Mayor van Zetten, City of Launceston Councillors, UTas and two VCs

Rumours circulating in Hobart are speculating that UTas is planning to move 300 staff north and some say 200. Who would know? Once upon a time the UTas VC was predicting that overseas students were going to be the be all and end and bring business back to Launceston's CBD.

In Launceston there are rumours too that a whole lot of staff are going to have to move to Hobart. As they say in sideshow alley at show time, in the fortune teller's tent, "please tell us our future".

The mayor and aldermen back when UTas looked credible, they said 'oh really', and well here is some land to help you out and then they said "go for it".   The ratepayers and UTas staff were not so convinced and jumped up and down quite a bit but then again what would they know – especially the riff-raff Launcestonians.

You see university professors are very smart people who know all about the future and how to predict it. They employ smart people too, tasked to tell them that they are right and they are people who really, really need the job. They are as is often said,"very solid".

Back when the 'the university' was the game in town following on from 'the Hydro', 'the Wool Sales', 'Southern Cross TV' and then 'Gunns', all of whom predicted their future with variable success as was the case with so, so many of their predecessors. All of whom had their detractors and some even attracted the promise of getting a good kicking if when down they looked like getting up again. 

Indeed, some of the key players wound up with interesting futures that even 'the council and SECTION 62/2' just cannot hide from Mr Google in 2020.

'The university' had big boots to fill and they were stepping up to the plate with all the razzamataz they could muster. And when the future started to look bleaker the VC flew off to apparently greener pastures and the 'good burgers of Launceston' stayed on song. Even when the Launceston's GM joined the VC on new ground they, for the lack of 'a diviner' stuck with 'the plan' come what may.

Enter stage right UTas's new VC and the process keeps on keeping on just like a good coat of paint.

Moving right along, the poker game that the mayor and council, and Town Hall generally, seem to be playing, and possibly thinking that there are cards up their sleeve yet, is taking an interesting turn with the realisation that there are players at the table who have their number. Some have long memories, other can count cards and others well they have educations that generally cannot be found at Town Hall. 

Apparently there was an ancient philosopher who once observed that the truth is like a lion. He apparently said that there was no need to defend a lion, or the truth, because if you let it loose it will always defend itself. Someone at UTas will know who it was for sure. Anyway, when you don’t know what to do next, it never hurts to play a game like scrabble as for all intention's purposes it is just like reading the I Ching or reading tea leaves for that matter. It will be edifying if nothing else.