PLANNING NEWS

Dear PMAT Supporter,

 In what is likely to be the biggest survey of candidates in the local government elections, the Planning Matters Alliance Tasmania (PMAT) has today revealed strong candidate sentiment for local government planning controls that protect local character, sunlight and privacy for our homes and facilitate public involvement in planning decisions in national parks and reserves. .

PMAT sought to survey all 481 candidates in the council elections, reaching 407 candidates, 107 of whom completed and returned their responses to questions. It asked the following three questions and the individual responses to these questions are now available on PMAT’s website HERE.  The results table is presented by Council and then by candidate in alphabetical order.

1. Do you believe that Councils should have greater capacity to protect local character and amenity and places important to local communities? 

2. Do you believe that planning rules should protect a neighbour's right to sunshine and privacy in their own home and garden? 

3. Do you believe that major tourist developments proposed for national parks (and other reserves) should be discretionary i.e. the development proposal is released for public comment and the council can either approve or refuse it? 

Please see attached Media Release from today’s press conference which we held on the steps of the Hobart City Council. Two TV networks turned up, so please watch the news tonight. 

Please forward this email to your members and supporters and share the survey results via our Facebook page here and via our website here and encourage all enrolled voters to exercise their democratic right and empower themselves and their councilors by participating in this process. 

With kind regards,

Sophie

Sophie Underwood State Coordinator - PMAT M: 0407 501 999

VOTE CAREFULLY, VOTE FOR CHANGE

SOURCE GO TO:http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/2018/10/council-voting-please-be-careful.html?m=1

CONTEXT: If 'change' is what you are voting for this is recommended reading given the vagaries of the Tasmanian electoral system. A change of personnel is all we'll get at this election but it will be a step along the way if real change is to eventually happen and in a meaningful way.

The Local Govt. model in Tasmania is well and truly broken. Much of this is down to our elected representatives disinclination to be accountable and transparent – not to mention their non-performance in so many instances.

It appears as if the only way Local Govt's dysfunctionalism can be addressed is incrementally.

So, if change is on your agenda take very good care and Dr Kevin Bonham's advice may well be helpful.

Council Voting - Please Be Careful!

Dr Kevin Bonham

I've already made this point in my Hobart guide but I thought I should make it prominently in a separate post to cover all councils. Please feel very free to share and spread widely.

A scourge of Tasmanian council elections is the high rate of informal voting. Informal votes are votes that are returned but cannot be counted as they are not valid votes. The main reason the informal voting rate is high is that voters make mistakes and the rules concerning this are stupid. The reason the rules are stupid is that governments have failed to fix them. The previous Labor/Greens government ignored warnings that bringing in all-in all-out elections would cause a high informal voting rate under the current system. The current Liberal government has so far done nothing to fix it. The Local Government Act needs to be reformed to provide savings provisions for voters who make honest mistakes.

When you get your ballot papers in the mail, the ballot paper for Councillors will have an instruction at the top saying "Number the boxes from 1 to [some number] in order of your choice". At the bottom it says "Number at least [some other number] boxes to make your vote count". The first number is the number of candidates, the second is the number to be elected.

What the instructions don't tell you is that if you make a mistake before you get to that second (minimum) number, your vote won't be counted - at all!

So for instance, Hobart is electing 12 councillors. You can number up to 36 boxes but for your vote to count you need to at least number the boxes 1 to 12 once and once only. If you include any of those numbers more than once, your vote is invalid and will not count at all. If you skip any of those numbers, your vote is invalid and will not count at all. So for instance, if you put two number 8s but no number 9 on a Hobart councillor paper, that's it, your vote will not be valid. Even had you made just one of these two mistakes, your vote would not count. I personally saw huge piles of ballot papers rejected for these sorts of reasons in 2014. 

Especially, do not think "oh I really can't find 12 candidates, I'll just pick 11, surely that's good enough?" It isn't. It's the same as posting in a blank ballot.

If you make a mistake involving doubling or omitting numbers after the minimum number, that's not such a big deal. Don't let that put you off numbering as many boxes as you want to. A mistake after the minimum number just means that if your vote gets to the point where you made the mistake (which depending on your preference ordering might not happen anyway) then at that point your vote will exhaust from the system. It may be that much of your vote's value has been used up helping people get elected by that stage anyway.

It's especially easy to omit or double numbers if you like voting from the bottom up, which lots of us do.

One way to avoid these sorts of errors is to practice voting on a separate sheet of paper (or spreadsheet) first. Once you have an order you can check it by listing the numbers from 1 to the number of candidates on another piece of paper, and going through your practice vote from the top, crossing off each number as it appears. If you go to cross off a number and find you've already crossed it off, that probably means you've doubled up somewhere. If a number doesn't get crossed off, look for that number and see if you've missed it.

