The abrupt withdrawal of a $12.5 million Government suspensory loan for the Otago Polytechnic's new Otago Institute of Design and the unsatisfactory way in which it has been explained to date is just one of the puzzling, not to say disturbing, questions that arise as a result of the announcement.
Another is the "extremely disappointed but philosophical" position adopted by the polytechnic itself.
Funding to such a tune in such straitened times is not to be sniffed at and it would be a great shame, not to say detrimental to the economic future of the region, if the institute were compromised by this 11th-hour about-face.
The institute, a $27 million joint venture project between the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic, was to be housed in a building at the former Wickliffe Press property on the corner of Albany and Clyde Sts.
It was expected to provide space for up to 800 design students, plus academic, general and research staff.
It would have been a base for a number of established projects - the Sustainable Habitat Challenge, the Dunedin Fashion Incubator, the Evolver product development centre, among others - and was supported by the Dunedin City Council, Otago Forward economic development board, the Otago Chamber of Commerce and others.
It was, and is, an initiative that not only has a strong academic core, but also well-founded economic and business links and support. There is good cause to suggest that the project - which will continue as a collaborative venture but now lack the profile a flagship purpose-built headquarters would have given it - will be seriously set back by the loss of the funds that would have made such a building possible.
Otago already has a proven track record in the field.
Fashion design at Otago Polytechnic is an area of strength and growing national and international reputation.
The visual arts have an even stronger heritage, much of this seeded through the polytechnic, and its forerunners, with which many prominent New Zealand artists, including Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston, were associated.
With both the University of Otago and the polytechnic running significant design programmes, and the synergies achievable through their combination, the mooted Otago Institute of Design could have become a leading national facility and a de facto "centre of excellence".
This in turn would only have added heft to the province's foremost "industry" - education, in particular tertiary education.
It still may, and while all is not yet lost, it is difficult to see how negotiations over such a large sum and with so much at stake, signed off under the previous government through the Tertiary Education Commission, could be allowed to falter.
Were all possible grounds for compromise explored? The Government has not been forthcoming in its precise reasons for the withdrawal of the loan, other than to say that the polytechnic had "failed to accept a key condition of last year's offer", adding that tough economic times "call for tough decisions" and that with a limited pool of funding "all proposals have to stack up in the current economic climate".
The polytechnic has been more illuminating, pinpointing the deal-breaking condition as differing from a previous verbal agreement.
That condition is the imposition of a Crown manager to oversee the institution's financial transactions - a measure that is usually contemplated only when there are severe financial issues associated with an educational body.
Nothwithstanding a history that includes episodes of financial difficulty, no evidence has been presented that this is the case with the polytechnic.
The chairman of the polytechnic council, accountant Graham Crombie, has confirmed that the council was unanimous in its support of foregoing the loan when it emerged that this was to be tied to the appointment of a Crown manager.
The move was "way out of proportion" and the Otago Polytechnic was a "well-managed and governed institution", he said.
Given the lack of evidence to the contrary - and without further clarification by the Government as to credible reason - it might be surmised that an "outraged" Dunedin North MP Pete Hodgson speaks with some authority in suggesting the Government has simply looked for "an excuse to walk away", and imposed unacceptable terms designed to achieve just such a result.
Whatever the reason, the loss of the loan is a shortsighted and unwarranted blow to the Otago region and its tertiary institutions.
