SUBMISSION

FOREWORD

What we 'own', how we own it and when it is 'owned' is an idea that humanity has been grappling with for eons. It is one of those BIGideas that are too big discuss at a time like this but it is nonetheless omnipresent at times like this.

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Thinking back to 1970s when Victor Papanek’s “Design for the Real World” [1] hit the streets, then in his 40s Papanek’s excursion into 'Human Ecology and Social Change' [2] has since been something of a game changer. His book helped lay the foundation for the 'green architecture' and humanitarian design movements that emerged over the course of the next generation. My personal 'take away' was his exposure of the perversity of 'patent law' and the underlying lack of 'morality' embedded in it – and more than occasionally.

The idea that still resonates, and loudly, is the one about the 'inventor' of a hospital bed that was so, so needed but 'the inventor' insisted on winning  a patent. The story goes that for the same dollar investment the inventor could have 'stolen the market' and with it in hospitals it was apparently estimated that upwards of 300plus lives might well have been saved. What price 'ownership'?

The American cum Western world's preoccupation with making and owning 'nice stuff' that all so often in reality is 'mindless slicked-up Kitsch' that characterises much of the design work coming out of design schools not to mention  'design & planning offices'. Well that 'stuff' needs to be exposed for what it is. Thank goodness for the 'Fair Use' clause in Australian Copyright law. However, we need to get past the self-serving and underwhelming bureaucrats and get them out of the way. We need to take away their 'imperialist Thought Police Stars' that seemingly entitle them to protect their own WORLDimaginings – such as they are and all too often self-serving as they might be.

In in another way,  thinking back to the late 1970s and to hearing a story about Japan and three a 'iron spot tea bowls' [3] that reportedly only saw the light of day in the presence of a revered 'tea master' [4] given their 'treasure status. Back then what was feared was the thought that 'modern technology' would reveal the secrets of their 'making' in that ancient Chinese kiln from whence they came.The irony being that it has done so by now! Indeed, fine examples can be purchase 'online' for $50 or about that but not MEGAdollars those three bowl might fetch even now.

Similar stories are told about the 'secrecy' that surrounded Japanese 'sword smiths &  sword furnishers' [5] in the 21st C. When it comes to 'ownership & attribution' a Japanese 'Living National Treasure – Shoji Hamada' [6] there is wonderful story. When asked about his 'copyists' profiting from his reputation he replied quite simply ... " perhaps my worst pots will be attributed to them and likewise their best work will be attributed to me"... so the story goes. In the folk art mengei tradition Hamada San never signed his work. 

There is a PhD or two in the cultural sensibilities invested such cultural realities and sensibilities – albeit NOT so much Eurocentric Western imaginings of the world, but then again.

Researchers in the realm of 'anthropology' will relate instances where the idea of 'ownership' is an anathema, 'possess' yes, but not 'own' in the cut and thrust context of expansionist Eurocentric Western Christian 'civilisation' and all its attendant sensibilities. Well as they say it is in America "that is quite a different ball of wax". 

The 'commons' idea with its shared ownership/access that lost its veracity in 'tragedy of the commons' is with us still and it is increasingly threatening. How the world's oceans are 'imagined' is a case in point.

The idea of 'ownership' is always complex and contestable in every cultural circumstance. In 'First Nations' cultural realities, it is typical for people to say that they belong to and in places rather than assert ownership over them – albeit that it is never quite that simple. Such sensibilities are discernible in language – that is in their vernacular.  

For instance, In Fijian language 'vinaka vaka levu' has come to be used as 'thank you' in a postcolonial context, when in the 'Fijian vernacular' vinaka equals 'good' – vaka = like/very, levu = big/large. So, not quite 'thank you' but then again what does 'thank you' mean or indeed for that matter what might 'truth' be/mean in all its ambiguity in the presumptions of 'enlightenment'?

However, the 'belong to place' cultural mindset sat to some extent well enough with the 'terra nullius' concept that prevailed in the colonial cum Eurocentric Australia in that they might sit comfortably enough alongside each other.  That is, in regard to 'place' humanity, flora and fauna might be imagined together a 'nobody's land/place/thing'.

