The Huon Valley Council-Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC) impasse over the pie-in-the-sky Waterloo Bay barge proposal ( More Pie in the Sky for the Huon ) looks to be entirely a consequence of management failure to properly advise the chair during the course of council’s January 25 ordinary meeting.
At that meeting, as soon as councillors had voted to reject a draft planning amendment that would have indicated approval of the proposal for a huge barge operation at Surges Point in Waterloo Bay, all that the general manager had to do was to whisper in the mayor’s ear the advice that is now so precisely stated by management in documentation (“page 6 of the Reports”) relating to the Thursday March 12 “special meeting” of council that has now been called to satisfy the demands of the TPC. That advice reads:
If a motion is lost it will be necessary to put an alternative motion (with accompanying reasons as outlined above). If no clear decision can be made then it will be necessary for a motion or motions to be put either in favour or against until a decision can be made by the council. It may be that the council makes a conscious decision not to have an opinion and this ought to be formulated into a motion.
I had in mind the failure by management to advise the January 25 meeting appropriately when I asked this question of the general manager at council’s February 25 meeting:
At the Huon Valley Council’s January 28 meeting, council rejected a motion relating to the combined PSA/DA re the proposed Waterloo Bay bulk-loading facility project. The Tasmanian Planning Commission was subsequently dissatisfied with the form of council’s reporting to it on this matter. Can you explain why, immediately following that council decision, management failed to advise the chair of procedures necessary to enable council to satisfactorily report to the TPC?
GM Simone Watson answered that she had twice provided advice to councillors in writing prior to the January 25 meeting. However, she failed to address the main point of my question: “. . . why, immediately following that council decision, management failed to advise the chair of procedures necessary to enable council to satisfactorily report to the TPC”. In the years I have been watching council meetings (since 2008), I have always been impressed by how ready successive managers — Geoff Cockerill, Glenn Doyle and Simone Watson — have been to help out the chair. It was only to be expected because it is the job of council GMs to ensure that meetings are conducted exactly according to the book. On January 25, Mayor Peter Coad (with no legal qualifications), might have expected to have been guided by the wisdom of GM Watson, who has a law degree. No advice was forthcoming, and so ensued what appears to have been a tit-for-tat wrangle between council management and the TPC.
In a nutshell, a council’s job, when it is “acting as a planning authority”, is to report its findings to the TPC in accordance with section 39 of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 (LUPA). In the case of the Waterloo Bay proposal, council management, having taken independent legal advice, feels it has met the terms of section 39. On the other hand, the TPC believes that it has not.
Section 39 reads:
Representations in respect of draft amendments
(1) Where a draft amendment of a planning scheme is placed on public exhibition by a planning authority in accordance with section 38, representations in relation to that draft amendment may be submitted to the authority by any person before the expiration of the exhibition period referred to in section 38(1)(a).
(2) The planning authority must, not later than the expiration of 35 days after the exhibition period referred to in section 38(1)(a) or such further period as the Commission allows, forward to the Commission a report comprising–
(a) a copy of each representation received by the authority in relation to the draft amendment or, where it has received no such representation, a statement to that effect; and
(b) a statement of its opinion as to the merit of each such representation, including, in particular, its views as to–
(i) the need for modification of the draft amendment in the light of that representation; and (ii) the impact of that representation on the draft amendment as a whole; and
(c) such recommendations in relation to the draft amendment as the authority considers necessary.
Who knows what documentation has been forwarded by council to the TPC, or what verbal communications have passed between the two. What is clear is that a situation has developed that has not yet been resolved. Consequently, the March 12 special meeting of council has been called to finally sort out the imbroglio.
188 representations from the public against the Waterloo Bay proposal, and only 15 in favour …
Irrespective of the legal advice council management is relying on to justify its actions over the draft planning scheme amendment, it appears to me that, had the GM been quick enough on her feet after the 4-4 vote (therefore negative vote under the terms of the Tasmanian Local Government ACT 1993) to advise councillors that more was needed than just their rejection of the motion to approve the amendment, all of the to-and-fro since between council and TPC could have been avoided.
