophic outcomes against considerable odds brought on by human activity and the unsustainable mining of and exploitation of resources.

 

In fact, there is a strong case to close Launceston’s landfill facility except for highly contaminated and the most toxic material such as asbestos. Indeed, there is a myriad of enterprises such as microFACTORIES [LINK] that require:

• Affordable infrastructure; and
• Ongoing access to postCONSUMER and redundant resources:

That is the valuable resources that are now being consigned to landfill in Launceston.

 

Indeed, Launceston like the whole of Australia, and indeed the Pacific region too, faces ongoing serial catastrophic events. Looking away for bureaucratic convenience is simply untenable no matter how stressed those charged with the mitigation feel.

Launceston is on the cusp of a catastrophic flood event as was Lismore was/is and the assumptions that Lismore’s Council et al brought on the unprecedented flood event. I have direct experience of flooding in this region with relatives and friends who lived through that event and are still dealing with its consequences.

 

Lazy thinking and trivialising resource recovery in any way is something that cannot be countenanced on any premise. However, piquing the interest of a bureaucracy dedicated to the status quo is a futile and thankless task and especially so when the personnel have so much invested in how things currently stand – particularly generous career opportunities and employment security. 

 

Nonetheless, this aught not be an opportunity for the contrite wringing of hands. Rather right now is the time for change and an early adoption of strategies to engage the community more directly in strategic developments where the initiative to do so can be exercised by ‘them’ representing themselves. There are win-wins to be had.

 

Importantly, this is so, given that within the community there is a vast amount of experience and skills available to be tapped into.

 

The initiating of Citizens Juries/Assemblies has been very successful in an increasing number of jurisdictions. Nonetheless these assemblies provide expert advice from within their processes and the experts they consult/commission that in the end is deliberated upon and determined by the elected representatives. In a murder trial the jury may well determine gilt or otherwise, but it is the judiciary that determines the penalty – slight or dire.  

 

Interestingly, while I keep a relatively close eye on the local press, and social media, I’ve not yet gleaned an opportunity to participate in any way in the current ’10year strategic planning process’ – and I suspect that I am not alone. 

 

Therefore, against this backgrounding, the response I received from Ms Wyatt and approved by you, and clearly without reference to the Mayor and Councillors, is quite inadequate and under the circumstances untenable. 

 

In today’s world where wars are raging, I think that it is it morally unacceptable to kill stories of children being killed, of land being laid to waste, not to run stories even, stories that people have risked their lives to get. Likewise, it is morally and economically unacceptable to be stifling proven strategies to recover postCONSUMER resources.

 

I struggle with Council’s predisposition to obfuscate and especially so when the issue at hand has earned the importance that it has in a worldwide context. Indeed, as a constituent, I find the ongoing and somewhat ham-fisted attempts to hoodwink constituents more than disturbing. I’d be among the first to acknowledge that what is at stake here is both complex and of monumental proportions. However, there is a way forwardalbeit that it will require civic administrations to take the journey forward, one step at a time.

 

Like many people in other communities who are seeking action relative to sustainable resource exploitation, I’m ready to work collaboratively and cooperatively to find ways forward locally along with other concerned citizens. Missing chances is not anything anyone should tolerate. What is needed, quite simply are meaningful chances for community members to participate in sustainable postCONSUMER resource recovery at multiple levels and in various ways. This will require a flatter playing field.

 

Imagining that a constituency is populated with unskilled, uneducated, inexperienced people is just not a sustainable proposition and moreover it reflects very poorly on those who imagine that it is the case. Therefore, I along with many other concerned citizens we look forward to your prompt and considered response.

 

Yours sincerely,

Ray Norman

Sturt Alumni, Cultural Producer,

Cultural Geographer & Researcher