5 October 2020
Mayor Albert Van Zetten and to all other Councillors and General Manager Michael Stretton, City of Launceston Council Town Hall St John Street LAUNCESTON TAS 7250
By email to: contactus@launceston.tas.gov.au. mayor@launceston.tas.gov.au
Dear Mayor,
Re: Continued developments on the Invermay, Inveresk and North Esk River Flood Plain.
We write to you again to present important information regarding the inadvisability of relocating the Newnham campus of the University of Tasmania (UTas), a project named by UTas as the Inveresk Precinct Redevelopment (IPR) as part of its Northern Tasmanian Transformation Program (NTP). The IPR is a major component of the Commonwealth Government’s Launceston City Deal (LCD), significantly funded by the Commonwealth Government, Tasmanian Government, and the ratepayers of the City of Launceston Council.
Northern Tasmanian Networks Partners & Associates opposes the relocation of the University of Tasmania Campus from Newnham to the Inveresk and Willis Street floodplains, which will be subjected to increasing threat from climate change affecting sea level rises in the Tamar/Esk estuary, and further threatened by predicted seismic activity that could cause the collapse/damage to the levee system. We are also concerned that this new UTas infrastructure and also existing infrastructure such as the flood levees that give some protection but mainly give time to effect orderly evacuation, and bridges crossing the North Esk River, may be damaged or compromised by untimely seismic events, and accordingly refer Councillors to the many reports it has previously commissioned that warn of inevitable seismic activity.
Today, a member of our group has forwarded us this report of unprecedented flooding and horrific damage that has been caused in France, in an area that didn’t expect the disastrous flooding to occur, so what will be the likely result here in Launceston where we do expect it to happen? Please view this youtube report:
The weather patterns in the northern hemisphere are expected to occur here, in the southern hemisphere. Climate change and rising sea levels, rising tides and flooding events will occur and will occur in Launceston. The City of Launceston Council has on 19 August 2019, declared a CLIMATE EMERGENCY, but what does this mean in relation to Council’s decision making in relation to continued developments on the Tidal Flood Plain areas of the City?
Please take heed of what is presently occurring in the northern hemisphere, and what has already started this season in Australia.
Fire, snow and floods : The weather extremes of 2020 – From devastating fires to destructive floods and even a glimpse of snow, 2020 has been a rollercoaster of weather conditions.
: Nine Network News.
• At least 90 dead after heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan
• Thousands ordered to evacuate as Hurricane Laura approaches.
• Man rescued from river in Sydney’s west after car is swept away
• Sydney surfer ‘critical’ after rescue near storm water drain.
• Locals scramble to higher ground as world’s largest dam on China’s Yangtze River faces mounting pressure.
• Cows and donkeys rescued from NSW floodwaters.
• Thousands without power as record-breaking downpour wreaks havock on NSW South Coast.
• Anxious night for NSW after heavy rain, power cuts, gale winds.
• Floods ravage Japan.
• Crumbling gully gnawing at Brisbane back yards.
• Dozens killed, hundreds of thousands displaced as China floods.
• Venice flooded by unusually high spring tide.
• Insurance claims from Australia’s catastrophic summer climb over $5.19 billion.
• Cyclone Amphan hits India, Bangladesh.
• Venetian businesses unite to make a lst-ditch attempt to restore balance after floods, pandemic to save their city.
• Wintry snap brings snow and torrential rain to south-west Australia.
• Flood victims could see ‘just one per cent of payout’.
• Rescues as flash flooding hits central Victoria.
• Bushfire ravaged town in Australia turning away Easter tourists amid coronavirus.
• Queensland to be hit with 300mm of rain as tropical cyclone forms.
• NSW homeowners flooded with mud in storm face ongoing nightmare.
• No relief from widespread rainfall and thunderstorms for Australia’s east coast.
• Queensland flood peaks.
• Newcastle streets flooded in sudden afternoon storm.
• Rural Queensland town braces for flooding but some farms still dry.
• Floodwaters pose risk to homes in Queensland.
• Emergency declaration as Queensland town braces for major flooding.
• Plan to bypass water from damaged dam wall in Queensland.
