The backlash begins as U Tasmania’s move into town gives Hobart the horrors

The University council has adopted management’s plan to move from Sandy Bay to the CBD. This isn’t popular with some staff, who want to stay where they are . And now local, Booker Prize winning novelist, Richard Flanagan has bought into the argument, with an op ed in Saturday’s Mercury.

Mr Flanagan warns the plan would, among many other problems, lead to more traffic, increased homelessness and cause a loss of city character. But what should worry university management worse is  that he argues, “the interests of the university are not necessarily the same of those of Hobart and its citizens, and we should not believe the university when they say they are.”

The university works to present itself as the saviour of the state, that education and training, can transform Tasmania. If the locals lose faith the university’s political influence will decline.