THAT DROUGHT MONEY FOR THE DROUGHT THAT LAUNCESTON JUST DID NOT SEE

Cast your mind back to August 2020 when Launceston's Mayor van Zetten was promoting the assertion that Council applied for drought relief funding for a drought Launceston just did not have “in good faith” and that the application was an ‘operational matter’ anyway. Thus it was a matter determined well away from the involvement of Councillors apparently. 

The application turns out to be a tad shonky given that all/most/some Councillors were apparently kept in the dark in regard to the application. Indeed, rumour has it that Council was invited to apply in order that ‘The Bass Electorate’ got some dosh. 

Most, if not all, Councillors ultimately apparently satisfied themselves that the application was indeed made in ‘good faith’ and based upon the appropriate evidence. So, individually and collectively, they assured themselves, and by extension their constituency, that the money coming to the city met all the appropriate criteria plus it met all the appropriate ethical and moral standards. But how?

You see “the Council has purchased a share of the Paterson Street Central car park”, as well as the former Birchalls building, to build a new bus interchange and undercover arcade linking through to the Brisbane Street Mall. But did Council do that? There was a couple of court cases where the judiciary had an alternate view. 

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In retrospect all of that is a rather curious concept, but one must remember that the city’s GM (AKA CEO) declared the matter to be confidential so yet again Town Hall’s MORAL COMPASS pointed to wherever the money was it seems – not where one goes for moral comfort. 

We really do need to remember that the then PM’s DROUGHTdosh it turns out was to be used for a spurious purpose and a project that has found the players thrashing it all out in court and basically to no avail. All of which leaves the hapless ratepayer paying up and apparently because she/he ‘does not need to profit from her/his investment in Council’.

Despite the Bureau of Meteorology’s published map indicating that not only wasn’t the municipality drought effected neither was anywhere else in Tasmania, so by what criteria did Launceston’s Town Hall cut the mustard?

Council asserted that “bureau data in the 20 months preceding the Council's application submission on December 2019 clearly showed a severe deficiency in rainfall for the region. Additionally, according to the Bureau, both the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 year figures showed that the kanamluka/Tamar River was well below average in terms of flow and were at equivalent levels to those recorded during the height of the millennial drought in Tasmania.” This seems at odds with the bureau’s map but for sure there is some bureaucratic spin to deal with all that. 

If you lived in Launceston, your emory is intact, and didn’t experience a drought – or even water restrictions – you probably need help of some kind given all that other Australians went through. Currently it is catastrophic flooding that the city missed out on but when the levies fail – and they will as they did in Lismore – Town Hall is likely to be looking for a grant to gold plate some taps in some “end of trip showers”.

Council deemed itself eligible for the $10Mil at that initial stage, and the grant application was submitted - it is as simple as that. Extraordinarily, the Council and the Coordinator General's Office are still working through the processes and planning around the acceptance of the grant and Town Hall says it will share further details with the public once this process is complete. 

However, the goal posts seem to have been shifted yet again. 

The news coming out of, well overheard in, a coffee shop in the Brisbane Street Mall is that the ‘investor’ who lost his court case is being helped by Council to buy the Historic Birchells Building to do his thing there AND the word is that the “DROUGHTdosh” is still in the mix. It is like this, three men can keep a secret just so long as two are dead.

How on earth could that money still be there?

ANYWAY if this building is to be sold 

why not to the highest bidder?