Analysis – Carol Altmann

It is supremely ironic that so much time and effort is being devoted to reviving the flagging Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum, when a critical slice of our authentic history is being left to rot.

Unlike Flagstaff Hill, which was built in the 1970s as a pseudo-colonial tourist attraction popular in that era, the Fletcher Jones factory, silver ball water tower and spectacular gardens have occupied a special place in the hearts and minds of the people of Warrnambool for almost 70 years.

Sir Fletcher Jones was one of our greatest philanthropists and Pleasant Hill was his special gift to the city; a gift that, I am certain, he thought would remain in perpetuity.

But if he were alive to see the site today, his heart would break.

That’s because Pleasant Hill is being ‘preserved’ in the way that Warrnambool seems to do best: coat a run-down heritage property with complex planning conditions, wait for a cashed-up developer to buy the site and then watch as they slowly go broke – or lose interest – because of these same conditions, and, in the final act, see the neglected site bulldozed or burnt down in a mysterious fire.

 

 

We have seen this happen in recent years with the Criterion Hotel, the Grand Hotel, and the ill-fated cottage at 94 Merri St*, yet we still haven’t learnt that the only way to save our icons is to work together: for government bodies (including Heritage Victoria and the Warrnambool City Council), developers and the community to have a clear vision of what should happen with a site as precious as Pleasant Hill and to be prepared to share the cost of its preservation to make sure that it is, in fact, preserved.

And Pleasant Hill is precious because, unlike Flagstaff Hill, the Fletcher Jones story is our story.

As much as we would like to claim the sea-shanty tales captured in Flagstaff Hill as our own, Warrnambool was primarily a place of industry, farming and commerce.

The whaling story belongs to Portland and Port Fairy. The Loch Ard Gorge story belongs to Port Campbell and the entire shipwreck mythology is one that has been built around ships that, for the most part, were passing by Warrnambool on their way to somewhere else.

Hence we don’t have locals sharing tales of their sea-faring great grandfathers, but instead we talk about the Woollen Mill, Swintons, Crammond and Dicksons, Nestles, the cordial makers, millers and brewers, the dairy farmers, potato growers, butchers, bakers and bullock drivers and, of course, Fletcher Jones.

 

 

This is why there is a disconnect between Flagstaff Hill and the local community who, it seems, have stopped visiting or who don’t visit nearly enough.

And tourist numbers are also falling. I suspect one problem is that reconstructed, theme-park style villages have lost their lustre, despite the valiant efforts of the many volunteers involved.

In the face of fading popularity, a review is being held into the future of Flagstaff Hill, with warnings that it could cost between $13-15 million to redevelop.

I have a better idea: close it down.

 

 

The cold-shower moment is to accept that Flagstaff Hill has had its day and will only continue to chew up funds as it recreates itself to fit changing tourism tastes.

The site could be returned to open space and the $13-15 million directed toward restoring and preserving Pleasant Hill, but as what? The suggestions so far include – god forbid – more housing, retail, offices, or even an aged care facility. How boring.

What about this: transform Pleasant Hill into a combined Warrnambool Art Gallery and Museum. Given FJ’s support for the arts, it is a perfect fit.

The already-squeezed art gallery in Timor St could be relocated and stretch out, including into the gardens that would become an outdoor sculpture park.

The best of the Flagstaff Hill collection could be housed in the museum, which would also include a tribute to Fletcher Jones and artefacts from the factory (much of which, unbelievably, ended up in skip bins before being retrieved by art students).

 

 

The Tourist Information Centre would fit nicely, and the ‘Round Room’ – once part of the FJ canteen – would be perfect as a restaurant/cafe called Fletcher’s. The silver ball can just remain the silver ball: restored and shining.

There is more than ample – and completely unused – parking in the Raglan Parade median strip and a pedestrian overpass would solve the issue of crossing a busy highway.

It will take money, it will take vision and it will take commitment, but in 20 years time, which do you think will have the more enduring appeal: a “recreated” maritime village where people are strolling around in gingham caps and hooped dresses, or a dynamic art gallery and museum housed in one of our most iconic buildings?

We don’t need a crystal ball to predict the outcome: just a silver one.

*The Warrnambool Planning and Heritage Group wrote a report 18 months ago that warned Fletcher Jones faces the same fate as 94 Merri St, which was right across the road from Flagstaff Hill, unless action was taken now. The Warrnambool City Council’s response to the group’s 15 recommendations was tabled at its meeting last Monday: see pp 181-185 of agenda 9/12/13.  Or you can see a summary here.

