Our response:  He fails to explain what these alternative planning processes are. “Only one of a number” invites the inference (in the mind of the reader) that there are other planning processes that may have come to a different conclusion and therefore the importance of the PoSS is diminished (when it is usually only used as a last resort, after the ‘other planning processes’ are deemed unlikely, or have already failed, to deliver the proponent’s desires).

Our response:  Projects of State Significance are not proposed every other week – that’s why there are not more. The number of assessments is irrelevant, and in no way reflects on the quality or rigour of the process.

By stating that this is the ‘first’ assessment under the PoSS since 2010, Mr O’Byrne is implying that the process is outdated. The only thing that would make the PoSS outdated would be if it used techniques or data that were not contemporary, but it is very clear from its referencing in the Report that the Panel has applied the most contemporary urban planning principles, methods and legislation.

His statement further implies that the low number of proposed and successful projects is a function of a poor process but provides no grounds to justify that connection. Moreover, the numbers are statistically irrelevant, and no conclusion can be drawn from them precisely because they are so small (known in logic as ‘the problem of small numbers’).

Our response:  “It should be noted” is a phrase designed to give greater import to what follows. Here Mr O’Byrne is demeaning the PoSS by associating its genesis in the mind of the reader with the ‘demands’ of two political traitors who ‘dictated’ terms to the duly elected government of the day (despite they being duly elected themselves) while he’s apparently oblivious to the implied slur coming from a former Labor “turned independent”. Then, he refers to a “favoured process” that was ‘abandoned’ without defining which process was favoured.

Contrary to his claim, there is nothing factual about his statement that “many” consider the process “cumbersome and problematic”. Many consider gym membership to be cumbersome and problematic, but that is hardly grounds for closing down gyms. Mr O’Byrne fails to identify and explain the features of the PoSS that render it cumbersome and problematic. Clearly, the government did not see the process as problematic when the project was referred to the TPC.

Perhaps Mr O’Byrne means that some politicians find it cumbersome and problematic to read planning documents, compile evidence, undertake analysis, and be accountable. Yet that is precisely what they now must do in Parliament.

For context, Mr O’Byrne is referring to the TPC’s response to the proponent’s ‘lawyers at twenty paces’ submission of a letter from Minter Ellison that challenged the TPC’s interpretation of the scope of the project as the MPDC progressively tightened the cordon around the walls of the stadium to exclude ancillary and associated development. The proponent was trying to reduce the cost of the development to arrest the further decline in the BCR.  This was followed by the MPDC’s (Government’s) initial refusal to participate further in the process after the Government had tabled ‘enabling legislation’ in the form of a Parliamentary bill to bypass the standard planning assessment and directly grant planning approval. The TPC simply obtained independent legal advice of its own to confirm that its interpretation of the scope of the project was correct, and to clarify that its determination to proceed until the PoSS process was complete, or Parliament directed them to cease, was valid.

Our response:  Mr O’Byrne does not explain why this is “important to note”.

His statement invites the reader to infer that the lack of clarity in the directions to be followed by the TPC was somehow its own fault. This completely reverses responsibility. It is the Government’s responsibility to provide proper and consistent direction to the TPC. Initially, the direction given was quite clear; it was the government who later tried to reinterpret the direction given to the TPC, to reduce the size of the project the TPC was required to assess. And, when the government changed its mind and tried to bypass the PoSS, it needed to be told that only Parliament could direct the TPC to stop the PoSS process.

By describing the legal advice as ‘external’ his statement invites the inference that the Panel was deficient in knowledge that it should have possessed, i.e. that it was forced by its own intellectual shortcomings to seek help, when in fact it was the Government that had misunderstood its own legislation.

His statement suggests that seeking legal advice is a weakness and a sign of incompetence when, in fact, it is a strength of the TPC that it identified risks and took appropriate measures to ensure that it carried out its legislated duties correctly.

The TPC did the right thing by clearly defining the parameters of the enquiry.