In Australia, it is now history that one Edward Koiki Mabo shattered that comfortableness and in ways that are still being grappled with when it comes to the 'ownerships' that need to be acknowledged in cultural landscaping.

Just two centuries ago, in a European context, much of the world's life sustaining land  'belonged' either to communities cum traditional societies or to the world's monarchs or religious orders who in turn offered various forms of access to their faithful. 

Nevertheless, that pattern, and the cultural sensibilities that went with it, have by-and-large been consigned to history. Andro Linklater persuasively argues, the most creative and at the same time the most destructive cultural force in the modern era is the idea of individual, exclusive ownership of land – and by extension somewhat challenging the credibility of the 'Empire idea'. 

Linklater's book, "Owning the Earth" is an appropriate monument to his distinguished authorship, his mindset and his ardent humanity. With 'climate change' knocking more loudly 'exclusive land ownership' is ever likely to be challenged and reimagined. Along with with ownership in other ownership paradigms, say the ownership of ideas, we are bound to see the status quo fundamentally shattered as well.

THE OWNERSHIP IDEA  & CIVIC PLANNING PROCESSES

Despite all the huffing, puffing and machiavellian manoeuvring that goes on around the decision making tables that 'local governors' gather around, 'the Councillors' only legitimate business is PLACEmaking. Put another way, that is  CULTURALlandscaping! Perceptions of, and understandings of, 'ownership' and 'placedness' are at heart of all this.

In circumstances where the 'cultural reality' is somewhat mono-cultural as it was presumed to be in the aftermath of colonial expansion and in the context of the assumptions of conquest and/or surrender 'ownership' was a much simpler thing. However, in Australia after Edward Koiki Mabo ,and the other cultural dynamics in play, ownership becomes more complex. Moreover, governance's roles, and their management, have changed, and are changing, despite any machiavellian manoeuvring to maintain the status quo pre Mabo and the overturning of the arrogant 'terra nuilIius' assumptions.

On top of this COPYright law and conventions are changing in the context of the 21st C technologies and in recognition of emerging cultural dynamics – indeed this was well under way in the 20th C. For instance, there is the COPYleft convention and it has had its foundations established in the late 20th C.

When these two concepts somewhat contentiously bump up against each other politicians and bureaucrats tend to run away from change. Typically, they look to the comfort and the assumed safety of what once was the 'status quo' – and quite often invoking Medieval sensibilities.  Concerningly, they 'deem things' in accord with their assumed/deemed authority. All too often this 'deeming' erodes standards of inclusiveness and opens up speculation to do with competence and heaven forbid 'corruption' to boot.

In Tasmania, the Act that establishes and guides 'Local Got.' is seriously out of date given that it was frame in 1993. It is more than significant that back then the number of WEBsites was minute. Consequently the assumed 'communications paradigm' of that time and the 21st C reality is such that it can be argued that 'the Act' is functionally redundant.

One provision in the Act, SECTION62/2, arguably an 'emergency power', in its usage currently it essentially nullifies any notion that Local Govt elections might be about 'democratic representation'. That a General Manager in Tasmania is empowered to "do anything necessary or convenient to perform his or her functions under this or any other Act" in 21st C terms it is an abhorrent provision when and if it can be employed inappropriately – and on occasions it has been.

Arguably, the transparency and the accountability of Tasmania's Local Govt Act 1993 is so compromised as to be dysfunctional. So much for the State Govt's 'GOOD GOVERNANCE GUIDE' and its hollow rhetoric.

Against this backdrop a General Manager may override a constituent's legitimate access to information on any ruse that might take her/his fancy with functional immunity. That is unless the majority of elected Councillors challenge her/his deemed position/stance. In the case of political or administrative 'convenience' any apparent collusion very quickly brings with it the suspicion of corruption. 

Sadly, all this can be likened to a cankerous blight on the inclusiveness needed for effective PLACEmaking and CULTURALlandscaping. Sadly, accountability and transparency is seemingly blighted by self-serving obfuscation for whatever reason. Sadly, if nothing is said, and nothing is done, there is every chance that the effects of any autocratic machiavellian manoeuvring will almost dissolve in time ... almost.

