CIVIC MISTAKES IN LAUNCESTON

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If we search the world for wisdom about mistake making there is as much wisdom as there is 'mistake making'. Like the Mahatma telling the world that “It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” Whatever, in Launceston the city has arrived at a point where it is timely to confront the reality that multiple mistakes have been made and they are now compounding upon themselves. If there was ever a a time to FESSup, regroup and move forward now is that time.

Otherwise, we might all die of some sort of self preserving bottle of creeping common sense. Just before we die we might discover, when it is all too late, that the only things that one should never regret are those mistakes that were monumental. We all make them!

If there is a need to be reminded Einstein told us  that “anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”  Bureaucracies are littered with functionaries prone to preserving the status quo and where every imperative has a DOLLARsign attached to it symbolising what they bank upon while investing in the status quo.

Imaging that building a bus interchange on land that Council just did not own, that was not for sale and then imagine that the 'real estate' over it could be gifted to a developer, well that was a significant mistake. ALSO:

• To imagine that the fiscal folly could be funded in part by a grant to compensate the city for a drought that it did not experience, that too was a mistake. 
• To deny a property owner the opportunity to develop his property in a sensitive and sustainable way, that has turned out to have been a big mistake. 
• To have put all this into effect without meaningful community engagement that too was a significant mistake.
• To treat ratepayers' funds as some kind of slush fund that might be gambled with that is a mistake.
• To go on and repeat all this by proposing to give away a community asset, York Park, that too is a concept riddled with mistakes.
• Moreover, to do all this without contrition that too is a significant mistake.

Whenever we look around us and find that an opportunity has gone up in puff of smoke another is there for the taking. But we all too often look too long and too regretfully at the lost chance. All too often we do not see the new one that is right there in font of us. The answer to adversity can be found in courageously moving forward with faith and informed by experience.