• Residents on high alert with stability of leaking dam in doubt.
• Clean up begins after wild storms and flash-flooding hits Victoria.
• Floods wash saltwater crocodile into Queensland harbour.
• Boy was ‘twirling around’ after being sucked into drain at Narang.
• Torrential rain closes schools, roads across Queensland’s south-east.
• Family ‘disappointed’ as they face fifth day without power in NSW.
• Boy sucked down Gold Coast drain.
2 • Australia’s east coast bracing for more wild weather as cyclone approaches.
• Concerns for driver who tried crossing flooded road in half-submerged car.
• Queensland braces for another downpour.
• Tropical cyclone Uesi tracks towards Australian coast.
• Duo missing in Queensland floodwaters found..
• How rain affected Australia’s east after drought, heatwaves and fires.
• Ex- cyclone Damien could bring flash flooding.
• Emergency flood alert issued for town of Dalby.
Which of you Councillors will be prepared to stand on the steps of the Town Hall to explain your past actions and decisions when the city has been plunged into chaos, ruined economically and with much loss of life when the flood plains are at the mercy of climate change, rising sea levels and flooding?
What will the cost then be to our community?
Yours faithfully,
Lionel J Morrell
Lionel J. Morrell For Northern Tasmanian Network Partners and Associates
Copy to Ian J N Routley, Leigh Murrell, Jillian Koshin, Chris Penna .
ATTACHMENT
SUMMATION OF RESEARCH WORKSHOP attended by members of Northern Tasmanian Network Partners & Associates :
THE STANDING OF ETHICS IN RELATION TO UTas INVERESK PRECINCT REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT June 2019
Two articles by John Hewson published in the Launceston Examiner, (28 December 2018 and 25 January 2019) raised issues of considerable concern for many Australians. In his articles, one of which was head-lined “Australia’s in the midst of moral, ethical decline” Dr Hewson talked about “trust deficit” and “a longer term erosion of the moral and ethical standards across society, as well as their application and enforcement”.
He pointed out that the loss of public confidence is not only with our politicians, political processes but also with a broad range of institutions – “churches, banks (and more broadly in business) various sports, the RSL, and numerous authorities ranging from the police, judicial processes through to a host of regulatory authorities…ASIC/APRA and even the Reserve Bank)”’. Geoffrey Watson QC expressed similar concerns and a “falling trust in politicians” in a local ABC radio interview in November 2018 and in subsequent interviews. He described Tasmania’s Integrity Commission as a toothless tiger. He talked about transparency, hidden agendas, secrecy and the influence of lobbyists on politicians in Tasmania.1
See also ABC radio news transcript, 7 March 2019, comments by Geoffrey Watson.
3 Dr Hewson and Geoffrey Watson didn’t include universities in the list of institutions, but in a recent ABC radio interview (5 July 2019) well-known journalist, Ray Martin did mention universities. He talked about the cult of secrecy with governments and public servants disliking “light being shone in dark corners”. He had addressed university students earlier in the day and explained how he had told them that “we can’t have the sort of open, free democracy that we have don’t have watch dogs, if people aren’t watching, not just governments, but public servants and parliament and universities etc…big organisations, all the institutions…all need to be scrutinised.”
In an ABC radio interview in Tasmanian in 2018 about the Tamar Valley Peace Festival, VC Prof. Rufus Black also talked about integrity and “breach of trust” and “a kind of stain that’s been spreading across Australian society, in politics, then went into churches, businesses, as we’ve been seeing recently with the royal commission.” The Ethics Centre has written about social licence and how “big companies with controversial practice often give out community grants and investments” in an effort to buy “social licence’ and “community acceptance”, in an approach that the Ethics Centre refers to as “a calculated and cynical payoff”.2
In Tasmania, there are serious public concerns about the actions and culture around the University of Tasmania (UTas). UTas is a cossetted monopoly in Tasmania. Under the management of the past 6-7 years, a culture of misrepresentation, deception, real estate matters and staff intimidation has evolved. In Launceston, this has occurred as the result of combined Launceston City Council (LCC)-UTas’ management ambition and lobbying to secure millions of dollars in public funding, including $300 million to relocate the Launceston and Burnie main campuses (consisting of $150 m from the Federal government, $150 m from the Tasmanian government, plus gifts of several parcels of public land from the Launceston and Burnie City Councils).