 

 

 

 

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] A [/dropcap]mid all the arguing about whether Warrnambool City Council should send a delegation to Miura, Japan, for Sister City celebrations, a simple question is yet to be answered: what do we gain from our two Sister City connections?

And, more importantly, what do we expect?

Trying to answer the first question is harder than you think, as there is no single, easily accessible reporting mechanism that documents the achievements of the Miura link that dates back more than 20 years (our Sister City link with Changchun, China, began last year).

Instead, you have to trawl through two decades of council minutes and newspaper archives to discover that our Sister City relationship with Miura has pretty much done what it set out to do, which was to build “friendship, cooperation and understanding” between two very different cultures.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] I [/dropcap]n a pre-Internet world, it was considered money well spent to invest ratepayer dollars in building harmonious relationships with cultures so unlike our own as to be exotic. School kids have a chance to visit another country, and to host international students in return. We have a lovely, if hidden, Japanese friendship garden, and Miura has some Norfolk pine seedlings. Funds have been used to host and attend civic functions, both here and in Miura.

That’s what a Sister City relationship used to be about and what ratepayers’ money has been spent on, although whether – in the wired, highly mobile world of 2013 – it is still money well spent, is open to debate.

Which brings us to the second question: what do we expect?

This is where things have shifted.

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] T [/dropcap]he July edition of the Council’s newsletter, C2C, was almost breathless in its description of our newest Sister City, Changchun, as a place of 7.5 million people, spread across 20,571sq/km, and pumping out 2.8 million and 2500 train carriages a year. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that action?

Indeed, the newsletter cover gave a tantalising taste of what we might look forward to, with a mock image of a Chinese bullet train speeding into Warrnambool railway station. Wow, this would be so much better than the current V-Line service that is one of the poorest performing in the state because of its breakdowns and delays.

This new Sister City relationship is not only about friendship and goodwill, but promoting “common prosperity and development” – in other words, business – and this takes a lot of time, and we can expect, a lot more money before we see any concrete results.

The council minutes of September 9 make this clear:

“If the Council and the Great South Coast elect to use the relationship with Changchun to leverage business opportunities, further costs will accrue in hosting visits to Warrnambool from Changchun and staff resources in preparing and supporting business and projects to the benefit of the region, matching funding with state government grants etc. These are unknown at this stage.”

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] W [/dropcap]hile we might be flattered by the intentions of a major city, we certainly don’t have Changchun all to ourselves. Changchun has 19 other Sister Cities: Warrnambool is number 20. In this regard, it is a bit like being married to a polygamist – you have a seat at the table, but the love is being shared around.

Still, the recent business delegation to Changchun, led by Mayor Michael Neoh and CEO Bruce Anson, reported that they found the trip invaluable as an entrée to potential new markets.

No doubt their efforts to build on this introduction will dovetail with the work of the Great South Coast Exporters Group, and similar state and federal bodies that work to build international trade relations.

But is this what our Sister City relationships should be about?

And should ratepayers’ money be directed to this purpose, or could it be better used to fund, for example, more tangible and immediate projects such as improving the restaurant end of Liebig St, installing more public art, or buying more books for the library?

The little sister has grown up: now is the time for an open discussion on where she fits into the family.

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When scrutiny is sub-standard, democracy suffers

Something very troubling is happening in our community when it comes to the local media’s scrutiny of those in power.

Since returning to Warrnambool in January, I have watched with growing disbelief at the apparent reticence of our once-proud local newspaper, The Standard, to go in hard and ask the tough questions of our leaders.

This is what journalists do. This is the role of the so-called ‘Fourth Estate’ – to be the watchdog of the powerful and give voice to the powerless.

It is an essential part of our democracy and ensures that we retain an open, transparent and accountable government – on all levels.

This past week, we saw national scrutiny of MPs’ spending, sparked by revelations that Prime Minister Abbott had claimed allowances for trips to weddings, triathlons and cycling events.

Was our local federal MP Dan Tehan asked by our paper to detail the $873,992.35 that he spent from 2010-12? No, instead this figure was not even mentioned, but rather the paper’s story (10/10) reassured us that he had claimed $321,000 in ‘legitimate government entitlements’. End of story.

There is no suggestion that Mr Tehan used his allowance improperly, but nor is it improper for a journalist to forensically examine this spending. This is exactly what independent journalist Margot Kingston did when she broke the story about Tony Abbott claiming more than $9000 in taxpayer funds to promote his book.

It is only by drilling down into the detail that all the facts can come to light.

Earlier this year, Warrnambool Mayor Michael Neoh visited China as part of a Sister City relationship with Changchun. Shortly after his return, The Standard ran a story (29/6) about Mr Neoh visiting his ancestral home in China and catching up with relatives.

