BE AWARE AND BEWARE, THE QVMAG COLLECTIONS ARE AT RISK

 

Launceston ratepayers are generally unaware that when they vote for a 'COUNCILLOR' they are, by default, voting fo a QVMAG TRUSTEE.  Most 'Council candidates' are also unaware that, if elected, they become 'trustees' for the QUEEN VICTORIA MUSEUM & ART GALLERY (QVMAG) albeit that they might not have the appropriate skill sets. It is not their fault that they might not know as it is an anomaly put in place by 'incumbency management' and it is somewhat self-serving – essentially it justifies a bigger highly paid bureaucracy.

The GM/AKA CEO says that this is not the case but by DEFAULT it is and it is self-serving of him to assert otherwise!

lutruwitaTASMANIA’s musingplaces are among the worlds shrines to colonialism with the QVMAG being an exemplar in its nomenclature. That and Tasmanian ‘placedness’ lends a nuance to the island’s musingplaces – and the QVMAG more so than most. Governing a museum and art gallery requires special skill sets when the institution is as large and culturally significant as the QVMAG is. 

By necessity, musingplaces need governors/trustees with particular skill sets not by necessity held by elected Councillors OR General Managers.

Governance and 'management' are distinct from each other yet the current incumbency seems not to acknowledge this reality and apparently for reasons of some bureaucratically perverse expression of dilettantism arguably designed and devised to avoid true accountability. This must change given that in the end it is unsustainable!

looking back, ex-Launceston Alderperson, Rosemary Armitage MLC  is clearly a member of that cohort of Tasmanians and Launcestonians who are quite comfortable with the colonial legacy cum peri-colonial status of Tasmania’s, indeed Australia’s musingplaces as if the status quo is sustainable in a 21^st C context. 

Since that era there has been a CONGAline of Launcestonian who over time have distorted the QVMAG's 'governance' in ways that arguably has right now put the QVMAG's $230Million PLUS collections at risk due to the paucity of 'Council governance/trusteeship'.

Clearly, Rosemary Armitage MLC and that dilettante CONGAline have held the line that the QVMAG is not there to put on exhibitions to do with issues such as forestry, mining etc. rather they need to be showing people the treasures in their collections .  

Notably, Pierre-Auguste Renoir said that to his mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them. Somehow this encapsulates how the Launceston Council's 'incumbency' over time has imagined the QVMAG and sadly so. The institution in a 21st C context demands more than that!

However, the current City of Launceston Council is engaged in ‘very serious budget repair’ and is thus predisposes it to rid the city of what is perceived by management as being its non-core cost centres –the QVMAG being high on the priority list. So, out goes the baby with the bathwater! 

What can be observed in regard to the QVMAG is a situation at Launceston’s Town Hall that is a ‘mare’s nest’ – pun and double entendre intended – that is in urgent need of being unravelled”. This is something, that has been showing up in  ‘the QVMAG musingplace thinkers' petri dishes’ for decades and it needs to dealt with. 

Thus Launceston, right now, needs a Council that will be proactive and expeditious in 'separating' the QVMAG from 'Council management' and installing A BRAND NEW QVMAG GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT PARADIGM.

That might well be achieved by dispensing with the Town Hall incumbency at this Local Govt election. So, please vote carefully and please do not congratulate the incumbency with your vote.