From the start, the plan for the relocation of the entire Launceston campus (concomitant with and mirroring the Burnie and Hobart plans) away from a safe, secure fully-operating campus to a site only 34 kilometres away - on an estuarine flood inundation zone that sits below high tide level, and with severe traffic and parking issues - has lacked any significant supporting evidence or academic rigour. The plan is full of obvious inherent flaws, ongoing inconsistencies and planning ‘on the run’. In other words, it is/has been a shambles. These matters were recently the subject of a highly critical article by Richard Flanagan in the Hobart Mercury.3
Since 2012, the process has involved a lengthy, convoluted series of machinations and ad hoc reactionary actions and responses. Furthermore, it has involved a complete rejection of community opinion as well as serious intimidation of UTas staff who objected or criticised the plans. In the push to obtain funding promises in the lead up to the 2016 federal election, UTas, LCC and lobbyists operated, and continue to do so, outside ethical, integrity and academic standards. The lobbying and propaganda were thorough and highly successful. Outlandish claims used to support the Launceston campus move to Inveresk, such as the projected enrolment of an additional 12,500 students, (10,000 of whom would, they claimed, be from Tasmania – a statistical impossibility) combined with threats that the northern section of the university would close if it didn’t move to Inveresk, not only went unchallenged, but they were accepted by all levels of government, the major parties and most politicians.
After much assistance and ‘coaching’, UTas eventually submitted a ‘final’ business case to Infrastructure Australia (IA). This was right on the final deadline it had been given, 31 January 2019, potentially it seems, for routine and expedient approval post 2019 election. It appears that this UTas
The Ethics Centre, “Ethics Explainer: Social license to operate”, ethics.org.au, 23 January 2018. Richard Flanagan, The Mercury, 20 April 2019, pp. 7,
4 proposal by-passed Stages 1 and 2 of the IA assessment process, to go straight to Stage 3 where it was evaluated by IA.
The trust deficit, and the erosion of moral and ethical standards discussed by Dr Hewson, Geoffrey Watson QC and others are applicable to this situation in Tasmania. It might also be noteworthy that the three main instigators behind the Tasmanian plans, and the associated degeneration of ethics, integrity and honesty, and the sheer success of Illusory Truth Effect, - LCC GM Dobrzynski, VC Rathjen and Provost Calford - have all since left Tasmania for greener pastures. (Sep ’17, Oct ’17, Jan-Feb ’18 respectively)
Trying to condense the issue into as few pages as possible but it is not an easy task, given the nature and volume of material involved. The following four examples might be the easiest way to sum up the misrepresentation, deception and due diligence failure within UTas and LCC and the cosy relationship between them, that have been features of this matter. Sections marked in bold in are direct quotes.
Example 1. The plan was initiated around mid-2012 by the then LCC General Manager (GM), Robert Dobrzynski, when he started working behind the scenes to achieve his aim and to encourage UTas, to change the original intended location – the UTas Newnham campus – of its planned NRAS funded student accommodation. The GM’s enticement involved ‘giving’ a parcel of public land at Inveresk to UTas for the accommodation building. He ignored the existing high-level Master Plans for both Inveresk Precinct, the Mowbray Precinct sections of the Greater Launceston Plan and the major plans for the Mowbray-Newnham campus. He also ignored the legally constituted York Park Inveresk Precinct Authority, (YPIPA) its 4 community members and senior state public servant member (head of Events Tasmania) as well as several genuine full public consultations and community input into all those existing Master Plans.
Even before this accommodation relocation was formalised, it soon emerged that the GM’s ill-thought out plan, which he simplistically insisted was ‘good town-planning’, involved more than just student accommodation relocation. Behind the scenes he moved quickly to invite and encourage UTas to provide information to support his plans for a full campus move to Inveresk, a distance of 3-4 kilometres from the existing fully operating campus site of 180 acres and associated infrastructure. His intentions are revealed in items listed in an email from him to UTas in December 2012. An example of such items on the list is, “LCC would wish to gain an indication of the future development proposed by UTAS at the Inveresk site, and to gain the collaboration of UTAS in developing the Inveresk precinct Plan which will guide development at Inveresk”.
