UTAS is at a pivotal moment in its history, facing a dramatic outflow of local students, controversy around its management decisions and mounting financial pressures.
Saturday, 18 October 2025
Sunday, 5 October 2025
STT 's bogus sustainability
The following contain background
notes to assist local groups in their efforts to prevent clear-felling by STT of
their favourite bits of remaining Tasmanian native forests.
First there’s a detailed summary
of the accounting issues which relate to STT’s approach to valuing its native
forests which are shown to underpin STT’s highly questionable claim to being sustainable.
Second there’s a brief note looking at a particular
coupe planned for logging in 2026 indicating the likely social losses that will
ensue.
Monday, 18 August 2025
UTAS' sustainability: A comment on the 2024 Annual Report
It’s a toss up between UTAS and the
State government as to who is in worse financial shape.
UTAS’ 2024 Annual Report has now been
released. It reports on a calendar year basis so it’s only 8 months since the
year ended. Unreasonably slow nevertheless.
The following are some observations about the 2024 financials and some of the slides from a recent PowerPoint presentation to staff titled Our financial context.
Sunday, 9 February 2025
UTAS' broken model
It cannot be stressed how crucial it is
for interested parties to understand the earnings challenges confronting UTAS.
Parliament is about to resume consideration
of a Bill that relates to UTAS’ Sandy Bay land which UTAS wishes to sell to
fund its future plans.
It is ludicrous however to assert
that Policy A will have Beneficial Effect B without an adequate understanding
of UTAS’s current position.
But that’s what’s happening.
UTAS’ unique status of being able to
stack its own Board and not have to report to members as does every other
public entity of any significance, has meant it has operated with less
constraints than other public bodies.
As a consequence, the public
understanding of UTAS’s financial position is woeful. Asking UTAS to explain
the mess they’ve created for itself is unlikely to produce full and transparent
disclosure.
An attempt by the Public Accounts
Committee (PAC) to obtain info from UTAS about its financial position via a
short inquiry led to a snow job from UTAS. UTAS took advantage of an under
resourced and overworked committee dominated by party members either
disinterested, unable or unwilling to look at issues other than through a party
political lens and flooded the committee making it difficult for members to distinguish
wood from trees.
UTAS gave PAC a slide show back in August 2024 (posted on the PAC website) which contains much useful information even though a little inaccessible at times. It was essentially a lecture from Rufus, basically telling the committee what he wanted them to hear.
Tuesday, 4 February 2025
UTAS' STEM is a furphy
There’s a eerie similarity between
UTAS’s current predicament and that of the State government.
In the case of the latter, it has
been made blindingly obvious by Saul Eslake and others that the State is on an
unsustainable path. The Government’s Strong Plan for 2030 is not simply a smokescreen.
It’s a blatant untruth. There is no possible way the State will be able to run
cash deficits at any stage in the foreseeable future without radical changes. Debt
servicing and paying other past liabilities is taking an increased share of the
stagnant pool of State government revenue leaving less to fund current
services.
The government knows it. So does the
opposition. Although they don’t readily admit it. Both are united by omerta,
the code of silence adopted because neither have a clue what to do.
Fortunately brush fires keep flaring which
distract mug punters. The TTLine debacle for instance diverted attention and
whilst symptomatic of our woes helped everyone avoid discussion of the terminal
diagnosis of the body politic. For a time at least.
Likewise, the Mac Point Stadium debate acts as
a distraction. Although important as a sub-issue it lulls people into thinking
it’s part of the main game. It’s just a side show. There are much more serious
problems which our current head in the sand approach to future sustainability
is helping us avoid.
Likewise, in the case of UTAS the
elephant in the room is the lack of sustainability of its current model. Current attention is focussed on funding a $500
million STEM building as if that is the only thing needed to secure UTAS’s
future.
But just like the $775 million Mac
Point Stadium the cost of STEM hasn’t changed for 8 years. Are we supposed to
take these guys seriously? UTAS has been talking about new STEM facilities for
at least 12 years. Buildings at 62-82
Argyle St Hobart first valued by UTAS in 2013, purchased for STEM purposes for $9.8m
in 2015 are still unused for their intended purpose.
Minister Ferguson lost his job over his failure to deliver Berth 3 on the Mersey River Devonport in time for the new Spirit ferries. STEM is UTAS’ Berth 3.