I was going to write this post next week from a slightly different angle, but then, last Friday, Vice-Chancellor Black was at it again, making his dubious claims about UTAS’ proposed move to the Hobart CBD.

Obviously worried about the outcome of the Hobart Elector Poll, the VC wrote to UTAS staff, and invoked the 2019 ‘consultation’ process as a central pillar in UTAS’ proposed move (see particularly paragraphs 4 and 7 of his letter).

The VC made similar claims for the 2019 consultation process in his interview with Mel Bush on 14 July – an interview well described as “a train wreck” for the VC.

If UTAS has so much belief in the outcomes it claims for the 2019 consultation process:

  • Why won’t it release the detailed documentation relating to this process that I sought in a Right to Information application that I made on 12 April?  (The lack of response is now before the Ombudsman).
  • Why didn’t VC Black respond on this same issue when I wrote to him about this, and a number of other issues, following the Mel Bush interview? (Regarding consultation, see particularly my second letter under the Correspondence with the UTAS Vice-Chancellor, Rufus Black section).

I think the answer is clear – the detailed documentation I sought will not support the claims that VC Black makes.

I made my RTI application back in April, because I had been told by participants that:

  • the display of options in the Southern Future Room had been biased towards the CBD move, which is hardly surprising since we now know for a fact that VC Rathjen had been set on the CBD move, at the latest, since 2016 (see my LegCo submission and my previous post).
  • the eight focus groups – which had consisted of only 72 people – had been hostile to the CBD move.

UTAS did provide me with one document, outside the RTI process, on the consultation process in 2019.

However, this is a high-level summary document only, and reads like it is making the best of bad consultation outcomes for UTAS’ plans for a CBD move – with glib assertions proffered to counter acute criticisms (was it prepared for the critical UTAS Council meeting of 5 April 2019?). There will be more detailed and unvarnished documents and consultants’ reports sitting behind this summary document and this is what UTAS refuses to provide. For example, on pages 2 and 7 there is reference to, and a summary of the, focus groups. My RTI application was aimed at obtaining documents such as the full report of the consultant that conducted these focus groups.

Going back to the VC Black’s interview with Mel Bush, he made a point of disparaging an NTEU survey presented to him in March 2019, which damns the CBD move. This survey had well over 200 participants and, in the absence of anything substantive from UTAS, should be considered an authoritative source on staff views of the proposed CBD move.

The NTEU also sums up UTAS’ consultation process in 2019, and UTAS’ consultation more generally, in its submission to the LegCo Inquiry:

“The Chancellor stated that the move would be: ‘A long and deliberative process … we will consult carefully along the way to produce a campus that is a source of great pride for both our university community and the people of greater Hobart’. However the University failed to honour this commitment to consult and has proceeded with the move in the face of staff opposition.

Prior to the Council’s decision to relocate, the NTEU surveyed its staff on the move to the Hobart CBD. A total of 48% of members returned the survey, suggesting a very strong engagement on the issue. The responses showed that 75% preferred to remain at Sandy Bay, 16% favoured the CBD model and 7% were undecided. Comments from members in response to the proposed move to the Hobart CBD highlighted the following main themes:

  1. Traffic congestion (vehicle and pedestrian) combined with the inadequacy of public transport
  2. Parking in city – availability and cost
  3. Building concerns; new buildings with open plan spaces may not be fit-for-purpose; a series of office blocks doesn’t make a campus
  4. Identity of Sandy Bay campus will be lost
  5. Loss of green space
  6. Staff and students will operate in a set of silos
  7. The consultation process was not genuine

The NTEU Survey of Members- Southern Campus Move (attached) was prepared for and presented directly to the Vice-Chancellor, who dismissed it out of hand in a discourteous display. This type of experience is shared by many other community groups who have expressed concerns over this move. The mishandling of the Hobart CBD move has resulted the University being at the centre of significant community criticism.” (page 6)

Beyond the consultation issue, I doubt that anything VC Black says should be much relied upon. My view is supported by the Mel Bush interview and my subsequent correspondence with the VC on a number of misleading statements he made in that interview. It is further supported by a transcript of the key sections of the VC’s interview with Mel Bush that I provided with my second letter to him. (See the Correspondence with the UTAS Vice-Chancellor, Rufus Black section).

Apart from the consultation issue, there were several other matters I raised with the VC. In particular I challenged the VC’s misrepresentation of UTAS’ release of UTAS Council Minutes, and I did so from the point of view of the RTI applicant to whom the VC referred to in the Mel Bush interview.

I would add one additional point to those I made about the UTAS Council Minutes in my correspondence to VC Black – the redacted extract of the Minutes that UTAS provided to me, and simultaneously published, is 22 pages long, whereas UTAS subsequently informed me that the UTAS Council Minutes for the period 1 January 2015 to 24 March 2022 were “approximately 750 pages.”

The UTAS Council Minutes were the one issue on which VC Black responded to me and I believe his every word is incorrect. Readers are invited to go through the correspondence and form their own view on this.

Other matters that I raised with VC Black where I believed the VC’s responses to Mel Bush were incorrect or misleading were:

  • The decision to leave the Sandy Bay Campus.
  • The occupancy rate at Oberon Court.
  • The planning process for Sandy Bay.

All issues are covered in my second letter to the VC, my transcript of the Mel Bush interview and other attachments. (See the Correspondence with the UTAS Vice-Chancellor, Rufus Black section).

VC Black did not respond on the three listed issues, just as he did not respond on the matter of consultation.

For the final word on the VC’s credibility, who better to cite than the VC himself, in a former life, describing what a great education should be like? A bit of cut and paste, and this would be a great ad for the Sandy Bay Campus – except Melbourne Uni hasn’t chosen to let student campus facilities run down.

By : Robert Hogan

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