Air issues expose deteriorating state of W’bool Art Gallery
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Interesting to see the W’bool City Council must now spend $530,000 to replace the air-con system at the art gallery, which has been limping along on one leg for some time.
Like the poor old library across the road, the poor old art gallery has been neglected to the point where it no longer meets modern standards.
We have missed out on major national and international touring shows because the air quality system has not been up to scratch, which might explain why the Paul Jennings and Damon Kowarsky exhibitions each stayed open for more than six months.
Just like the library, this sad state of affairs is not the fault of the gallery director and staff, who have had to make do with what they have been given.
Take, for example, the fact that the art gallery – in 2019 – still doesn’t have a decent online database.
As a result, most of us have no idea what is even in the collection and, despite the most recent shows “Rich Pickings” and “Wanderlust”, most of it remains hidden.
The council agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting reveals that in just the last 12 months, since the council agreed to fix the gallery’s air-con system, it has failed numerous times and $20,000 has been spent patching it up.
Why have our two main cultural institutions been allowed to run down into this state?
Is the hosting of AFL practice matches at Reid Oval, or spending millions propping up Flagstaff Hill, or spending countless dollars on endless studies of the harbour considered a greater priority? Sadly, yes.
At least the poor old library will soon be replaced with a shared complex with TAFE, although I am not convinced that this is the best long-term solution.
Maybe we could follow the lead of other cities and instead of maintaining separate institutions like in the past, we combine the art gallery, library and a museum into a new state-of-the-art building to replace the existing art gallery.
The Civic Green remains the perfect location for such a contemporary cultural centre (and there is plenty of room for parking right next door).
Such a landmark building would also restore Warrnambool’s reputation as a leader in exhibiting and promoting arts and culture, which it was when the gallery opened in 1986.
Personally, I would much rather see this than AFL practice matches at Reid Oval, and I am Port Power fan.
We don’t want ‘sexy’, we just want sensible spending
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Isn’t it fascinating how most of the W’bool City councillors take zero responsibility for whacking us with more rates, as if it all just happened around them?
Like a dog that destroys the couch, the councillors are anguished and tormented once the damage has been done, but did nothing to stop the damage in the first place.
Instead – they plead – the problems that have led to us paying 4.5% more in rates for the next two years were “inherited”.
They also plead that WCC is “special” compared to every other council in Victoria because, after all, 77 of the 79 councils will keep their rates capped.
Hold on.
What we have “inherited” is more than 10 years of most councillors being too weak to ask probing questions of former CEO Bruce Anson and his senior staff.
Not only did these councillors avoid any probing questions (and here Crs Neoh and Gaston, I am looking at you), they kept ticking off on Mr Anson’s annual performance reviews and pay-rises because he and his team were apparently doing such a terrific job.
We paid Mr Anson and his senior staff handsomely because they were in charge of the ship: the captain and his crew.
And we elected our councillors in the belief that they would raise their binoculars, keep an eye on the ship and steer it well away from the rocks.
We didn’t ask to be “sexy” or “special”: we just wanted the council to do its job.
In this, we are like residents of every other city and town across Victoria.
But here we are, on the rocks, for the next two years at least, and the couch is wrecked, yet our councillors are still expecting a pat on the head.
Not this time.
Good on the ratepayers for biting back. We need Warrnambool to be guided by watchdogs, not lapdogs.
Where would we be if nobody took a risk?
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
I have been spending some winter time in Tasmania for a number of reasons and this is one of them – to finally visit this isolated place called Little Musselroe Bay.
This is where my uncle Alf Altmann, from Warrnambool, pushed off in his home-made kayak to try and become the first person to row solo across Bass Strait from the very top of Tassie to the bottom of Victoria.
He set off from Little Musselroe Bay on 25 February 1970 and died 10 days later, less than 2km from shore off the Gippsland Lakes, after being caught in a storm and knocked unconscious.
He almost made it.
Alf was 56 years old, two years older than I am now. I cannot imagine the courage, the fitness, and the sense of determination Alf must have had to push off from that isolated shore almost 50 years ago.
I think I am the first member of my family to visit this spot since Alf’s death.
It is so ruggedly beautiful, with Cape Barren Island visible in the distance. It takes hours of slow driving to get there and I cried when we did.
Even though I barely remember Alf, his journey has long been something of an obsession with me.
The last photo taken of Alf alive, making his way across Bass Strait from Tasmania to Victoria in his home-made kayak. Image: The Herald, March 1970.
In recent years, I tracked down the kayak which was found to be in a shed at Flagstaff Hill. Unfortunately, Flagstaff Hill had no long-term plan for the kayak, which was pulled from the water intact, but which has since suffered substantial damage.
The kayak is now back in my garage in, of all places, Altmann Avenue, not far from where it was built.
Later this year, it will be restored by Port Fairy master boat builder Garry Stewart to the point where it can be put on display at what will be the Warrnambool Motor Museum, hopefully by next year.
I am a journo, but I am also a writer and this is one story I am determined to keep alive. Not because Alf was my uncle, but because he – to me – embodies what life is about: taking a chance, pushing your boundaries and being true to your self.
