00:00This museum and art gallery brings in more yearly visitors than the city's AFL games,
00:04but with a collection value to over $203 million, it comes at a cost the council struggles to bear.
00:10From 2023 to 2024, QVMAC welcomed more than 153,000 people.
00:15Hawthorne's matches drew less than half that at 58,000.
00:18But every year, the council loses $7 million just running the place.
00:23Entry is free and revenue comes only from donations, merchandising and limited ticketed events.
00:28At what point do you say the loss is too great? What's your thumb of rule on loss?
00:35You know, how much do you say that enough's enough?
00:38A 2022 review found the council's $115 million budget could not sustain ownership of the organisation.
00:45Councillors then endorsed a plan with three key goals, increased state funding, achieving charity
00:50status and a new governance model. So far, none of these have been met.
00:55Launceston ratepayer and former Northern Midlands Councillor Ian Ganinnon says the city should
00:59hand over the institution immediately.
01:02You just wonder, for a council the size of Launceston, how that it can continue to lose those,
01:09that sort of dollars, $7.7 million.
01:14I understand. I've been on council for 20 years. When I first went there,
01:18I thought you could run it as a business. And I quickly learnt that there's a community aspect to it.
01:24And with that community thing, not everything runs at a profit, that you've got to
01:28run some things at a loss. I understand with museums that there'd be very few museums in Australia
01:33that would run at a profit. But how much loss is the ratepayers prepared to take for it?
01:42Councilor CEO Sam Johnson insists the process is easier said than done.
01:46We're still obviously working through the logistical components and the legal components,
01:49and particularly around what it is proposed within those strategic instruments. We're talking
01:55about essentially establishing a new entity. So it's not, and was never ever going to be something
02:00really quick and easy to achieve. Have we achieved everything we set out to achieve by the time
02:05frames that we wanted to achieve them by? No, unfortunately. But I think doing it right is
02:10the most important thing here, rather than trying to rush something and just tick it off of the list.
02:13Despite this, the council have assured locals that the collection, which is the biggest in
02:18regional Australia, isn't going anywhere. And there's been a lot of robust conversations around
02:23if we're transferring assets or not transferring assets, knowing that we hold hundreds of millions
02:27of dollars worth of assets within the collection at QVMAG. And we want to make sure that they're
02:32preserved and protected, and not preserved and protected just for the city of Launceston,
02:35but actually for the people of Launceston and for Tasmania. So you've kind of got to think,
02:39not just for now, but you've got to think longer term, you know, in 100 years, what does this look
02:43like? What are the challenges that could appear in 100 years time? But most importantly, making sure
02:48that no one can come in from any angle and try and take over the collection, which we very much
02:53believe rightfully should be here in Launceston and in Tasmania.