If you make a mistake on your actual ballot paper, and you're using a pen, you can correct it by crossing the incorrect number out and writing the correct one. (Pencil is much easier, since you can just erase it, and there's no reason not to use pencil.) But if you do this make sure it is very clear what your actual voting order is.

As to the question of numbering all of the boxes vs only some of them - assuming you have time to consider it - I almost always number all of the boxes. The important thing to remember if there are several candidates you don't like, is that how you rank the candidates at the bottom of the list will never help any of them beat candidates who you ranked higher - but it may help the candidate you see as the lesser evil defeat one you really can't stand. If you have ranked a candidate 30th out of 36, your vote cannot reach them or help them until everyone you ranked 1 to 29 has been elected or eliminated. However, it might then help them beat those you have ranked 31 to 36.

Tasmanian election analyst Dr Kevin Bonham is known for his commentary on elections but has other interests … https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/5247327/tasmanian-election-analyst-dr-kevin-bonham-talks-about-elections-snails-and-chess/

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: Truth telling in Local Govt.

TWO LETTERS: Click here to go to source

Unhealthy vision 

A NEW and competent council would do wonders for Launceston. My grouch seems to be fairly general in the municipality, we have a council that has had problems with coming to terms with the dire needs of Launceston and I believe their failings today rendered their term of office as not only disappointing, but a term of unnecessary money spending with little or no gain to the ratepayers of the city. 

Concerns, too, that city development appears to have been taken from council control and an unhealthy vision is appearing that does not sit too well with many citizens and questions are becoming stronger as to just where is all the mainland investment money is flowing from and before they depart a little public enlightenment as to how the present association could continue to be of benefit to Launceston? 

Geoff Smedley, Trevallyn.

Difference in councils 

WHAT a marked difference between the Launceston City Council and West Tamar Council – the LCC are money grabbers and the WTC are not. 

Example: Paid rates for a property in the Launceston area in full September 21, but because the first installment was due August 31 was charged a 3 per cent penalty plus interest of $12. 

Did the same for my property in Riverside, which was due the same time, not only wasn’t I charged a fee, but received a $32.81 discount for paying by the September 28. 

Why would councils want to merge with Launceston? They spend money like its water and then charge everyone for their extravagance there are many examples like the flood levy and the $400,000 spent putting a cycle lane on Westbury Road. 

Rob Kenna, Riverside.

EDITORS NOTE 

LITTLE WONDER at election time that the punters might be out doing a little compare and contrast thingo along with a spot of truth telling. Yet in the case of West Tamar it is the 'best council in Tasmania' and we know this because one councillor keeps on telling Launcestonians that it is so. 

He must be right because Launceston's Mayor lives there with him and arguably he can avoid the uncontainable rate rises ahead flowing from the decision making in the dark he countenances. 

Therefore, when Launceston's Mayor votes in his 'home' municipality he can vote for the candidates declaring that they are 'the best council' without doing a dot where here gets paid his 'brass'. Weird isn't it?

Everything is done out in the open at West Tamar and ratepayers rank highly in the councillors' minds whereas over in Launceston its council has real trouble coming to terms with people's real needs. They had a clever 'fly-in-fly-out' GM who essentially left them in 'debt hole' and now they are being asked to vote for more of the same. Why would you trust them with 'your' lunch money?

BEFORE YOU VOTE THINK LONG AND HARD AND MOST OF ALL SCRUTINIZE THE RHETORIC REALLY CLOSELY.

UNDERWHELMINGNESS IN LAUNCESTON'S CBD

Reposted from LCC News

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THE UNDERWHELMING BLANK CANVAS was how the Launceston Chamber for Commerce EO, Neil Grose, described the new Brisbane Street Mall when asked on ABC radio on Friday morning after businesses “had done it tough” over the last couple of months. 

What a sad DISGRACE that the Launceston City Council allowed the waste of $26.5m to rebuild the Civic Square and Mall only to be labelled as looking UNFINISHED and BLAND. 

Even the LCC General Manager, Michael Stretton, all but admitted on Tasmania Talks radio that more ratepayers money will need to be spent FIXING the MISTAKES including identified HAZARDOUS structures and confessed to receiving numerous COMPLAINTS from public. 

How much more money has to be spent on this stuff up? Ratepayers will be facing a MULTI-MILLION dollar bill – yet again. 

There is NO allocation of money in the budget for upgrades – the Mall and Civic Square were meant to be the FINISHED projects (despite what Neil Grose incorrectly indicated). 

