Gun for Hire Hickey rides into town

Ms Sue Hickey entered fully into the UTAS debate with a patronising and supercilious Talking Point article in The Mercury on Monday, 10 October, spruiking the merits of debate on one hand, but telling us that UTAS’ CBD “move is happening” on the other.

Ms Hickey’s position is hardly surprising given that, as Lord Mayor of Hobart (2014-18), she so enthusiastically adopted Vice-Chancellor Rathjen’s agenda for relocation of the southern campus of UTAS, by the latest on 7 March 2017, when she wrote to VC Rathjen:

“Firstly, I wanted to assure you that the Council is completely committed to and shares UTAS’s aspirations to move into the inner city.” (See letter and analysis).

Ms Hickey’s position is also hardly surprising given that – as is declared in her article – she is currently on UTAS’ payroll undertaking UTAS Southern Transformation stakeholder liaison. (Liaison with whom exactly?)

Let’s go through some of the key points in Ms Hickey’s article:

We need a fact-based debate.

This is one point in her article on which I agree with Ms Hickey. I therefore invite her to answer these questions:

• What evidence supporting the relocation of the southern campus from Sandy Bay to the Hobart CBD did Ms Hickey have available to her in March 2017?
• If Ms Hickey did have evidence, to whom and to what extent did she share this with others?
• If Ms Hickey believed that UTAS relocation was inevitable at that time, as she seems to imply in her article, why did she not seek to consult with the community?
• What evidence supporting the relocation of the southern campus from Sandy Bay to the Hobart CBD does Ms Hickey have available to her now?

By evidence I mean substantive information that allows testing of sources, assumptions and calculations; not glib assertions.

I have lodged seven RTI applications with UTAS since March 2022 seeking UTAS’ evidence for the CBD move, including the agenda paper, which proposed the move to a City-Centric Campus, provided to the 5 April 2019 UTAS Council meeting. I have encountered little but delay, obstruction and obfuscation.  Perhaps Ms Hickey could put some effort into obtaining the evidence that I sought – that would be a meaningful act of liaison.

The relocation of UTAS to the Hobart CBD had been coming for years, so why the concern now? The relocation is a good thing.

I think most people understand that there was a piecemeal relocation of UTAS facilities into or near the Hobart CBD prior to 2017 and that some/much of this was sensible.

However, while Ms Hickey may have known about VC Rathjen’s plans to relocate to the Hobart CBD by March 2017, most people did not. It seems – from the censored extract of the UTAS Council Minutes provided to me under Right to Information (RTI) legislation – that substantial relocation was not even put to the UTAS Council until August 2017, and then only as a matter for further consideration.  

Concern among those campaigning against the CBD move has largely arisen because of, and since, the 5 April 2019 decision by the UTAS Council to support the City-Centric Campus model and UTAS’ subsequent plans to totally redevelop the Sandy Bay campus. This is a period in which people have had to deal with a pandemic.

• This is not to say that there was no earlier opposition to some of UTAS’ piecemeal moves.

I suggest Ms Hickey spends some time reading carefully through the submissions to the Legislative Council Inquiry.  She would learn that most of the concern of those opposed to relocation of southern campus from Sandy Bay to the CBD relates to educational excellence and student welfare.

“Two bus trips from the Sandy Bay campus or 15 minutes from the GPO should not impact your tertiary education, but maybe it does”.

Ms Hickey doesn’t seem to embrace UTAS’ student accessibility argument fully, but this could be an attempt at clever drafting, and maybe she does.

In that case, I point out that UTAS has never provided convincing evidence (evidence as defined above) on this issue.

The student accessibility issue should anyway, first and foremost, be addressed by improving educational attainment and retention rates.  If needs be, dedicated bus services and other transport options should also be considered.

UTAS staff feel threatened by attacks on the institution they work at and bullying at barbecues.

Criticism by those campaigning against the CBD move has been primarily aimed at the relocation agenda and the decision-making process. This criticism comes from a deep well of concern for UTAS’ – the institution’s – very future. If there has been bullying of individuals that is to be deplored, however on this point I again refer Ms Hickey to the submissions to the Legislative Council Inquiry and to Greg Barns’ address to the Vote No Rally. There is clearly a bullying culture within UTAS – whereby people are afraid to voice opposition to the move – and this is a profoundly serious issue.