On we go.
Confronting our brutal and bloody past
Confronting our bloody past: The Missing, by artist Julie Gough, Bett Gallery, Hobart.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
I wasn’t planning a post tonight, but today I saw an exhibition by Tasmanian-based artist Julie Gough about the attempted annihilation of Aboriginal Tasmanians/Palawa – an attempt which, as we know, was carried across Bass Strait to the colonial invasion of south-west Victoria, our home.
The murders. The kidnaps. The thefts. The near annihilation. Julie’s work is sobering and absolutely heartbreaking.
And I came away with one repetitive thought: what can I do?
What can I do?
One thing I can do is to use what I know best – words – to tell indigenous stories from south-west Victoria and to help illuminate our real history, not the white-washed version I grew up with.
South-west Victoria is saturated with rich indigenous stories, both contemporary and past.
I recently applied for some funding to help me do this by bringing others into The Terrier to help tell these stories.
I am still waiting to hear how my application has gone – fingers crossed – but with or without this support, this is one path The Terrier will be taking as it heads into its second year.
On we go.
No rules, no boundaries: racehorse training at Albert Park
No horse riding signs at Albert Park, Warrnambool. The signs, however, are being ignored by racehorse trainers.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
How is it possible that professional racehorse training is allowed at Albert Park – a public park – while kids are walking to school?
“Surely not,” I said, when someone told me about it happening.
But yes, it is happening, and the reader captured a video to prove it: a rider cantering at speed past Walter Oval and the South Rovers Football Club at around 8am on a recent weekday (see below).
This rider was one of several captured on video that week, but the one I have included here is the clearest footage.
According to this source, there are up to six racehorses at a time using Albert Park on different week days.
For those who don’t know Albert Park, it is a wonderful, sprawling, public space set aside by our city’s founders for all sorts of recreation and now includes three football ovals, netball courts, a spot for the pony club, a community garden and loads of empty space for people to walk their dogs.
It is also where dozens of school kids (including me, back in the day) walk to and from what is now Warrnambool College.
It is also across the road from the Warrnambool Racecourse: that multi-million dollar facility paid for by taxpayers, trainers and gamblers, where I naively thought racehorses were supposed to train.
But no, just like the story that has evolved around mass racehorse training at Lady Bay – our main public beach – apparently racehorses have been using Albert Park for years.
Years?
I am starting to wonder if I actually did grow up in Warrnambool, because I have no memory of multiple racehorses running along Lady Bay as I went for a swim, or racehorses cantering through Albert Park as I walked to school.
The most dangerous thing we encountered as school kids was the bombing magpies in breeding season and they were pretty formidable.
Racehorses, however, are in another league and I am astonished how far the Warrnambool City Council is prepared to bend the boundaries around public safety.
The council knows the racehorses are using Albert Park.
And they are using it for free, without any fees, or agreements, or restrictions apart from a few “no horse riding” signs tacked to posts which are regularly ignored.
Such is the sense of entitlement that has grown within some sections of the local racing industry (#notalltrainers) that they simply don’t care and why should they?
A constant flouting of the training rules at Lady Bay saw the W’bool City Council call a meeting to address errant trainers, but no penalties were imposed. Image: Steve Hynes.
As we know, numerous trainers (#notalltrainers) using Lady Bay beach broke the rules for three years before the evidence became overwhelming earlier this year and the council called a meeting with the Warrnambool Racing Club.
Even then, there were no penalties imposed.
But at least Lady Bay has rules. It is not the case with Albert Park.
“No recent formal agreement has been struck with SWOTRA (South West Owners, Trainers and Riders Association) or the WRC (Warrnambool Racing Club) that permits racehorse training at Albert Park,” a council spokesman said.
“Council is prepared to investigate concerns related to the use of an area and, if provided with details of an activity, will make appropriate inquiries.”
So here we are again, with the public having to monitor via smartphones and note-taking what is going on in our public spaces and places.
But what are the racehorses doing there in the first place?
And why do commercial racehorse trainers get to use this area for free?
That is a question I am sure the sports clubs who use the public sportsgrounds at Albert Park would love to know, because they are facing a 100% increase in fees.
The closest I can get to an answer is that the racehorses are hitching themselves to the Warrnambool Pony Club, which is a bit like sprint cars turning up at a go-cart track.
“Albert Park has some long-established uses related to horse-riding activities. The pony club is located at Albert Park,” the council spokesman said by email.
Albert Park has long been the public play space for Warrnambool, dating back to the earliest days of the city. Image: Picture Victoria/Corangamite Library.
The Warrnambool Pony Club includes the WRC among its sponsors, and, of course, involves more than little kids on Shetlands.
It holds events and gymkhanas and has an area set out for its activities, but these events are held on weekends and in a very specific space. Pony club is not for commercial gain, but fun.
Only in the context of WCC’s capitulation to the WRC could a racehorse working on weekdays be equated to ponies trotting around on weekends. Such are the times in which we live.
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