On this occasion the comedy is not because of some silliness and a broken rule, it is because the shenanigans we get to see tells ratepayers about the democratic dysfunctionalism that costs them so very much.
Dysfunctional systems tend to create and give dysfunctional people their daily bread and a reason for being. Real celebrities know that if they play the numbers game sooner or later they must face the depressing fact that their number is up and the only place they can go is down. With some councils in Tasmania in recent years that has happened in bulk.
The greatest fall from grace is not in the failing, it is in the refusal to learn from the failures, the dysfunction, the delusion. Looking at the outcomes, self-nomination is a worry.
Everyday life and the ordinary has become so complicated that ratepayers are very often overwhelmed by the realities they are forced to deal with. In local governance the ordinary becomes twisted and distorted and our self-nominated self-important and mostly undistinguished representatives seem only capable of representing their need for sustenance and importance.
To get noticed and maintain a meal ticket all too many representatives will turn up to cut a ribbon while entertaining delusions of adequacy.
For a very long time there have been many writers who have warned us about the complicated forces that would shape contemporary life and here we have it in the here and now and on show at Launceston's Town Hall.
All this tells us a lot about those cliches that are there saying … the tail is wagging the dog ... they are trying to walk both sides of the street as do drunken sailors ... they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing ... etc. etc. etc.
In all this there is absolutely no mention whatsoever about the cost of this action to the ratepayers – those supposedly being represented. To be so bold as to suggest that the actual cost along with the hidden costs adds up to much more than say the cost of holding a real life community consultation event looking at how to alleviate homelessness for instance. One might well ask how come and why?.
However, homelessness is another subject Launceston's self-nominated elected 'representatives' along with the people on council's management team shies well clear of. Why?
If there is an issue that matters, let us have it out in open council and let us hear to pros and cons out loud and in clear air. Then let the represented make their judgements. At a guess, our self-nominating representatives, with their cunning agendas as likely as not, will be quite circumspect about the prospect of any of that sort of thing.
Apart from being very expensive these in camera code of conduct hearings tell us nothing worth knowing that shouldn't or couldn't be deliberated upon out in the open. What appears to be mostly at risk here is the truth of the matter.
Truth is like gold, you can only get it once you have washed away everything that is not gold, the rubbish, the untruthful. More to the point, once you win it, the gold, or the truth, it is not discarded wantonly, and it seems to stick.
Here we have a situation crying out for representatives with the wherewithal to say what needs to be said and likewise managers with the will, life experience and the expertise to defend the appropriateness of their actions, and advice if they are indeed appropriate and backed up by expertise.
Thinking long and hard on all this, the prospect of meaningful change would be best considered on some very cold day in Launceston that was the hottest day ever when hell is at risk of freezing over.
JJ Bower
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