After years of planning to leave the Sandy Bay campus, the University of Tasmania now wants to build a $500 million STEM facility there. The University's change of direction will need substantial government support to become a reality, and its decision to stick with moving the Humanities and Business schools into the Hobart CBD has got some people offside.
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00:00For years, the University of Tasmania has planned to move entirely away from its Sandy
00:07Bay campus and turn it into a housing development.
00:10But now, it's unveiled a plan to stay, at least in part.
00:15This is exactly what we need.
00:18Having listened to community sentiment over the years to ensure that our university and
00:23what it offers for Tasmania is set up for long term success.
00:28They want Sandy Bay to be one of four Hobart campus sites, hosting a $500 million science
00:33and maths facility.
00:35The others, a city campus, a historic campus of the domain and a waterfront campus, home
00:41to the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Sciences.
00:44Overall, pretty happy with it.
00:46To see that STEM has been announced to stay in here in Sandy Bay is something that students
00:50and staff have been calling for pretty loudly.
00:52The university will sell two inner city buildings deemed surplus to requirements, but the revamped
00:57old forestry building will have two key tenants, the Faculties of Humanities and Business and
01:03Economics.
01:04The partial relocation is not going to work and so we do not support the partial relocation.
01:11The university's plan requires lots of support, including federal government funding for the
01:16STEM facility.
01:18It also needs to sell land above Churchill Avenue, a task that could get harder if the
01:23state government legislates for any sale to require parliamentary approval.
01:29The local government, the Hobart City Council and the Tasmanian Liberal Government need
01:32to get behind this university, support its plans and they need to scrap this bill.
01:37So our bill allows any project that the university wishes to bring forward in a transparent way,
01:44just means it will have to come through parliament.
01:45So we're looking forward to seeing what that project is.
01:48The plan's put forward, but there's still a long way to go before it's realised.