With 188 representations from the public against the Waterloo Bay proposal, and only 15 in favour of it (several of which were from representors outside of the valley), it appears that the opinion of the valley is overwhelmingly against such a development at that particular point on the Huon River. With figures like this, it has been particularly galling to representors who are against the proposal (of whom this writer is one) that management has recommended “that council considers the representations received to be of insufficient merit to warrant refusal of the draft amendment to the Esperance Planning Scheme 1989”.
Despite public opinion, the odds at the moment appear to be that, when council meets on Thursday (March 12) to vote on the issue for a second time, it will vote 5-4 in favour of the amendment. This view is based on the assumption that Councillor Mike Wilson — absent at January 25 meeting — will be in attendance and will vote for approval. Of course, he might not.
Also, if valley talk has substance, there is a possibility that Councillor Ken Studley, who voted “for” in January might now vote “against”. Should he do so, this would mean — as long as Councillor Lydia Eastley maintains her opposition to the amendment (and irrespective of how Wilson votes) — the motion would go down 5-4, it being fairly certain that Mayor Coad and Councillors Liz Smith and Rosalie Woodruff will repeat their votes against.
(As a sidelight, it is interesting that HVC management has been so intent on playing legal hardball over the Waterloo Bay issue whereas it has been seen to be fairly slack in its enforcement of council building-compliance regulations.)
What exactly has been going on behind the scenes at HVC since the January 25 decision is anyone’s guess. The growing impression from the sidelines is that management and mayor are at odds — which is a pity since Peter Coad, who took over the mayor’s chair since in November, has been doing an admirable job of dealing even-handedly with all councillors around the table. He’s always quick to short-circuit potential nonsense around the council table, yet he comes across as a consummate peacemaker.
Last month, he politely but firmly dealt with a heated outburst from once deputy mayor and occasionally acting mayor Wilson (who has never been popularly-elected to either mayoral or deputy mayoral office). Wilson has been demanding for some time that the man who beat him to the top job last October should apologise to the people of the Huon Valley for suggesting during last October’s council election campaign that HVC could be going broke.
Equally politely, he maintained harmony around the table when things might have got out of control. By the close of that meeting, he seemingly had earned indirect kudos when Councillor Bruce Heron remarked that, in all his years as a councillor, he had never enjoyed a council meeting so much.
It’s quite clear — even though on controversial issues he rarely has the support of a majority behind him — Mayor Coad must be doing something right. I have never heard councillors saying they had enjoyed a meeting under the dead-hand chairmanship of the previous mayor, Robert Armstrong, who is now, as an MLC, a much smaller fish in the much bigger pond that is State Parliament.
May the council on Thursday pay heed to the popular wishes of the valley about Dennis Bewsher’s bid to establish an industrial base on a pristine shoreline. It will do so by voting down the poorly-argued council management recommendation that would pave the way for a huge jetty jutting out from a piece of leased Crown Land serving four huge 100m by 25m barges. — Bob Hawkins
• Bob Hawkins, in Comments: … #1 and #2. Ben and Linda, you reflect something that is all too common in our society: you don’t feel free to identify yourselves. And are you sure you don’t have axes of your own to grind? I think grinding axes is a respectable trade. Why don’t you come out of hiding and hang up your shingles?
• Karl Stevens, in Comments: Now that Huon Council has voted to support the wood chip barges proposal, Tasmania could soon be seeing 1 million tonnes of native forest chips exported per year. Artec in the North has a 600,000 tonnes PA capacity. I don’t think there is that much native forest left. Hodgman and Abbott are playing a high-risk game with the worlds climate by decimating these forests. I would say the Tasmanian Greens are not able to counter the Liberal onslaught on the ecology of this island. I hope we see a committed new leader in Tasmania that can take-on the alleged ‘psychopaths’ of the Liberal Party. That leader does not appear to be part of the present political milieu.