Our response:  David O’Byrne is mounting an ad hominem attack on the TPC Panel. He is attempting to denigrate them with claims that are empty of both evidence and logic, using descriptions that invite the inference that Panel members lack the necessary skills to competently assess the proposal:

• There is nothing meaningful in the mere fact that the panel is newly formed by individuals. This is how the Planning Commission works. It comprises a full-time Executive Commissioner and seven part-time Commissioners all appointed by the Minister for Planning. Each time the Minister declares a major project, a Development Assessment Panel is newly formed.
• His last 5 words (“as best they are able”) invite the inference that the members are incompetent and can only struggle to do the job. Contrary to offering any evidence at all to substantiate this claim, O’Byrne has just acknowledged that they are, in fact, experts: 1) they are experienced and 2) they are experienced in relevant fields. That is pretty much the definition of an expert.
• By describing the Panel’s expertise in a vague and unspecified way, i.e. as “levels of experience” he implies that a Panel member’s competence is indeterminate. Again, no evidence provided.
• Describing the Panel’s expertise as a “chosen field” invites the inference that a Panel member’s judgement is a mere matter of personal choice rather than objectivity.

Panel members were chosen by the TPC (in accordance with the governing legislation) from the broader Commission who are appointed by the Government based on their demonstrated knowledge and experience. They did not choose themselves. That they have chosen to develop expertise in a particular field is irrelevant to the way the process is conducted.

Our response:  Here Mr O’Byrne is implying that the Panel’s conclusions are suspect and might not be valid because this is their first PoSS assessment. An unworthy aspersion cast on their expertise.

Our response:  The phrase “having said that” is designed to solidify the perception that everything he’s previously stated can be taken for granted as unassailable truths, whereas the process has generated only ‘information’. There is also the patronising tone of the Master when Mr O’Byrne suggests that the information contained in the Report assists only the public, and not politicians like himself.

His statement also implies that the only thing the public can learn from the process is detail about the proposal itself, rather than it revealing the project’s shortcomings.

Ironically, he is saying that he hasn’t learned anything, which is possibly true [depending upon the extent to which ‘information’ can be learned].

Our response:  Having spent his review thus far denigrating the panel, this is damning with faint praise, while failing to credit any of the results of their “work and commitment”. He could have said, “nice try!” and it would have carried as much conviction.

Our response:  Accepted by whom? Anyway, this is irrelevant since the Panel concluded, without qualification, that the stadium should not go ahead.

The phrasing here is more about Mr O’Byrne seeking to establish himself as the master moderator, rationing out praise for those parts of the report he finds “pleasing”, so that his personal qualifiers  – “the vast majority” – and emotive assessments, like “not fatal”, are accepted without question. However, in a sleight of voice he’s conflating concerns raised in the interim report with matters that might have been “fatal to the project”. He is offering no evidence for this. The purpose of the interim report was to identify areas of omission, and to clarify specific issues in the Proponent’s various submissions that needed to be addressed or rectified to inform the Panel’s findings as presented in its final Integrated Assessment Report.

Our response:  The word ‘objectively’ is used in a trivial sense only. No-one has claimed that a stadium can’t be built or that the other factors can’t be managed or mitigated. It is not a planner’s purview to propose engineering solutions so that something ‘can be built’. Their role is to assess a proposal against relevant planning criteria to determine whether a project ‘should’ be built in a particular geographic location.  A nuclear power station could be built there, but would be utterly unsuitable for the site, and would cause massive problems that would require huge resources to be ‘managed’ and risks to be ‘mitigated’.

The use of the terms ‘managed’ and ‘mitigated’ are conceptually empty since they could mean anything including knocking down surrounding buildings to make room, or rebuilding the surrounding roads. This renders the word ‘objectively’ empty as well.

Management and mitigation of traffic, pedestrian flows, the site, noise and environmental impacts as proposed by the Proponent have been analysed and found inadequate, objectively, by the TPC Panel through a process universally deemed objective, namely, systematic logical analysis.