Was this part of the official tour for which ratepayers paid $3500 for both Mr Neoh and Council CEO Bruce Anson?

Did Mr Neoh pay for this portion of the trip himself? Again, there is no suggestion of impropriety by Mr Neoh, but we don’t know the answer to these questions because, it appears, they weren’t asked.*

And when others do ask the prickly, difficult questions, the response is sometimes extraordinary.

Last month, Cr Peter Sycopoulis and several council colleagues questioned whether Mayor Neoh and Mr Anson needed to attend a Sister City function in Japan – expected to cost ratepayers $4000 – given they had just been to China.

For this, the councillors were chastised by the newspaper as being ‘party poopers’ (11/11). What?

And let’s not forget the infamous ‘Wilma Wright’ letters to the editor. These were published by The Standard for four years – four years – without anybody apparently checking the identity of the author, who was revealed as Mr Anson’s son and who at one point used the cover of his pseudonym to openly attack several councillors, including Cr Sycopoulis, in the lead up to a council election.

(Mr Anson, it must be noted, was cleared of any involvement in his son’s activities).

The names in this column – Mr Tehan, Mayor Neoh, Mr Anson – are irrelevant: it is the public, important positions that they hold that makes them open to scrutiny and a higher standard of accountability.

This is the hard work of journalism.

It is much harder, more time consuming and nerve-wrecking than writing story after story about courts and crime (ie. the powerless) where all of the leg work has been done, yet it is critical if we are to have faith in our media as the watchdog it is intended to be.

If it fails in this task, it is nothing less than our democracy which suffers.

*  The Warrnambool City Council has since confirmed to Bluestone that Mayor Neoh did fund this portion of his travel.

Disclosures:

• I began my journalism career as a cadet at The Standard in 1989.
• I was an open supporter of ALP candidate Michael Barling during the last federal election because I thought he was the best option for Wannon. It was the first time I voted Labor in many years: I normally vote Green.
• I know Cr Sycopoulis through his family: his older sisters and I went to school together.

“My friend the wind will come from the hills
When dawn will rise, he’ll wake me again
My friend the wind will tell me a secret
He shares with me, he shares with me…”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] G [/dropcap]rowing up in Warrnambool, we had one “ethnic” record in the house and that was Demis Roussos’, My Friend the Wind.

This was a fitting choice, as Warrnambool can be very windy. We all know this. We all talk about it, occasionally even obsess over it, and it is usually the first thing that people mention when you say you are from Warrnambool: “Oh it is such a beautiful place, but boy, it is so WINDY!”

Last Thursday, it was incredibly windy.

It was the kind of wind that scoops up the fully laden recycling bin from the kerb and dumps it three doors down. As I retrieved a fortnight’s worth of wine bottles from the neighbour’s verge, I thought, “boy, do we really drink that much wine?”

I then had another thought: why don’t we make the most of our wind?

Granted, a Festival of the Wind would need to be delicately titled, but there is potential for Warrnambool (and the South-West coast) to embrace what has hitherto been considered one of its drawbacks.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]asmania – or more particularly, Hobart – has done this very thing with its long, dark, cold winters.

Last year, it held its first mid-winter Dark MOFO art festival which included spectacular light installations around the city and, in one widely televised event, a group of hardy Tasmanians stripping off to dash into the Southern Ocean for a dip.

Tasmania is incredibly fortunate to be the home of philanthropist David Walsh, who has spent large chunks of his gambling fortune transforming Hobart into the vibrant, artistic, brave little capital city that it has become in the past decade.

Imagine if some of Warrnambool’s wealthier families – you know who you are – plunged some of their fortune into creating a funky Festival of the Wind (okay, we really do need to work on that title). It could be held during the September school holidays when, it seems, the wind blows its hardest.

The events could be wide-ranging and include such things as a kite competition with large-scale kites like those found at Semaphore Beach, Adelaide, where they already hold a kite festival every Easter (they cottoned on early).

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] W [/dropcap]e could also host a kite surfing competition like Townsville (damn, they cottoned on early too), hold concerts featuring wind ensembles, encourage people to make and hang wind-chimes in public spaces, bring windmills onto Warrnambool’s civic green as part of a wind-power demonstration, create a ‘Second Wind’ dance party, organise kid’s boat races on Lake Pertobe, launch a competition for hairdressers to demonstrate their best ‘wind-swept’ designs, host a Gone with the Wind theme night at the Capitol Theatre…and on we go.

If nothing else, I think such a festival would put the wind up those who dismiss Warrnambool as being too windy.

And here, of course, would be the opening act:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTgloMcGh7k

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Why not spruce up the whale zone?

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