Dear Premier Gutwein and Minister for the Arts, Elise Archer,
Today there is what must be called ‘very strong speculation’ that the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (QVMAG) will shortly loose 11 positions plus(?) – something in the order of 25% of its staff – and the consequences of this can only be described as dire. There are even rumours on Social Media that the Launceston Council is “set to close” the QVMAG.
Even more concerning perhaps is the report of the QVMAG’s ‘trustees’ – City of Launceston Councillors – in the Examiner today in regard to Council invoking an “interim public arts policy” that can be best interpreted as a smoke screen of some sort, quite likely devised to suppress news of the QVMAG’s increasing demise. In any event this ‘interim policy’ supposedly replaces an ‘old policy’ which in fact didn’t exist on the evidence to hand.
Increasingly, Launceston Town Hall seems be the place where ‘Claytons Policies’ are manufactured whenever trouble is in prospect. There is a saying that goes that there is no purpose putting up your umbrella until it rains – well bingo out comes the ‘Claytons umbrella’!
Interestingly, the secrecy here happens under the pall of COVID and OLYMPIC smoke from under which this information emerges, or is it ‘leaks out’? The apparent complicity of each and every councillor in allowing the degradation of this iconic institution to go on is something more than troubling.
There is a wisdom that goes something like philistines providing the best definition of culture at any level. Anything that makes them rant with rage just has to be first class and anything they pretend to understand and value may well have no value at all.
In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave ‘culture’ alone. Cultural concerns have the capacity to make us all very nervous given the messages cultural production often carries. By reducing ‘culture’ to its lowest common denominators and then interpreting that as ‘the standard’ this is worrying – it is in fact gold plated mediocrity. Interpretation/reinterpretation makes cultural production manageable, conformable … for philistines(?).
This situation in Launceston must be one of Tasmania’s most outrageous examples of the failure of Local Governance to meet its obligations at both the governance level and the management level – and both simultaneously. An iconic institution with a history of 130 years is being virtually ground to dust and asset striped. To what purpose?
Yes, Council need not, clearly should not, maintain anything like the status quo but virtually trashing the trust generations of people have invested in the institution, in the dark and apparently careless of the consequences, beggars belief. Likewise, with Tasmania’s State Government standing by, apparently haplessly, sends perplexing messages to the community that invests trust in ‘governance’.
Given that the Tasmanian government has secured a ‘workable majority’ in the recent elections, the government now needs to address taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ ongoing concerns in Launceston – and here in regard to the iconic QVMAG. Among the range of issues related to transparency and accountability, these things need more urgent consideration:
• Given community concern in regard to the City of Launceston Council’s inappropriate and increasingly apparent dysfunctional governance and management of the QVMAG with its 130 years of ‘community investment’ in its infrastructure, collections and recurrent operation costs, all of which are at risk, the Tasmanian State Government must now engage with the council in regard to transparency and accountability in regard to the QVMAG’s governance … and furthermore,
• Given this fundamental concern, the Tasmanian Government urgently needs to ensure that the City of Launceston’s Council – as the QVMAG’s default Trustees – is functionally fully accountable for the $230Mil plus invested in its collections by ratepayers, taxpayers, donors and sponsors over the life of the institution … and moreover,
• Given the increasing level of concern, the Tasmanian Government now needs to take immediate steps to ensure that a ‘truly independent expert assessment’ of the institution’s collections that include ‘Tasmanian cultural treasures’ plus vulnerable and unique scientific specimens in the collections are indeed safe, secure and adequately protected … and additionally
• Likewise, given the increasing level of concern, the Tasmanian Government now needs to take immediate steps to ensure that vulnerable components of the QVMAG’s collections are ‘removed to the care of an alternative trusteeship’ – state or national – to secure their safety.
I look forward with interest to your response and to whatever response you may receive from the City of Launceston’s Council in respect to this matter and the acceptability of Council’s level of transparency and accountability.
Regards,
Ray Norman
Cultural Geographer & Researcher
Ray Norman
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