UTas management was quick to take advantage of this encouragement and start its own push. In its December 2012 response to GM Dobrzynski’s email, UTas referred to previous discussions adding that, “the University needs to finalise the matter.” It referred to “tight deadlines” and warned that “If in-principle agreement on Inveresk cannot be reached before Christmas the University will have to look at alternate sites to meet these deadlines.” It must be pointed out here that until July that year the intention had been to build the accommodation at Newnham campus where UTas already ‘owned’/occupied the land, and for which the NRAS funding had been obtained.
Thus, the opportunity was seized by UTas, particularly by VC Peter Rathjen (now disgraced and no longer at Adelaide) and Provost, Mike Calford (now at ANU), with the latter doing much of the lobbying of politicians and candidates of all parties well in advance of the 2016 federal election. Meanwhile, in order to silence vocal opposition, the GM was able to sideline YPIPA community members by working directly and secretly with the LCC Mayor and the two aldermanic representatives on the Authority. In 2016, he succeeded in getting UTas to sponsor the York Park stadium for an undisclosed amount understood to be lower than the previous 5 year sponsorship by Aurora.
5 Example 2. i) In early 2016, a senior Commonwealth public servant (who shall be referred to as PB), but acting independently, approached northern UTas management to query the document that they had put forward as their ‘business plan’. This document was/is nothing more than a glossy marketing brochure. Initially the northern UTas representative argued that it was indeed the business case, but PB insisted it was not. After some discussion, and as PB was not to be fobbed off, it was suggested (or he may have requested to speak to someone, it is uncertain at this stage) that he speak with the University’s Hobart-based business manager. It is perhaps noteworthy that the business manager travelled from Hobart to Launceston to talk with PB. Again, when PB insisted that the glossy brochure was not a business plan he received the same response from the business manager that it was. However, as PB persisted on the existence or otherwise of a business plan, the business manager finally admitted, “We don’t have one”.
ii) Similarly, PB also sought the student statistics that UTas would have presumably used to support/underpin their arguments for public funding and land acquisitions. After much running around, PB was eventually told that “there aren’t any”. This accords the experience of another researcher. Not from want of trying, including a trip to Hobart, they were unable to find or obtain current or earlier statistics of student numbers, not even basic Full Time Equivalents (FTE), across the campuses.
Example 3. On Monday 2 October 2017, less than three weeks before VC Rathjen was due to finish up as VC and leave Tasmania, an ordinary meeting of Launceston City Council was attended by some members of the public and twelve well-prepared UTas representatives intending to address the meeting on the controversial Agenda item relating to a LCC-UTas campus relocation land deals. During the morning before the meeting, the aldermen received an email from the LCC Acting General Manager.
The email read: “A robust debate in council that does not result in the required absolute majority will significantly damage relations and our reputation, especially when the university has been organising speakers to attend the meeting supporting the proposal,”
Apart from one alderman, Danny Gibson, the other aldermen and the Mayor were very keen to give
more parcels of land to UTas, still without having carried out any due diligence (in breach of their code
of conduct) on behalf of ratepayers. Alderman Gibson was incensed at such an instruction from a
council official and asked what was the intent of the email. He also asked about the nature – a
convoluted series of “exchanges” - of what the Aldermen were being “asked” to approve. He stated that
it “was ludicrous to have not questioned” the land deals further and “appalling that the council had not
finished its parking study before the land decision was made." He pointed to the haste, with which the
deal was being voted on that day simply as a farewell favour for VC Rathjen. Referring to the land deals
and an upcoming LCC send-off for the VC, Ald Gibson argued, “I believe if there wasn't a function to
celebrate the achievements of the Vice Chancellor this Thursday in Launceston that we would have
negotiated a better outcome”.
The Mayor tried several times to silence Ald Gibson on this, saying it was a confidential email.