Surely, then, in the planning process someone would have highlighted to the council the ERRORS of their ways? YES there was, but were they listened to? 

The answer to this question in an open letter to council is a MUST READ on Tasmanian Ratepayers Association…. https://tasratepayers.blogspot.com/2018/09/civic-works-critiques-and-worries.html (WARNING - prepare yourself to be shocked!) 

It is time for a CHANGE in council and it is in DESPERATE need for a clean out!! Please SHARE with your friends so that they too can see the TRUTH that council would prefer to be kept quiet.

'J' A peed of punter

EDITOR'S NOTE Ratepayers seem to have a lot of choice when it comes to the election that is upon us. There are enough candidates to turn every incumbent alderperson out to grass spending more time on other business pursuits and being able to get on with going places etc.

Well it sounds easy and in many ways it should. The incumbents have hardly bathed themselves in glory in their four years. That four year timeframe was supposed to allow them the opportunity to achieve something without the distraction of being held to 'electoral accountability'. 

It is now evident that without that 'distraction' you can manage to achieve very little beyond generating a humongous debt - $20Million!. 

Spending ratepayer's money is as they say 'dead easy' but getting VALUE for it is another thing. It is especially hard if you listen to the wrong 'experts' who themselves have found quasi experts who will agree with them and underpin their 'expert advice' and 'deem' it to be 'ridgy-didge, spot-on, the full bottle, whatever.

Apparently, going by the outcomes, Launceston has been blessed with such an expert with all the appropriate connections. Trouble is, corners have been cut, thought bubbles taken seriously and the constituency has been sidelined on the strength of a perception that they are bunch of 'know nothing hicks and wannabes'. 

THE INCUMBENTS well they just stood back and collected their stipends while they allowed the tail to wag the thylacines in Town Hall, around in the Mall and in other places. OUTCOME? A strategic mess. Ronald Reagan, always said that the "status quo" was Latin for 'THE MESS WE'RE IN'.

THE CHANGE PARADIGM AND ELECTIONS

THE STORY

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COUNCIL ELECTIONS: Now that council elections are coming up I have to ask who in the George Town municipality is worth voting for? 

As a country resident I know only one councillor who has stood up for us and fought for our needs. As far as I know the rest of them couldn’t care less. 

 If they want my vote and those of the rest of the country areas, how about taking the time to visit these areas and discuss their needs and grievances and show they are capable of doing more than just increasing the rates every year. ......................... Malcolm McCulloch, Pipers River.


WHY VOTE IN COUNCIL ELECTIONS?

Bloody good question! The increasing level of disconnects between aldermen/councillors is concerning. It has become more so with the all-in-all-out-four-year-terms that Tasmanian now have been saddled with. 

There was a time when you could laugh off say the excesses of Launceston's Robin McKendrick who was so very often quoted as saying, paraphrased, 'we were elected to make decisions let's get on and make them' and 'if they do not like it then they can vote us out.' It's the stuff of legends and it never really passed the pub test.

This world view of local government in Tasmania seems to be as prevalent in George Town, Launceston, Hobart, Southern Midlands as it might be anywhere. However, if you use Launceston as lens that would frighten the pants of kangaroo.

The thing is, frightening the punters into compliance, no matter how absurd, is where we have come to. It all boils down to doing whatever is, being 'done to' the constituency rather than 'for or even with' the people – and at 'Council's convenience' no less.

At $35K a year it seems that is what you get in an alderman. So, it is very much a case of 'being extremely careful about what you wish for' especially when you consider voting for the 'rusted-on crew'.

For example, Launcestonians have been saddled with a $20Million debt that they had no say in. This is outrageous and there is more to come.

Now is the time to tell the 'rusted-ons' around council tables, this merry band of deluded sycophants, that it is time to go spend more time with their families etc. However, when it comes to paying up, being held accountable, the 'rusted-os' will be over the hill and far away along with others around the table who snuck off into darkened rooms to give all this sort of thing a tick.

In the end these 'rusted-ons' just want things to stay just the same. They just want their allowance cheques to keep on being deposited, their fringe benefits to keep on being available, to not really having to worry too much as they give a management recommendations at tick, being able to hide behind confidentiality when things get tough, continuing to be 'seen to being seen' without it interfering with the rust to much.

Therefore, what needs to be done is as some of the smart commentators say these days is "disrupt the status quo". Enough already of the same old, same old! Now let's have some community engagement and then some accountability  and transparency.

Each and every ratepayer/resident voting needs to carefully question themselves in regard to how they are voting, why and who for. Then they need to ask the candidates that they are thinking of voting to vote for why they do it. Having done so, they will surely finfd that there is a myriad of reasons for change.