Saying that “the site can accommodate the proposal” is repudiated in what the report concludes, that the site is not big enough to accommodate a building of the size of the proposed stadium.

Moreover, these are not the primary reasons why the TPC has rejected the proposal – they are not even mentioned in the concluding statements which emphasize wrong building, wrong site and far too expensive.

Our response:  This comment is totally devoid of fact, except for the unwitting admission that the TPC has provided an argument for their recommendations. Opinions and arguments are very different things. Putting them together here implies that any differing view (i.e. an argument) is nothing more than an opinion.

Not even one example of so-called “subjective issues” is provided by Mr O’Byrne. If the issue is the subjectivity of the opinions, why refer the project to the TPC in the first place?

And where or what exactly is the “core” of the recommendations? This is meaningless.

Our response:  That the panel “routinely disregarded experts” throughout the report is another fib (sorry, statement not based in fact) but is consistent with Mr O’Byrne’s subtle casting of himself as the real expert; so, no need to offer any evidence to support his assertion and no need for anyone else to seek confirmation by reading the report. “Trust me, I’m a politician.”  Even in the example cited, the main reason for the decline in the BCR is the increase in costs, not a miscalculation of benefits.

Our response:  It’s becoming increasingly obvious whose logic is flawed! The report actually says:

“The majority of these would likely have been conducted at a different venue, so all that is occurring is the state as the ultimate owner, is taking business from other venues and businesses.” (page 44FR)

The Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in the final Integrated Assessment Report includes all the conference and convention events identified by Stadiums Tasmania as a benefit. Despite the optimistic assumptions noted in the CBA, the Benefit-Cost Ratio is still only 0.45. Nowhere is any consideration given to the point that you don’t need to build a covered cricket oval to host conferences.

Our response:  From a planning perspective, any association with the Tassie Devils is irrelevant.  The Panel’s role was to assess the viability of a stadium at Mac Point in objective terms. That the government has pinned the team’s existence on the development of a facility is a matter for it to resolve with the AFL. It bears no relevance to whether this site is a viable location for a structure of this size and scale. The Panel has concluded that this is the wrong location for such a facility.

Mr O’Byrne fails to quantify the cost to Tasmania of not proceeding with the project or to explain the impacts on Tasmania’s social and human capital.

Instead, he does exactly what he (falsely) accuses the Panel of doing – allowing personal opinions and subjectivity to override rational analysis and fact-based evidence. He is appealing to ‘heart strings’ when he has run out of factual evidence to support his argument.

Our response:  No-one doubts that Mr O’Byrne only accepts what Mr O’Byrne wants to accept. That he can’t accept this is a completely empty proposition.

This statement invites the inference that the amount of money involved, and its associated objects equates with public benefit. But there is no connection between them. The connection is what must be demonstrated, and the Panel determined that this was not demonstrated.

Our response:  Again, not really relevant to the Panel’s investigations. The TPC found it hard enough to extend its deliberations beyond the ‘red line’ cordon drawn around the stadium walls by the Proponent in the latter’s attempts to limit costs to the stadium structure alone, and ignore all the associated infrastructure (access roads, pedestrian pathways and bridges, public transport hub, dismantling and relocating the historic Goods Shed, landscaping of the ‘Aboriginal Culturally Informed Zone’, wharf upgrades and social housing upon which the Commonwealth contribution depends) that will need to be done in the spaces between the stadium and the site boundaries. Imagine if they had extended their investigations to “greater Hobart”! One wonders how many more lawyers’ letters this would have taken to resolve. Any such consideration of these knock-on effects, however, would also need to assess the negative impacts (opportunity costs) of this “construction activity” in terms of lost productivity caused by traffic congestion on major thoroughfares accessing the site, increased competition for trades people, and short term housing, and heavy vehicle availability. Be careful what you wish for….