When intellectual property enters the frame and access to it is contested and is contestable somehow the processes to do with CULTURALlandscaping are blighted if not corrupted. Sadly, all this is yet another pointer to the redundancy of Tasmania's Local Govt Act 1993.

LOCAL GOVERNANCE, DEVELOPMENT & PLACEDNESS

When a Council meets as a 'Planning Authority' it is the point when, in the vernacular, the rubber hits the road, when the wheels often spin very quickly and a time when there tends to be lots of smoke and noise. When a Council is 'the developer' and the 'planning authority' the smoke can get to be so dense it becomes smoke screen on that battle ground where concepts, ideas and 'personal interests' are contested.

In this instance the 'planning' can, and as likely as not, go on by-and-large in camera with community access to the process all too often curtailed via the starvation of information. Likewise, community consultation processes might well be so obscure as to render them irrelevant. 

If there were to be an issue of 'commercial in confidence' confidentiality might well be appropriate. Nevertheless, when a Council is both proponent and the 'approval authority' deeming 'confidentiality'  in any guise, well that raises a range of ethical concerns. Given the potential corrupt processes alarm bells should be as loud as the smoke is thick. Accountability must be seen to be present as well as being functionally verifiable.

When and where bureaucratic obfuscation is evident this might well include the somewhat perverse interpretation of Copyright Law – notwithstanding 'fair use/dealing' provisions and/or any notion of natural justice. 

However, it is NOT a function of Local Govt. to 'police' Copyright Law. Observe and comply with the law yes but not police it – quite simply it is just not a local governance function. 

Arguably, when a developer makes an application to a Council acting as a 'planning authority' surely the information presented to enable approval or otherwise needs to be in the public domain for the purposes of 'critical review' and in every sense of that. Australian Copyright Law sets out five situations where the use of copyrighted material without permission may be allowed: research and/or study; criticism and/or review; parody and/or satire; reporting the news; and the provision of legal advice.

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In Development Application (DA) it is the developer and/or her/his/their agents who holds copyright not the Council. If a Council is the developer it may well have obligations to experts 'outside' Council but arguably, as a 'public authority', Councils are accountable to 'the public' and thus all information relevant to a DA should, and indeed must, be freely available to the public without any constraints – especially so in regard to 'fair dealing'. 

A 'representor' making a submission to a 'Council/Planning Authority' is typically criticising and/or reviewing a DA. It is lawful to use a work (an application here) without permission in order to critique or review it. Likewise, in reporting the news, and surely a DA qualifies as 'news', you don’t need permission to use existing copyrighted material while reporting on current or historic events. Here, the law is designed to ensure that people can’t use copyright to stifle the flow of information on matters of public interest. 

Boiled down to the bare essentials, DA approval processes impact upon a 'place's placedness' and the utility of the CULTURALlandscaping in the context of 21st C multidimensional cultural realities. Consequently, accountable and transparent governance, uninhibited by inappropriate bureaucratic humbug is an imperative. 

Clearly, there is case to be made that when a Council puts 'stones in the road' to restrict access to, and the use of, information citing 'Copyright Law' it is a non-trivial concern. Why does PLACEmaking matter in the place where you live? Because it is important enough to matter in the world and small enough for your aspirations to matter because your life is invested in it and right here, right now. 

PLACEmaking is;

•  A multidimensional and collaborative community endevour that is never finished; 
• Undertaken at the invitation of a community, always accepting the notion that they have a deep understanding of not only of the problems facing them community, but also the possible solutions;
•  A circular, iterative process, not something that just happens;
• A process that engages with people; 
• A process that transforms places into CULTURALlandscapes where  people live;
• A process that acknowledges that serendipity is not an accident.

When a Council is the both 'the proponent' and the 'approval authority' none of the above can be 'guaranteed'. If this circumstance appears as if it might be an autocratic machiavellian manoeuvre, it might well be. If there is a suggestion of corruption that might well be the case.

Furthermore, if all of this looks to be indicative of flaws in the processes of governance and management then the situation needs to be interrogated and if they are found wanting, prompt action is required.

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