If you look at what's before you and scrape away the bovine dust you will find multiple reasons to vote for change and then for accountability and transparency – truth and justice if you like as they used to say in the comics.

Tandra Vale

CIVIC WORKS CRITIQUES AND WORRIES

CLICK HERE TO GO TO SOURCE

Brisbane Street Mall FROM THE EXAMINER 27.9.18

SO NOW the Brisbane Street mall is unveiled. 

Some pretty trees, animals that, if one is not paying attention, are very easy to fall over, and strange white and yellow seats. 

In the middle, nothing except a large very bland space.

As a shop owner said to me last week regarding the Quadrant mall “it's like a morgue”. There is nothing to entice the population into the city centre with this refurbishment.

Perhaps if the sad little creatures in the Brisbane Street mall were put on a pedestal in the middle of the bland centre it would add some character, otherwise it's just another blah space created with great inconvenience to the shops and great expense to taxpayers.

Here’s a radical thought, maybe offer free or much cheaper parking in the central business district and people might come in. 

Next time a public space is going for a revamp ask kindergarten children to submit a design. I'm sure they could do better.

Glennis Sleurink, Launceston.

LETTER TO THE MAYOR ANS ALDERMEN

To hear yesterday of the realisation of the inappropriate placement of the ‘thylacine sculptures’ in the Mall, and to see the documentation on FACEbook, and the ‘hoohaha’ on 7LA, it was distressing given that it all could have been avoided – and relatively easily. Indeed, it should have been avoided given that when the first schematic plan was ‘released’ last year I made the effort to point out the ‘specific public danger issue’ – that I believe was well and truly over a year or more ago.

Moreover, I’ve been in several conversations since then, each time the issue of the ‘thylacines tails issue’ was discussed and in particular the unacceptable public risk the sculptures presented in their projected format and placement came up one way or the other. Mostly, it was on nobody’s radar screen – someone else's problem! The clear message I was getting was that “my input” was unwelcome and “what the hell would I know anyway”. It was not for nothing that I was appointed to the Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board – even if some time ago now – to among other things, administer its Arts for Public Buildings Program. In that role, this kind of issue was ‘stock standard.’ Thus, I can claim firsthand experience and some expertise.

So, as things turn out, and given that at that time, my qualifications and experience did not rate for the purposes of SECTION 65 of the Local Govt Act – expertise is something deemed by the General Manager and not to be challenged by the elected representatives.

This tells me quite a few things– and possibly Council now too. In concert with the apparently serial ‘stuff ups’ to do with civic works in the CBD and the ‘forensic audit’(?) that I understand is now going on relative to other issues along with this ‘glitch’, and the apparent extraordinary expense all together is a sad indictment of Council’s ‘modus operandi’. 

Nonetheless, I suspect that it is all bound to be ‘conveniently smoothed over’ along with the ‘Tasmanian Tableau debacle’. The ‘oops, but nothing really to see here, fob off’ just doesn’t cut it I’m sorry to say.

Quite aside from the extraordinary circumstances relative to this set of civic projects that puts ratepayers $20Million in debt, the flaws in the processes and outcomes are going to compound that debt. That the debt’s expenditure in Civic Square and the Mall does not deliberately add a dollar to the city’s income is unfathomable.

To add insult to injury the audit itself suggests that the problems are significant but as likely as not ratepayers will be left to bear the cost – the audit and the mistakes’ costs albeit quantified – as collectively you 'governors' simply shrug your shoulders and just walk away from your accountability as elected representatives and notionally unchallenged. 

No doubt you’ll be telling your constituents that there is no other way forward and that we’ll be witnessing yet again your disinclination to apologise for the ratepayers’ burgeoning burden whilst you all look away. It is clear that you are  trying to pretend that the toxic culture at Town Hall is but a figment of the imagination of the cohort I converse with from time to time. 

Possibly, the upcoming elections may temper your disinclination to be accountable. It’s with considerable interest that I look forward to your response given the current circumstances and we might even see some fess-ups. Hope springs eternal. Yet one feels there is much more to come!

Ray Norman

Researcher & Cultural Geographer

Launceston

EDITOR'S NOTE; Ratepayers need to be pressing their Aldermen for transparency in regard to what's being described as a "forensic audit" of the civic works in Civic Square and The Mall and possibly other sites. 

It is being speculated that there may well be "significant budget overruns".  If so. it is likely that this will impact upon the city's debt somewhat and consequently ratepayer's debt to be paid via major increases in rates.

At election time claiming convenient 'commercial in confidence' is totally inappropriate and if that call is made ratepayers may well take NO DISCLOSURE as an indicator of the seriousness of what's being covered up.

'