Yet another example of mean spirited howard - the philistine. The bow tie boy came up with a finding that he was asked to come up with -perhaps? - in my eyes all these "investigative?" clowns are all the same. Regards, numbat

No, Numbat. With a comment as lacking in learning and erudition as that above, not to mention the fact that it addresses none of the points made by Barns or by James Strong, it would seem that you are the philistine.

Why do Tasmanian articles always attract these ill-considered, knee-jerk Greenoid responses?

Numbat, what in the wide, wide world has John Howard got to do with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra? What about athiests' and George W.? Surely they've got something to do with it as well.

The "Hand Book" on the westminister system of government - "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" states that one (be it PM or a minister) never, never, never holds an inquiry unless one knows what its outcome will be.Secondly one always chooses well the person that runs the said inquiry. Perhaps they need the money or a promotion or an award of some sort.I believe in this "Hand Book". Now really as commonwealth money is involved (not just the tasmanian orchestra but the orchestras of all states and territories) do you really believe that the dead hand of howard is not here somewhere? No! well maybe you believe that he, howard, "knew nosing" about the "inquiry" into Keating's pig farm, the destruction of Kernott and Hanson or the setting of a senator onto a high court judge. [Deleted for flaming]Regards, numbat

From which text, or teacher did the'learned" and "erudite" Geoffrey Hills find the term "Greenoid".
Interesting.
All Mr. Hills achieves here is to reveal himself as another glorified green-basher. Both you and Mr. Barns have this in common Mr.Hills. People who live in Tasmania and are familiar with the writing of Mr. Barns would know what i am talking about. This was confirmed by the fact that Mr. Barns and Mr. Hills now share the dubious distinction of being about the only legal commentators in the country to defend the indefensible Gunns Law suit against outspoken Tasmanian citizens. Mr. Barns has repeated this feat with his marginal and incredibly arrogant assessment of the TSO. Mr. Barns reckless and hurtful description of the TSO has deeply offended many tasmanian locals and I believe he will probably come to regret some of the comments he has made in his article.

There is a much larger issue concerning orchestras and all groups gaining grants from governments. The Strong Report contains this paragraph:

“… government funding for the orchestras is indexed in accordance with a formula set by the Australian Government. The formula is the same as that applied to the funding of other public bodies … whereby base funding is increased annually at a pre-determined rate (currently 2.27 per cent). This base rate of indexation is then reduced by an efficiency dividend of 1 percentage point as a means of ensuring that bodies drawing public funding can demonstrate ongoing efficiencies in their operations. In the case of the orchestras (and the other major performing arts companies), state governments index their own funding contributions at the same rate as the Australian Government.

“The efficiency dividend will increase from 1 per cent to 1.25 per cent from 1 July 2005, with the result that the nominal rate of funding adjustment each year will fall to little more than 1 per cent at the current rate of indexation. This implies an annual decline of between 2 and 3 per cent in the purchasing power of government funding, compounding over time.”

All reports concerning the arts in Australia deserve the greatest attention.

The way funding is reduced each year - a $1million drop in ten years for an enterprise on a $10million budget compared with funding at the level of CPI - is extremely serious. And it needs immediate attention. After all, is it not the case that part of the financial problems of universities derives from he application of a similarly inappropriate adjustment index? That is also a point seldom addressed by Brendan Nelson.

For Treasuries to apply indexing of this kind and then accuse enterprises of being unable to manage within their budgets, at a time when unfortunately corporate and private funding continues to remain relatively small or even decline is utterly senseless. And that is putting it mildly!

Correction!

In par 5 of my comment I said that the drop in revenue from application of the efficiency dividend was $1 million in a budget of $10 millions over 10 years. I should have said over 5 years; it is in fact just over $$971,000. The reduction in the fifth year over what would have been received, had adjustment for inflation at just 2.5%pa been applied, is just over $500,000.