However, Alderman Gibson held his ground, until he finally got an answer regarding to the nature of
what the aldermen were being asked to approve. The eventual answer from the Acting GM was, “It has
been a long process of working to address the issue of trying to achieve the outcome of the
relocation of the university to the inner city site. I think that through that process, as aldermen
have been advised, there was a point now of an expectation that we had reached an agreement.
For us not to proceed would be something that is regrettable, given the effort that had gone into it.”
That answer from the Acting GM was a clear indication of the failure by all levels of government to
carry out any due diligence or requirement for UTas to produce modelling, demonstrated need or a full
evidence-based business case. By late 2017-early 2018 it had become the fall-back position of many
politicians and proponents to suggest that the ‘plan’ is/was either too far advanced to halt, or that “it’s a
done deal” or similar.
6 Example 4. On 28 May 2018 four members of a series of community networks that include businesses,
academics, students, tradespeople, retailers, ratepayers, residents and others, requested a meeting with
the new VC, Rufus Black. Black invited two UTas representatives/lobbyists, Professor David Adams
and James McKee, to the meeting. During the very polite discussions, Professor Adams had as much to
say as the VC, Mr McKee said nothing. Well into the discussions and on the topic of the complete lack
of any evidence, reason or need for the Launceston campus move, Adams, as he spoke, volunteered this
shocking and revealing top level admission of six years of misrepresentation, academic disregard,
negligence and ad hoc actions with the statement (information that the public was already well aware of)
“We are retrospectively trying to create the logic of this.”
This, in 2018 - after 6 years of machinations and disbursement on associated resources (personnel, equipment, marketing, travel, office space, real estate etc) after millions of dollars of public funds had been promised, with some funds already handed over, land parcels gifted and some land titles granted, and planning scheme flood inundation codes altered - was the best they could come up with! Adams’ words were a full admission that they, UTas and proponents, still had not established justification for relocation, that all their previous claims and actions have indeed been a scam. Furthermore, on 1 March 2019, a full month after their submission to IA, Adams was quoted in the local newspaper, The Examiner: ‘Pro-vice chancellor David Adams said the university had been "working hard to get the evidence” for its transformation project, but “unforeseen challenges had meant a delay to the existing timelines.”
The level of misrepresentation, deception, manipulation, demise of ethical standards, lack of accountability and transparency by UTas and/or those in government responsible for organising and signing MOUs and granting funding has been mind-boggling and continues unabated. Not even the serious damage to the Sandy Bay campus caused by the flood in June 2018, nor the public response to an Open Letter 4 to VC Black was enough to bring about a rethink of the folly of relocating the whole Launceston campus to a flood prone tidal flat – an area that sits below high tide levels, albeit behind levees, but which has to be evacuated, at great expense and effort, every time there’s a flood evacuation warning as there was in June 2016 at a cost to UTas of over $40,000 to evacuate the small campus there.
Moreover, the cost of Launceston relocation is now rumoured to have blown out to well over $400 million, (presumably in part due to the nature of the intended location), while the posited randomly selected number of ‘additional’ students has been reduced from the original figure of 12,500 quoted in 2015-6, to 7,000 in mid-2018 to 1,200 in late 2018. This combination and size of altered projections alone should be enough to negate all MOUs and to force serious, open examination of LCC-UTas methods, funding and efficacy of the all campus relocation plans. However, it has made no difference to the funding promise by politicians and proponents.
No single politician, candidate or party carried out any due diligence or fact checking before supporting the funding promises. Because of the obvious flaws and absence of any need to relocate (quite the contrary, the evidence for remaining at the current campus is overwhelming and fully understood by the public), ad hoc decisions, policy and planning on the run, and absence of any coherent proposal have been ongoing characteristics of the process from the start, a feature also recognised by the public.
In this absence of any due diligence or fact checking by the political class or of any requirement for UTas to produce actual evidence or modelling or full business case, Launceston-based community
See the published Open Letter including all the community social media comments.
7 networks assigned a full academic-level report. Researchers have spoken to many people, politicians of all persuasions, business owners, professionals, tradespeople, academics, students, current and former UTas employees, UTas lobbyists, University Vice Chancellor, administration staff, media/radio hosts, and had numerous discussions and casual conversations with members of the public. The high level of opposition within the general public (80-85% opposed) and within UTas staff (75% opposed in Hobart, approx. 90% opposed in Launceston) and students, has remained high from the start, It has not diminished.
