The Ratepayers' Association took the time and effort to make a submission to Council on this agenda item and listening to the cursory regard the item received around the table, the association's concerns and aspirations were summarily dismissed. The association's concern is to ensure that when Council seeks advice, it is 'expert advice' and those providing it should in fact be 'experts' – not sycophantic dilettantes.
Under the provisions of SECTION 65 of the Local Government Act 1993 (Tas) a general manager must ensure that any advice, information or recommendation 'given to the council or a council committee is given by a person who has the qualifications or experience necessary to give such advice, information or recommendation'.
The PURPOSE of this provision is to protect ratepayers from flawed advice provided by sycophantic dilettantes and other conflicted advisers.
With this in mind, and in the cut and thrust of things, the age old contention to do with the 'value of culture' is ever likely pop up and expose every machination of purified ignorance, unadulterated philistinism and simple unenlightenment. There is no surprises at all when this is witnessed as self deemed expertise just doesn't cut it.
We do need to consider living in a city without a 'cultural landscape' and we need to do so very carefully.
The Australia Council for the Arts reports regularly on incomes in that 'euphemistic cultural sector' and their reporting shows that artists – cultural producers – earned a gross income in the order of $48K PA on average. That is well below the average income of $77K PA but above the poverty line of $22K – roughly the aged pension. So any notion that people in the 'cultural sector' are on easy street and can afford to give freely of their time, resources and expertise is little more than 'arrogant tosh' and can easy be put to one side. Clearly, when they are expected to give freely of their 'professional all' way too much is expected. CLICK HERE FOR A REFERENCE ... AND FOR ANOTHER CLICK HERE
Typically, people in the cultural sector need to supplement their income from other jobs – sometime multiple jobs. For instance, the story of a 29-year-old being forced to take a full-time receptionist job to make ends meet and at the same time maintain their 'practice' is all too common. Its not because she is a 'bad artist', it is actually because of the 'state of the market' in the cultural sector, that is,
- the very one that is populated with people that Council assumes has the wherewithal to donate their time, their resources and their expertise to bureaucrats who are in receipt of exceptional salaries in order that the GM can satisfy SECTION 65 of the Act.
Cr. Dawkins even footnoted her comment by alerting people to the attention sport gets in the press and presumably she was making the point that sport gets enough. Also, somewhat curiously she ignored:
- Aboriginal cultural cultural realities; and
- The possibility of religion being a components;
However, C. McKenzie when he spoke to the motion was a little more elastic in what might be considered as a component of the city's cultural landscape. Interestingly he did so without naming any component maybe in case he made a mistake of some kind.
The fact that the ratepayers submission was advocating that 'committee members' drawn from the community be compensated for their time, expertise, experience and more still, is was not a concept they wish to consider. Setting a standard of that kind might be the thin edge of the wedge and ultimately unwelcome comparisons might get to be made.
Having a 'cultural strategy' at all reeks of totalitarianism of the kind that came to be in Europe in the mid 20th Century. Assuming that 'culture' is mono-dimensional and/or that there is any such thing as a 'cultural oneness' runs counter to people's experience of their reality. Dumbing 'culture' down comes with all kinds of complexity and warnings and there should be no room whatsoever for dilettantism.
Manfred Rommel prominent German and influential municipal politician speaking of Adolf Hitler said "of course, Hitler was a dilettante, but he was a completely amoral person. Yes, he had no morals at all" In his words, these words, there is something to ponder upon even the 21st Century – even in Launceston.
Dr Tandra Vale
City of Launceston council ... The City of Launceston council has spent $2,743,946 on consultants in the past five financial years. It spent: In 2015-16: $484,051 In 2016-17: $496,813 In 2017-18: $768,316 In 2018-19: $315,066 In 2019-20: $679,700 The information was released at the council's March 11 meeting after The Examiner had asked repeatedly for the information. ............................ The council's chief executive officer Michael Stretton said it developed the consultancy register due to increasing public interest. ............................ "The council has decided to report the consultancy register to the public in the interests of achieving greater transparency and clarity in respect to the level of expenditure on consultants each year," he said. ............................ "The register identified that the council spent between 0.28 per cent and 0.71 per cent of its total annual expenditure on consultancies in the last five years."
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