LETTER TO THE EDITOR

GST

SO Tasmania is to be guaranteed GST revenue by transferring revenue from the ‘budget bottom line’ to ‘increase the size of the pie’.

Without increasing taxes and without other effects?

This budget compromise is only possible by reducing general purpose and tied grants to the states, which will reduce the provision of services. 

Giving with one hand and taking with the other is not a solution and Tasmania is in for a difficult time.

Dr Michael  Powell, Springfield.

Open letter to the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, and the Council of the University of Tasmania.

Dear Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and Members of Council,

As you watch and re-watch the video footage of the catastrophic floods and the aftermath in and around Hobart, and as you are forced to address the problems and the very real risk to life arising from the flood events at the Sandy Bay campus of the University of Tasmania, including the dramatic rescue of the security officer trapped in a room with the rising waters, consider the implications should, and when, such events occur at Inveresk, Launceston. 

After you review the footage of water flowing down a long hallway where people are still present, of ruined Law Library books washed out onto the grass, of the height reached by flood water and the resulting damage to computers in the Engineering department and the emotional responses of staff and students, and after you clean up and prepare to assess the damage and costs, it is incumbent upon you to thoroughly examine the following serious matters in relation to the University’s Northern campus.

The flood catastrophe in Hobart and the flooding and damage at the Sandy Bay Campus have been described as unprecedented. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Basil Fitch, Launceston 14 May 2018

CATCHMENT 43: Troubling Waters

Abstract: When we interrogate 'place' we tread on tender ground. “A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.” ― Joan Didion It's touchy stuff 'place' and invokes all kinds of deep emotional responses to it. “Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it." Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood. Speaking of place, O'Connor said "where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got” ... and its true! If you are a 'blow in' where you come from at best can only teach you about 'placedness' ... not yours but placedness alone ... and no matter how long it has been since you've arrived, contemplating 'hereness' and 'elsewhereness' locates you on the planet ... and here ... and it keeps on posing questions. ... Ray Norman 2016

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ESSAY

As the ‘fresh’ collides with the ‘salt’ at the convergence of Northern Tasmania’s two Esk River systems and the Tamar Estuary much more than troublesome silt is deposited on the riverbed. 

All these waterways are named for others elsewhere. Yet this river junction is a feature in a unique and evolving cultural landscape that has a human history of 40,000 years plus. More to the point, it is very much its own place in the world with its own geography and histories.

Two centuries ago there was a cultural collision at this set of coordinates that is now Launceston that involved two different sets of cultural imperatives and two distinctly different knowledge systems – each of which shapes, and has shaped, place in different ways. 

Interestingly, the waters come together here at a point pragmatically and geographically described, and mapped, in 21st Century terms, as Catchment 43. Right here at this junction, the ‘spectre of the flood’ is possibly part of the explanation of place that is being navigated. Along with a hope of somehow accounting for the Launcestonian cultural landscape multidimensional mapping is an evolving process. 

As a consequence of postcolonial mapping, in the hope of better understandings of place, Tasmania’s ‘waterways and catchments’ have been ascribed numbers in an attempt to better understand geographies, bioregions, topographies, ecosystems, cultural landscapes and the phenomena these things involve and exist within. ... CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ESSAY

ALDERMAN JANIE WANTS TO BE LAUNCESTON'S MAYOR AGAIN

Well The Examiner is out and running rather early with this bit of news but its old news really. The Examiner story gives us a bit to think about in terms of local government elections in Tasmania and this time round.

The story reads a lot like an advertorial written in the "happy clappy land" where the 'twitesphere' that Trump revels in. That now seems to rule supreme and here in this piece. Who is paying what for this? Is anyone? It they are what are they buying?

If this wasn't a big enough worry the personality cultism that is starting to become more and more visible somehow does not sit well in Tasmanian local government where 'party politics' was once frowned upon in polite circles. Maybe, and sadly, for not much longer it seems.

Ald. Finlay won her first term as Mayor in 2002 pretty much adhering to convention and the rules even if she set new campaigning standards. She won but later on she hit a wall of criticism and then she lost. Ald. Janie says that she has learnt from all that but has she? Or, has the electorate?

So, they are off and running in the 2018 and it looks just a bit previous.Yet watching all this play itself out will be fascinating for some and worrying for others. With Tasmania's local government in the sorry state that it is, it'll be a fascinating ride. It is time to think a bit harder than before and think a bit more about the status quo.

WICKERY AND PLACE

NB:First published in Garland Magazine

CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO ENLARGE

With the memory of a rustic sign in a front yard along a highway the search for an obscure ‘basket maker’ turned out to be a more than interesting enterprise. It was to be one of those occasions when the apparently ordinary becomes extraordinary, where the everyday somehow becomes somewhat exotic. More to the point, it became a hunt of a kind where insights into some remarkable storytelling can be gleaned.

A room can never really be empty because it is always full of potential. So too it is with any hunt.  When a wispy white feather rides upon the air currents, it just floating there can fill a vast room – and especially so if it is a ‘whitebox’ art gallery. That floating feather, or a memory of a sign on a fence, can fill vast spaces right up. There will always be hints in the feather’s story, even in a memory of a sign, just by it being there and almost inevitably there is much to ponder upon.... CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

LINK http://wickery7250.blogspot.com/ 
LINK https://willowweaverstasmania.blogspot.com/

MUSING THE TAMAR ESK

ABSTRACT: Launceston has no history, rather it has histories and every one imagined and 

every one belonging to someone. James Baldwin said "people are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them." ~ Notes of a Native Son. John Aubrey (16261697) said "how these curiosities would be quite forgot, did not such idle fellows as I am put them down!" ~ Lives of Eminent Men, but this is no history, rather it is a muse upon 13 words written 1969 while imagining a place as it was then and before – Launceston.

These 13 words are 'historic' and they the first to appear in John Reynolds "Launceston: history of an Australian city" and in a 21st Century context they spark imagining not quite entertained 1969 when Launceston's 'history' was being compiled and imagined. As much as anything it is a muse upon the cultural landscape that is Launceston and was ponrabbel until say1806 so far as anyone can tell.

Then Launceston was a different place, placescaped somewhat differently and a place imagined in the world somewhat differently to most of the ways it is imagined 'now'. Its 'placedness' was quite different then as it has been before then, right now and looking forward. ... CLICK HERE TO READ THE ESSAY

A THOUGHT BUBBLE: Let's be a city!

Click here to go to the Examiner story

So, what might Cr Kearney be pondering when in The Examiner he imagines West Tamar as 'a city'.  The 'smart answer' might well be, who knows? Generally cities are large human settlements. that have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication.  So, it must be something other than that.

Yes there is a local government election looming in Tasmania, and putting cynicism to one side, could he possibly be trying to 'civicly insulate' West Tamar from Launceston and its perceived excesses?

Once-upon-a-time you could check if you were in a city by scanning the skyline for the cathedral church's steeple where the city's protective cross might be found. However, if the region, the place, wants to sell itself in a cultural context, invoking medievalist strategies distorted for political purposes, being a "city" might not be the smartest way to go when looking for a way forward in a postcolonial future.

Looking to the past for wisdom perhaps Sholom Aleichem's mantra, "life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor" may have something to say to us in all this. We might do well to do as they say and "watch this space".

UPDATE 

What The Examiner said about what the council said about becoming a city ... CLICK HERE