(NB: When I refer to UTAS in my writings, I am generally referring only to the senior decision makers in the University rather than the University, or the staff of the University, in general. My meaning can normally be judged from the context).

Introduction

As I have indicated a number of times previously, I do not consider it appropriate that a decision to relocate the Sandy Bay campus to the Hobart CBD, and redevelop the Sandy Bay site as a new suburb, should have been left, as it was on 5 April 2019, to the UTAS Council – a body of 13 or 14 people (13 on that occasion), largely appointed by the Council itself.

  • I appreciate that the UTAS Council did not explicitly decide to redevelop the Sandy Bay campus as a new suburb on 5 April 2019 – but this was a logical extension of its decision (which was always about exploiting the capital value of the site), and the idea has been backed by the UTAS Council in various incarnations since.

The elements of this decision are matters of the greatest policy significance, which will have a major impact on the future of Hobart and Tasmania and should be subject to consideration by the Government and Parliament elected by the people of Tasmania.

One way or another the relocation of UTAS to the Hobart CBD, if it goes ahead, will determine the future of UTAS and the Hobart CBD. It will also have a major impact on the whole of Greater Hobart’s traffic network.

The redevelopment of the Sandy Bay campus site, if it goes ahead, will have major environmental and heritage implications, turn the site into a construction zone for ten years and cause gridlock on Sandy Bay Road and Churchill Avenue (again with implications for Greater Hobart’s traffic network).

  • My own view is UTAS’ move to the CBD will be a costly failure with huge implications for the future of the State’s only university, Hobart and Tasmania.  There are also likely to be costly bailouts along the way funded by taxpayers. To thrive, UTAS needs a point of difference and to strive for excellence. On its current plans, UTAS is hurtling towards the irrelevance of mediocrity and at best will survive as a vocational college.

When Vice-Chancellor Rathjen first mentioned his idea to move UTAS’ southern campus entirely (or near entirely) to the Hobart CBD to Premier Hodgman, perhaps around 2015, the Premier should have told Rathjen in no uncertain terms that this was a matter for the Government to consider. He should also have told Rathjen that, if he continued buying CBD properties, an amendment would immediately be passed to the University of Tasmania Act 1992 to place restraints on UTAS’ activity while the Government undertook a full review process – with appropriate engagement by the Parliament and community.

Instead, Premier Hodgman chose to become a ‘fellow traveller’ with Rathjen, as did Lord Mayor Hickey by at latest March 2017, and UTAS was left to govern in its own self-appointed domain.

  • I have a future blog post planned on how the Rathjen-Hodgman-Hickey plan evolved and was brought to fruition. I have told some of this story previously, but have recently obtained documents that will enable me to paint a fuller picture.

The Government has failed at every level

In the absence of the Government taking the lead on the future of UTAS’ southern campus, it might at least have been expected that the Government and its agencies would critically scrutinise every step UTAS took. It might also have been expected that the Government and its agencies would undertake their own analyses, in conjunction with the Hobart City Council where appropriate, in areas such as:

  • assessment of options, for the future of UTAS.

  • costings.

  • benefit-cost analysis.

  • financial risks to UTAS, Hobart, Tasmania and the taxpayer.

  • demographic and planning studies.

  • Greater Hobart network wide traffic and parking analyses for the short, medium and longer term.

Thanks to the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Ms Jenny Gale, I can now definitively say that the Government did none of these things.

Instead, I can definitively say that the overall approach of Government Ministers and agencies to UTAS’ proposed relocation to the Hobart CBD, and redevelopment of the Sandy Bay campus site as a new suburb, has been one of totally unquestioning acceptance of every claim UTAS has made.

The Government has failed to show any sense of awareness that the UTAS Council’s role is to serve the interests of UTAS (flawed though I believe the Council’s sense of those interests has been). It has also failed to show any awareness that consultants commissioned and paid for by UTAS serve UTAS, not the Government, not the Parliament and certainly not the people of Tasmania.

This is not only a failure of the Government in its responsibilities to the people of Tasmania; it is a failure of imagination.

Secretary Gale’s damning letter

On 4 May 2022, I submitted a Right to Information (RTI) application to the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPAC), and through DPAC, to the Departments of State Growth and Education, seeking various documents in relation to UTAS.