Our response:  Nothing to see here? Mr O’Byrne is using language in such a way as to invite the inference that the comprehension skills of Panel members are somehow deficient – that they can’t even understand “simple” things like government infrastructure budgets. Again, this is largely irrelevant as the Panel deferred to the expertise of others including Mr Saul Eslake and Dr Nicholas Gruen. It also accepted the Proponent’s construction estimates and timing, optimistic though they may have been.

For context:  The Sullivans Cove Planning Scheme (SCPS) has been developed by Australian experts in the field, to protect the special values of Sullivans Cove and Macquarie Point. Good planning, by its very nature, is forward thinking and sustains these values over time. The fact that the SCPS is such a good plan is evidenced by the parameters it has set and to which successive developments have adhered, so that we have a harmonious assemblage of buildings that enhances the unique human scale of Hobart’s waterfront that is so appreciated by tourists and local alike. No justification from Mr O’Byrne has been proffered as a reason to side-step the Planning Scheme. If the age of the planning scheme is the issue, perhaps he’d recommend that Canberra needs to revisit the plans of Walter Burleigh Griffin, or Paris should be redesigned because Hausmann is just sooo nineteenth century.

Our response:  The statement invites the inference that the age of the planning scheme is detrimental to good planning but offers no evidence to support this.

The statement invites the inference that because special legislation has been introduced elsewhere, supposedly because of inadequate schemes, it should be introduced in Tasmania too, i.e. that Tasmania’s situation is no different from other States or Territories. We know that this site is unique and the last piece of waterfront land so close to any capital city’s CBD in the country.

The statement also suggests that special legislation for projects is a good thing, merely on the basis that it has happened elsewhere. No evidence provided.

Our response:  In fact, the Panel has not said that the stadium is ugly or that its members ‘disagree’ with the location. They have identified serious problems with a development of that type and that size in that location. It is its incongruence in terms of shape, size, volume and surface materials that makes it inappropriate in that location. Unlike Mr O’Byrne, the Panel has given very clear and quantifiable reasons for their assessments.

The statement also invites the inference that the Panel’s comments on matters relevant to its assessment (the size, design and impact of the stadium on Hobart) are merely the views of people who just don’t like developments, and therefore, have no legitimacy. This is just more denigration of expertise and amounts to an attempted slur on the Panel.

The Panel’s extensive expert explanation in assessing the size, design and impact of the stadium on Hobart is precisely what they were engaged to provide.

Our response:  Did we ever honestly think it would? Mr O’Byrne’s ‘view’ is just that: a view based on very little evidence, presented as fact with the aid of some superficially clever wordsmithing. He’s entitled to an opinion, but that’s all it is. In matters of planning, he lacks expertise.

Our response:  This is a straightforward denigration of the Panel and completely untrue. It is an assertion unsupported by any evidence. Nowhere has Mr O’Byrne explained how the recommendations or any comments by the Panel are “subjective” rather than the outcome of careful and logical consideration of the thousands of pages of evidence and reports submitted by the Proponent and all their consultants. This is desperate politics, not rational thought.

The State Policies and Projects Act requires the Panel to provide a recommendation one way or the other. Based on this logic, if the Panel had recommended the project proceed, Mr O’Byrne would reject that as “subjective”.

His analysis is flawed and his logic is fundamentally wrong.

Our response:  More empty political rhetoric. It wasn’t easy for the Premier to say no when asked to surrender Tasmania to state capture by the AFL. It won’t be easy for Parliamentarians to say no when facing the barrage of misinformation and pro-stadium hyperbole from the media/sports/gambling cabal intent upon siphoning money from the public purse to prop up their empires. In fact, standing up to such powerful entities will require a degree of bravery so far not demonstrated by anyone in the ‘major’ parties.

We fear that Mr O’Byrne’s definition of ‘working hard’ entails more time on the radio in preference to research to find real positive solutions to Tasmania’s economic and social problems.