UTAS Vice-Chancellor Rufus Black has presided over a series of fiascos since he unquestioningly picked up VC Peter Rathjen’s plan to move UTAS into the Hobart CBD.
These fiascos include:
(1) UTAS’ illegal borrowing of $350 million through the so-called Green Bond, creating a potential debt bomb for all Tasmanians;
(2) The unauthorised and needless move of the College of Business and Economics to the CBD, breaching the UTAS Council’s own Ordinance and established practice and incurring unnecessary (and unauthorised) expense on fit outs at the KPMG building etc;
(3) A major defeat in the Tasmanian Supreme Court, which emphasised UTAS’ sloppy planning processes, and wasted taxpayers’ money;
(4) A 74% vote against UTAS’ CBD move in the Hobart Electors Poll – highlighting the spurious nature of UTAS’ glib claims about its (limited and curated) consultation being supportive of the move;
(5) The Bogus claim that UTAS staff would bring spending of $15 million a year to the Hobart – a claim shamefully repeated by Chancellor Watkins in UTAS advertising for the Electors Poll;
(6) The provision of 22 doctored pages of UTAS Council Minutes (2015-2022) to me under Right to Information (RTI), when I should have been provided with 513 pages;
(7) The total resistance of UTAS to putting its business cases for the move to the CBD and redevelopment of the Sandy Bay campus site into the public domain – these had to be wrung from UTAS through my RTI appeals to the Ombudsman;
(8) UTAS’ total lack of transparency – in general – on matters that count and the real truth behind them, signified for example by:
- the Ombudsman ruling in my favour against UTAS in 3 out of 3 RTI cases and (his office ) acting to require UTAS to remake 3 decisions; and
- the Ombudsman (and his office) acting to require UTAS to release some 3,920 pages of documents to me compared to the 48 pages it initially released to me;
(9) VC Black himself blurting out/boasting of how the Liberal Government and Labor Opposition have supported UTAS’ proposed move to the CBD – a big cross against major parties in this election, unless there is a change; and
(10) The cost blowout for refurbishment of the Forestry Building to $131 million plus (from an initial estimate of $86 million, at most, and probably much less).
As for the business cases for the CBD move and redevelopment of the Sandy Bay campus site, you could drive a truck through them (I will publish a further blog post on this soon).
At the election on 23 March, make sure you vote no to Rufus (and the CBD move) by voting against candidates who support the CBD move, unless you want to see UTAS destroyed both as a learning experience and financially.
I will write on how best to do this in coming weeks.