Liberal-Lambie Government putting up stop signs everywhere

Adventure on the High Seas

SeaRoad aren’t too impressed with TT Lines and TasPorts.

They are scheduled to bring in their latest large super freighter, SeaRoad I, any week now. And yet the lack of progress for TT Lines’ berthing means disruption for them, which means more costs, more delays, more time spent trying to get the basics right.

Two big ships don’t fit into one space. That was the whole point of moving the Spirits down to Berth 3.

It’s almost as if the current government doesn’t understand that if we can’t get our ships berthing in harmony, import and export costs will rise.

Then again, if they did understand, how could you tell?

Sandy Bay of Fires

Until the state election, University of Tasmania‘s mooted relocation from Sandy Bay to the Hobart CBD was a matter for UTAS and Hobert City Council. Then it became an election pledge by the Liberals.

The Liberal/Lambie Coalition Government are entering a bill into parliament that, if passed, would require UTAS to obtain parliamentary approval for any asset sales. Which is great for Sandy Bay residents who don’t want to see high density housing upsetting the delicate ecosystem of high property values and low riff-raff from their neighbourhood. The losers are UTAS — and anybody who’d benefit from things like having a house.

In front of a parliamentary committee today, UTAS Vice Chancellor Rufus Black now says that the university’s flagship STEM project simply can’t go ahead. It requires $500m of funding to do, and most of that would have been through the sale of the Sandy Bay campus.

Back in 2015 then-Premier Will Hodgman signed an agreement with UTAS to deliver five high-level objectives:

Access and attainment: to raise the number of Tasmanians in higher education by 10,000.

Economic impact: to grow the research and higher education sector in Tasmania by increasing the turnover of UTAS to at least $1 billion.

Internationalisation: increase the flow of international students into the Tasmanian community and doubling their contribution to the economy to $400 million by 2020.

A modern economy: aligning higher education with current and future workforce needs with research providing the innovation capacity for new industries.

Revitalised regions: bring capital investment worth more than $400 million into regional Tasmanian centres.

The Sandy Bay soap opera makes a mockery of this agreement. It makes you think, when you enter into an agreement with the Tasmanian Government, is it worth the paper it is written on?