This article is a little confusing. The lead story, about the sale of the old primary school, is clear (and reprehensible) but then it goes to to talk about “the” report by Raine and Horne, implying that St John’s Hospital, Cascade Brewery, the recently opened Christian City Church in Anglesea Street, the Wheatsheaf Medical Centre, and South Hobart Primary School are up for sale too? Or does Billy mean that these buildings are to be—listed? preserved? But not Collegiate to be whatever these others are to ...?

An interesting article but could we have some clarification? Or maybe it’s too early in the morning.

Hmmm.  I’m one of many direct neighbours of the ex-school in question and I’m not furious (in principle) about the idea of selling it at all.  It all depends on who the new owner will be and what they will do with it, but I don’t see the slightest merit in the mentality that a piece of significant heritage must remain in public hands even if the government is not using it.  Conditions that maintain the site’s heritage values and prevent annoyance to surrounding residents can be placed on any transfer of ownership.

Agree (almost) with Dr Kev - conditions which protect the site’s heritage values are what count the most.

But it’s still a great pity that there’s no longer a vibrant Adult Education sector, for which the old school was ideal.

Rather comical, I thought, that the original writer selected the barn-like “The Way” church in Degraves Street (which IS for sale) as an important example of SH architecture and heritage, whilst ignoring completely the substantial Catholic edifice up the hill near the “village” centre.

“The Way” it may (temporarily) be, but it was previously a paint factory built rather unfortunately in the middle of the Female Factory heritage site.

The old pictures of what this site looked like before the unfortunate government sell-off of 1904 make a heritage lover want to cry.

Something of a fluttering in the dovecot resulted from my pointing out deficiencies in the property report for the State Government selling the old school in South Hobart. Yes, I was guilty of my own sin of omission in not mentioning the Catholic St Francis Xavier’s Church (opened 1932), an impressive building at the corner of Anglesea and Adelaide Streets. And I should have turned my eyes to the hills above the suburb to note the famous landmark of the Keen’s Curry sign (although it’s not so easily seen these days because of adjacent tree growth causing some obscuring). Just a further point on that significant property recognition factor – the Mercury advertising has identified said property as the former South Hobart Primary School. It was always known as the Macquarie Street State School.

From some of the early comments, it would seem that some correspondents have chosen to ignore facts about this issue which are already in the public domain.  Whilst this article does not necessarily make it clear, the whole point of the community’s objection to the ill-considered fire sale is that perfectly good public uses for the old Macquarie Street State School have been aired.  Further, those uses neither called for nor demanded retention of the buildings in State Government hands.  Unfortunately, Giddings and McKim (and predecessor, Thorp)refused to even give those promulgating those uses the opportunity to present them to government.  So much for the democratic process.

Choosing to ignore anything (apart from errant TT posters) is not among my abilities.  Now and then I may simply forget some particular aspect of a debate that someone might want me to include in a discussion.  This is particularly likely to happen when there are implausible generalisations about public opinion to be hosed down (always a high priority for me and doubly so when I fall in the group being generalised.)

So yes, there are certainly many community groups that would like to use the venue and that could use the venue should the government wish to make it available for this purpose.  That is a relevant part of the debate (after all, cheap meeting venues afre in short enough supply) but it’s not enough to make me “furious” about the proposal to sell the building.

If I had some kind of sense that 80+% of the community was “furious” it would be different.  But one of the hazards for progress-association type campaigners (I’ve assumed the article’s author to be such) as their approach struggles for relevance in a changing political landscape is that of overstating the extent to which they speak for their communities.

When individuals take a position on a particular issue, it is hard to dislodge them from their point of view.  The previous writer has indicated his position and no protestations from me are likely to shift his opinions.
It is very difficult to obtain an 80% return on a questionnaire or the like from any selected group.  However, the Progress Association did manage to obtain over 700 signatures to its Petition, opposing the sale of the former Macquarie Street State School without consideration to alternative community and NFP organisation uses.
It is easy to play Devil’s Advocate or to be somewhat over sure that any Government - let alone the present cash-strapped entity - would even bother to put in place safeguards to protect the heritage values of the Old School.  In fact, the conditions of sale do not even require the purchaser to obtain a conservation plan for the site.

It is fairly easy to dislodge this particular individual from his point of view if the evidence actually supports a contrary one and that evidence is soundly presented.  However, there is still no remotely sound evidence to support the original article’s assertion that “the citizens of South Hobart are furious”, an assertion that I suspect can be dismissed as both overgeneralisation and hyperbole.

Petitions do not indicate “fury” (not even if they say “we the undersigned are mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”); they simply indicate that each person signing either had some degree of at least passing concern/opposition or wished to be seen to have some degree of concern/opposition.  Genuine suburb-wide “fury” would probably come with protest events attracting crowds in at least low three figures - and probably a much higher TT and other user-contributed media presence for the issue too. 

As for the idea that the community might be on balance opposed to the sale (without being generally “furious”) that is a different matter.  700 signatures, although it is less than half of the South Hobart voter base, sounds impressive as an indicator of a high and perhaps majority level of opposition.  However, if the petition only opposed sale without consideration of alternative uses then that is hardly necessarily outright opposition to the proposed sale anyway.  And one question: were all the signatories South Hobart residents as shown by their stated addresses, and if not what was the breakdown by suburb?

I actually don’t have a view for or against the sale.  In terms of both the impact of the attempted sale on adjacent properties and the impact of the attempted sale more broadly I can see both potential pluses and minuses.  What I am opposed to (but not furious about!) is the making of simplistic statements about this or any other suburb’s opinions on this or any other matter.