Despite the calamitous times we find ourselves in the communications coming out of Creative Arts and Cultural Services deserves a considered response given all that is currently at risk and all that the QVMAG has been ‘entrusted with’. Indeed, all that Launcestonians, Tasmanians and Australians plus others who have invested in the institution and theQVMAG’s collections. Concerningly, the institution’s governance has been largely dysfunctional given the blurring of governance's with management's functions and roles. It has been so for quite a long time.
I am all too aware that my persistence in making this point has earned me, apparently, the title of “Launceston’s Ratbag-in-Residence” but it worries me not. In fact, it is a title I am more inclined to wear as a badge of honour rather than take it in the intended context of a 'put-down'. Also, as an advocate for transparency, accountability and change in regard to local governance inTasmania if the denigration was not there, given what is there to be challenged, I might well have something to worry about.
Now that all that is out in the open I’ll get on with saying what I believe needs to be said, in fact must be said, in the current circumstances – and out loud!
Now that all that is out in the open I’ll get on with saying what I believe needs to be said, in fact must be said, in the current circumstances – and out loud!
The Consultation Process
The first thing that needs to be said here is that, as good as it is in part, the whole process is founded upon an assessment of a cultural ‘reality’(?) from the outside that on the available evidence has been carried out in some kind of ‘splendid isolation’ . This work has by-an- large been insulated from all kinds of’ ‘cultural considerations’. Belief systems cum religion, language cum language paradigms and knowledge systems cum 'the sciences' being but three glaring examples of culturally defined concerns apparently 'put to one side' in favour other concerns.
Rather than reiterate the ‘cultural paradigm’ I speak from I will direct you to this link to this article on the eJOURAL PONRABBEL .
Moreover, that the ‘foundation’ for this whole process, 'The Robyn Archer Report' has been kept confidential on the basis that it is an “internal operational document” beggars belief in that, purportedly, it is about us.
Who are we? Those who:
• Occupy and shape Launceston’s, indeed the geographic region's, CULTURALlandscape;• Are members of cultural institutions’ Communities of Ownership & Interest that shape the cultural realities the region; and
• The people who have cultural and intellectual property invested in ‘cultural activities and institutions’ in the region; and
• The people Tasmanian Government and Council conscripts the required funding required for the ’consultancy’ and the institutions governed and managed by Council.
None of these people/communities are ‘outsiders’ undeserving of being confided in – not a single one of them.
So, it appears as if this whole process thus far has, and for whatever reason, has been distorted from the outset. It been carried on well way from meaningful consultation and community engagement. No such benchmarking has been in evidence.
Moreover, the process thus far bears call the hallmarks of ‘bureaucratic convenience and expedience’ . Likewise none of the signals that ‘governance’ is engaged, that is proactively engaged, with the constituencies that bring 'the process' to its current point – or indeed management operating in concert with governance.
Moreover, the process thus far bears call the hallmarks of ‘bureaucratic convenience and expedience’ . Likewise none of the signals that ‘governance’ is engaged, that is proactively engaged, with the constituencies that bring 'the process' to its current point – or indeed management operating in concert with governance.
Importantly, all this prevailed before the current COVID-19 crisis and once the proverbial ‘penny drops’ it will without doubt be realise that a paradigm shift has taken place where the currently presumed status quo is untenable.
Any notion that the clock can be stopped and rewound to tell the time way again is absolute folly. Currently I’m constantly being reminded of the definition of insanity ... doing more and more of the same thing whilst expecting change.
What needs to be done now
Given all that is invested in Launceston’s, indeed the region's, cultural institutions the presumed ‘baseline’ for the development of a ‘cultural strategy’ needs to be re-examined. It needs to be done by all those who have investments in them. ‘Culture’ is not something that can be imagined from the outside in isolation from those who make up the various and varied Communities of Ownership and Interest (COI) .
Developing a ‘strategy’ needs to be done within engaging with the COI and engaged with the layering, and interfacing, of cultural entities.
It can be done! It must be done! Indeed, in Launceston in Y2000 it was done! I refer to the QVMAG Search Conference.
It can be done! It must be done! Indeed, in Launceston in Y2000 it was done! I refer to the QVMAG Search Conference.
