Thread by @drnaomi

AirBNB spruiker
Louise Elliot blocked me, as I found out when I searched for her to see if she’s cross about Hobart City Council’s decision to cap permits for whole-house short-stay accommodation. So, I got curious …

Louise Elliot seems to have moved on from her failed AirBNB campaign and is now targeting Hobart Lord Mayor @annareyno, arguing the LM should have declared a four-year-old donation made by a private citizen who is now heading up one of the scooter companies operating in Hobart.

Turns out, that private citizen only got the scooter job this year, well after contracts were awarded. In most cities it’s very hard to separate council activities and business, and even more so in a tiny town like Hobart.

(Turns out I know this private citizen from uni days, whereas I don’t know the LM or Ms Elliot. That’s me disclosing my feelings. PS I’m not a Green.)

I don’t care about scooters or $3k the LM received 4 years ago but I do actually care about community governance.

I care that the organisation Louise Elliot founded to support landlords, Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners (Inc) lists no contact details on its website or FB. So I went looking for them.

I found out that the 2021 AGM of the Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners, held at the Italian Club, returned a “committee” of two (Louise Elliot +1) and that no attendees at the AGM were named but were listed as “approx 20 people” and “approx 8 people” by Zoom.

I care that the only two committee members of Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners are Louise Elliot and Dr Bradley Goldsmith, a Launceston hotelier and retired specialist in wagering systems. Is two even a committee? I don’t think so.

I also care that Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners offers “training” in property management (via their website) that has no accreditation or identifiable author.

And I care that Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners has received $100,000 in public money from the Tasmanian Government, yet has no verifiable association membership or functional committee. Remember, Louise Elliot considers $10k to put poetry on buses is reckless.

I found all this out by googling for an hour and finding publicly accessible information. Why doesn’t @themercurycomau ask these sorts of questions of Louise Elliot? Why doesn’t @abchobart?

Why does @themercurycomau happily report Louise Elliot/Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners’ plans to cram tiny homes onto a car park (20/3/22), but not notice the “Wanda Foundation” does not actually exist? (It is the name of a NZ arts charity). Journalism please?

Anyway, I am blocked from Louise Elliot’s pages here and on Facebook but I hope this little exercise in citizen journalism is useful to people who care about the future of Hobart and invite people to do their own digging into candidates and their behaviours.

I have just received clarification that Leon Compton did question Louise Elliot about the $100,000 given to the Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners on @abchobart on 21/9/21. Elliot says she asked the government for the money. #taspol abc.net.au/hobart/program…

Thanks for all the interest in this thread and the retweets. Hobart people: the AGM of Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners is this Sunday at a yet-to-be-publicly disclosed time and location so, you know, get along? Be very interesting to see who turns up.