QUESTION ONN NOTICE City of Launceston

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It can no longer be claimed that in the background there isn't an increasing need to update Tasmania’s outdated and outmoded Local Government Act 1993, and with it a need for governance to be more engaged with the governed.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