Taken together, the responses I received from agencies were poor (see Appendix 1 at the bottom of this post). There were for example, glaring gaps in documentation, inconsistencies in treatment of similar issues and an obvious willingness to accept UTAS’ view that anything UTAS said should be exempt was, by virtue of that fact, exempt (manifestly, not a view shared by the Ombudsman).

Most significantly, as I have indicated, examination of the substance of the documents indicated that neither Ministers nor government agencies ever applied a scrap of critical scrutiny to anything UTAS said, or ever thought to do their own analysis of particular issues or commission their own consultants to do so.

On 27 September 2022, I wrote to the Ms Gale at length on these matters as well as seeking an internal review of my RTI application to DPAC.

On following up, on 24 November 2022, I received an interim response from Ms Gale, before receiving a considered response on 5 January 2023, reproduced for convenience here (with issues numbered 1-4 by me);

In my response to Ms Gale on 30 January 2023, I addressed the four numbered claims, but it is the claim Ms Gale makes at number 1 that is most relevant here. Ms Gale claimed that the Government had done analysis of UTAS’ plans and pointed towards documents provided to me by the Department of State Growth (DSG) and documents that DSG had exempted (see the link to DSG’s documents and schedule in Appendix 1; the latter being the Attachment A provided with my letter). On Ms Gale’s claim number 1, I said:

It is clear that the Government has never done anything that I, or any experienced public servant, would call analysis of UTAS’ plans. My invitation to Ms Gale to identify documents that she would call analysis is really to see how low a bar she would have to set to hold to her claim.

  • I suggest all readers go through the DSG decision letter, documents and the exemptions listed in the schedule in Appendix 1.

What does this mean in practical terms?

What this means in practical terms is that, if the UTAS CBD move goes ahead, it will basically be on a wish and a prayer.

To put this another way, I consider such analysis as I have seen by UTAS to be severely flawed.

UTAS recently released the Southern Future Business Case (SBFC) – the document on which the UTAS Council made its decision to move to the Hobart CBD on 5 April 2019. While the SFBC, and particularly its appendices are heavily redacted, it looks superficial, limited and unconvincing in its analysis to me. It presents only two options:

  • The city-centric campus model.

  • The distributed campus model – which left the Hobart CBD campus buildings where they were and consolidated the Sandy Bay campus below Churchill Avenue, including a new purpose-built STEM facility.

I suspect the dice was loaded towards the city-centric campus model in the benefit-cost analysis and other aspects of the document, which seems inevitable given that VC Rathjen had been ‘hell bent’ on this option since 2015, at least, and had initiated (1) the process for establishment of a new STEM facility in the Hobart CBD (always a stalking horse for a full move) by early 2016 at least and (2) the process for ‘examining’ southern campus options in 2017.

  • I can think of some obvious and simple ways the dice might have been loaded in the SFBC – although with its redacted appendices it is hard to check. Perhaps the LegCo Inquiry should seek to secure and publicize an unredacted version.

  • I note that on 27 March 2019:

“[the UTAS] Council approved the lodgement of a non-binding expression of interest for the acquisition of the K&D site comprised of 103 Melville Street & 156-163 Harrington Street, subject to appropriate financial and legal advice.”

  • This appears totally pre-emptive of consideration of the SFBC on 5 April 2019.

Was the SFBD subject to analysis by Government agencies? On Jenny Gale’s testimony, no.

To take another very practical example of deficiencies in the process, UTAS currently states in its Q&As for the proposed CBD move:

“Was any traffic modelling done of the impact of this move and what did it find?

Yes. It found that, on almost every road in and around Hobart, the traffic will be better.” [Does anyone believe this?]

The only traffic study UTAS currently lists in support of this claim is the Preliminary Traffic Impact Assessment for Central Hobart May 2018 prepared for The University of Tasmania Southern Infrastructure Transformation Program by GHD Pty Ltd and RED Sustainability Consultants.

  • I note that among the appendices SFBC lists on the page numbered 192 is Appendix 9: University of Tasmania Southern Campus Relocation Option Analysis of Hobart CBD Traffic Modelling, Feb 2019, however that document is totally redacted.