It is just the case that it’s outcomes were unpalatable to management who in variably worked towards that ‘strategic mechanism’s’ not changing their understandings of the status quo. Somewhat disastrously those efforts have prevailed.
Importantly, ‘strategies’, that is effective strategies, are developed AFTER:
• The overarching ‘purpose’ has been established/defined/redefined; and• A set of ‘objectives’ has been established/redefined – primary and secondary; and then
• The 'rationales' for all this has been determined and identified.
At this point it is possible to develop and agree upon ‘strategies’ in concert with a constituency, shareholders and in the case of ‘public institutions’ their COI. All this is the function and role of ‘governance’ and only involves ‘management’ as facilitators of the process. Thus far, this is not what is in evidence in this case.
The QVMAG Search Conference was essentially, and fundamentally, a ‘Citizen’s Assembly’. Whenever it has been pointed to since, well the status quoist have emerged from their various hiding places to talk down the process, all the while screaming failure, or inappropriate, or unacceptable, whatever. All of which deny the actual outcomes and its effectiveness as a ‘consultation cum community engagement tool’.
Interestingly, ‘the bureaucracy’ here is always asserting the status quo and its self-assessed ‘authority’ under the prevailing status quo paradigm with consideration for the COI nowhere to be seen.
The ‘command and control model’ adopted by management essentially side lines:
• The institution’s ‘Trustees’ governance body, the city’s elected Councillors – albeit trustees by default;• Any advisory cum reference group appointed/sanctioned by the Trustees/Councillors;
• Launceston’s cultural institutions/bodies/organisations/networks – the QVMAG’s COI etc.; and
Moreover, that deliberate lack of ‘transparency and accountability’ – failures in governance – has not already been observed and called-out is simultaneously surprising and concerning.
Against this background it is clear that now that ‘clock has been stopped’ it should not be rewound and set to revive the redundant status quo. Rather, a contemporary 21st C standard needs to be divined, established and set in place.
Where to now?
Importantly, the inadequacies along with the lack of transparency, currently in play needs to be confronted head on.
Ronald Regan, when President of the USA, defined the ‘status quo’ as being “Latin for the messy we are in”. Currently his observation is even more poignant than it might have been in the times he was speaking of.
Ronald Regan, when President of the USA, defined the ‘status quo’ as being “Latin for the messy we are in”. Currently his observation is even more poignant than it might have been in the times he was speaking of.
As governance at all levels – Local, Regional and National – is forced to reassess economic priorities everything must, that is every element of our social, cultural, environmental and economic ‘realities’, must be thoroughly interrogated, reviewed and revised.
In Launceston, indeed Tasmania, this will require a ‘root and branch’ review of what was, what is and what needs to be.
Past assumptions must not, in fact cannot, automatically stand given the in-built redundancies and inadequacies embedded in their foundations and in turn outmoded understandings of geographic realities.
Past assumptions must not, in fact cannot, automatically stand given the in-built redundancies and inadequacies embedded in their foundations and in turn outmoded understandings of geographic realities.
Unavoidably, the process that has been set in motion needs to be reassessed in the context of the new understandings of social, cultural and economic realities.
Different imperatives are now revealing themselves and there can be no smoothing over of the now redundant way within which 'the world' was imagined in order to maintain some warped version of the status quo.
Different imperatives are now revealing themselves and there can be no smoothing over of the now redundant way within which 'the world' was imagined in order to maintain some warped version of the status quo.
Change is an imperative and it clear that redundant understandings of ‘reality’ will ‘wither on the vine’ given their unsustainability – intrinsic inadequacies.
Consequently, hierarchical ‘top down’ governance in a local context will come under intense scrutiny. The ‘elected representative governance model’ in local governance will inevitably come under very close scrutiny. And perhaps nowhere immediately than in matters relevant to local governance. That is likely to, rather should, impact upon the 'cultural strategy process' in train here and now in suspension.
Finally, it must be said that there is a certain arrogance in the assumptions in evidence thus far in the development of this 'draft cultural strategy'! And particularly so in that it appears that 'the city' imagines that it can embark upon such an exercise based on the assumption that 'the city' enjoys some kind of self-asserted , self defined, prominence in a regional context. That notion needs to be put to one side and right now.
Ray Norman March 2020
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