Uni bid ‘lacked scrutiny’

Council under fire for revelations in minutes

RECENTLY released minutes of the Hobart City Council’s “secret” meetings with UTAS show there was no scrutiny from council leadership on the university's move to the city, a Hobart alderman says.

The minutes to the City of Hobart and UTAS Governance Forum were publicly released on Wednesday after a right to information request from the Mercury was rejected.

The committee, which was formed to discuss the university’s campus move from Sandy Bay to Hobart’s CBD, met 10 times from June 2019 until September 2021. No minutes or notes are available for three meetings.

Alderman Jeff Briscoe said the documents showed a lack of scrutiny from council representatives on the move.

“The minutes indicate to me how closely our leadership was in lock step with the university,” Mr Briscoe said.

“The concerns of Hobartians weren’t reflected in those minutes.”

Mr Briscoe was particularly concerned about notes from a meeting in June last year.

“It was suggested by the DLM (deputy lord mayor) to do a PR piece to respond to the view that UTAS is taking over the town,” the notes said.

“She noted that to some degree, there were some people on council who need to be taken along in relation to some of these plans and we need to do some more work in that area.”

Mr Briscoe said he was “horrified when I read that”.

“There was some disquiet about the move, our leadership suggested ways to overcome that. I think it’s totally inappropriate.”

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said Mr Briscoe was playing politics with the issue.

“He knows better than anyone that until very recently the council as a whole, including himself, accepted the decisions UTAS had made,” Ms Reynolds said.

“We all realised that what we needed to do was manage this change as best we could in the public interest.”

Ms Reynolds said that Mr Briscoe had supported the move and in 2016 had even recommended the council embrace “with vigour” the university city concept after a visit to Budapest.

“Alderman Briscoe seems to want people to forget the expensive ratepayer-funded trips he went on with UTAS to Europe and his recommendations on his return that council must support the move to the city,” Ms Reynolds said.

Alderman Marti Zucco was one of three council representatives on the committee but stopped attending because of concerns over the university’s application for a charitable rates exemption in relation to CBD properties.

The exact value of the rates exemption was redacted in the notes.

“My main concern was the rates and valuations and the potential impact on the rates base of the CBD,” Mr Zucco said.

“I made the point that I totally disagreed that the uni should use the ‘charitable education exception’ to not pay rates on this component.”

Ms Reynolds said she had also rallied for UTAS to pay full rates.