The GHD/RED Sustainability Consultants study dates from 2018, the assumptions appear to me highly questionable (I’m sure others will be able to comment in more depth), but even this tendentious study signaled the need for further work (p33):

UTAS’ proposed move to the Hobart CBD would inevitably affect traffic flows throughout the Greater Hobart Road network. Have these been subject to analysis by Government agencies? On Jenny Gale’s testimony, no.

This should concern everyone living in the Greater Hobart area.

Other Aspects of the Hogan/Gale correspondence

I do not intend to go through the other issues I numbered in Ms Gale’s letter here in detail, as I deal with them at some length in my response of 30 January 2023.

Briefly, however, the issues I numbered 2 to 4 are:

2. What is UTAS’ mandate and level of accountability? As well as the text in my letter, I provided an attachment to my letter (Attachment B linked here).

3. The significance of the inclusion of UTAS’ proposed move to the Hobart CBD in the Hobart City Deal. This was another matter on which there was uncritical acceptance of everything UTAS said.

4. The value of UTAS’ consultation processes. Here is Peter Bicevskis’ scathing critique of Shake Up, which I attached to my response (Attachment C to my letter) to Ms Gale to supplement my argument.

Ms Gale’s letter raised a number of other issues for me, including the fact that I sought an internal review of DPAC’s decision on my RTI application on 27 September 2022. By law, DPAC is supposed to have responded within 20 working days, although this can be extended for third party consultation (another 20 days) or by mutual agreement.

As of 6 February 2023, I am still awaiting a response. On an issue, Right to Information, where DPAC should be modelling best practice behaviour for the rest of the State Service, this can only be considered appalling.

I will be addressing this and other issues in Ms Gale’s letter is future blog posts.

A parting thought and call to action

At this stage I have only read sections of the 513-page version of the UTAS Council Minutes recently released by UTAS (in two parts: 2015-2018; 2019-2022). Redacted though they are, it is possible to study the Council’s deliberations on matters such as whether the UTAS Minutes should be published and how student representation on the Council is to be managed.

I think it fair to say that the UTAS Council frequently appears to struggle with such issues, needing to consider them across a number of meetings, and sometimes commissioning more work.

Yet the Government saw fit to effectively delegate decision making on one of the most important issues in recent Tasmanian history to this largely self-appointed body of 13 people on 5 April 2019, several of whom were new to the UTAS Council. The UTAS Council then judged itself competent to determine the matter in favour of a CBD move in one meeting (with only Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick dissenting). The UTAS Council’s sole source of advice was UTAS management (and the consultants commissioned by them) – not exactly the full array of views, experience and expertise that might be expected in a Cabinet process involving the different perspectives of Government Ministers and agencies.

However, this does not mean that it is too late for Government action.

UTAS is clearly trying to reach a point where its CBD move cannot be reversed, but that point has not yet been reached.

The Government needs to assume its proper functions now.

The Parliament needs to assume its proper functions now.

UTAS has signaled in its submission to the LegCo Inquiry that it has updated research on the ‘benefits’ of its proposed move to the Hobart CBD, which it commissioned from Deloitte Access Economics (DAE).

  • The DAE research is referred to at page of 8 of Attachment 1 of Part 13 of UTAS’ submission to the LegCo inquiry (link here).

I have submitted an RTI application for this document, but given its importance, particularly while we are waiting for the Government to assume its proper functions, UTAS should immediately make the document publicly available.

Appendix 1: Agency Documents

(Agency responses to my RTI application submitted on 4 May 2022)

AgencyDecision LetterDocument ScheduleDocumentsPages
Dept of
Premier and
Cabinet#		Decision dated
25 August, but
emailed 29 August		ScheduleDocuments20
Dept of
State
Growth		Decision emailed
29 July		ScheduleDocuments95
Dept of
Education*		Decision dated
9 September but
emailed 13 September		Included
with
Documents		Schedule and
Documents		39

Notes: # I applied for an internal review in a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Jenny Gale, on 27 September. * The Department of Education’s initial decision provided no documents. I sought an internal review and Education’s review response is provided in the table. There are numerous issues with the documents provided by Education, and I have sought an external review by the Ombudsman.

By : Robert Hogan