One of the difficulties for any member of the public in trying to deal with this issue, or to expose the misrepresentation and deception (in the legal sense, say as per Aust Consumer Law, or under ‘wilful blindness’ or ‘public interest’) is the constant stream of ad hoc responses, inconsistencies and the almost weekly contradictions that emerge from the UTas Northern Transformation (NTP) office. In addition to that is the secrecy and collusion by the Launceston City Council on matters such as Development Applications and discretionary Planning Scheme Amendments in assisting UTas actions. 5 People who should be checking this issue, are not. Those who should be taking action or are in a position to bring about action are ignoring or dismissing the issue in a wilful abrogation of their responsibility. By not carrying out their own due diligence and/or fact checking, these “self-absorbed” politicians and councillors have rejected accountability and transparency, and most likely breached their Codes of Conduct. Meanwhile UTas misrepresentation, under the guise of ‘transformation’, continues unchecked and undeterred. Indeed, they have created several new positions over the time and appointed a new provice chancellor to oversee the ‘northern transformation’.
Given this situation and the failure by anyone involved to apply and enforce standards, (as per your articles and Geoffrey Watson’s comments about the Tasmanian Integrity Commission being a paper tiger), how does the community go about using the research and the reports to bring honesty and common sense to the issue? 6 A return to the earlier published common-sense UTas plans of refurbishing the current main Launceston campus in conjunction with the Mowbray Precinct Study, at a cost of between $59m to $72m, would release public funds for several important alternative projects needed in Launceston and fully supported by the public.
It is not possible in this letter to cover all the matters of public concern associated with the UTas relocation projects. A full academic-level, peer-reviewed evaluation of the planned campus relocation and UTas’ claims, Evaluative Review of the University of Tasmania Inveresk Precinct Redevelopment Project, by Chris Penna, has been published and sent to relevant people in the hope that they might read=
The clearest example of this was the successful passing of Amendment 43 to the L’ton Planning Scheme to alter part of the Invermay Flood Inundation Code to allow a previously ‘prohibited category’ development on the tidal zone that sits below high tide level. When the Code was originally put in place, then State Treasury Secretary, Don Challen, was adamant that no further intensification of the area was to occur. In the past 3-4 years the City Council has succeed in weakening the Code to allow full-scale development there (with the associated growth in daily traffic movements, the highest in Tasmania, outside Hobart). The City Council failed to mention to the Planning Commission or to anyone else, that a Flood Modelling Report by BMT, that it, the Council, had commissioned and had already seen several interim versions, was close to final publication at the time of the Amendment 43 Planning Commission hearings. The BMT report is a serious document based on the latest climate change data and flood data, with serious projections (2050, 2090) for flooding in/around Launceston. North and South Esk Rivers Flood Modelling and Mapping UpdateVol1:Technical Report, and Vol 2 Flood mapping, published in Nov 2018, but not released by LCC until 22 January 2019. Several Launceston experts (flooding, estuarine scientist, engineer, emergency personnel) expressed surprise that the Council even released it publicly it at all, due to the seriousness of the report and the projections. In all its actions the City Council - and the State Government - has given preference to the UTas proposal over everything else.
6 A rethink and a possible reversal on the Hobart STEM centre relocation, which has been with Infrastructure Australia for some time and had reached the final stages, was announced in mid-January 2019.
8 it and perhaps take notice of the content and of the misrepresentation and deception perpetuated by UTas and its lobbyists. A further independent academic-level report is in progress.
FURTHER REFERENCES –
1. SECTION ON TRUST, TRANSPARENCY AND SOCIAL LICENCE - EXTRACT FROM AN UPCOMING INDEPENDENT REPORT ON THE UTAS RELOCATION (The Report includes aspects from an ETHICS CENTRE publication)
2. OPEN LETTER TO THE VICE CHANCELLOR, AND SOCIAL MEDIA COMMENTS, JUNE 2018.
3. ARTICLE BY DR M POWELL ON THE NEED FOR “AN INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO UTAS?” 8 JUNE 2018
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