Question Time

CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:22): My question is for the Premier. Can he explain why Cranfield University is now operating out of the Premier's department?

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:22): It is really interesting. There needs to be a bit of an understanding of some of the issues that have led to us as a state winning $44 billion worth of defence projects.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: They don't believe it. One of them was called the—

Mr WILLIAMS: Point of order, standing order 98. The question clearly is: why is Cranfield University operating out of the Premier's department?

The SPEAKER: I can understand your point of order, deputy leader, but the Premier has only just started answering the question. If he continues to go for 10 minutes in this vein then I will pull him up, but it is an introduction to his answer.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: It absolutely is. What we were told—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Do you want the question answered or not?

Honourable members: Yes, we do.

The SPEAKER: Then you will listen in silence. Premier.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: What we were told when we were out fighting to win projects is that we had a couple of impediments. No. 1, we needed a defence facility purpose built so that they would come here rather than go to Victoria—

Mr WILLIAMS: I rise on a point of order. The question was specifically: why is Cranfield University operating from the Premier's department? It is nothing to do with defence contracts.

The SPEAKER: I am not sure whether you want a point of order or not because you have roared across the chamber at him, but, Premier, can you continue your answer. As I said, it was early in the answer.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: The second thing was that we had insufficient skills for the type of expansion that we needed of the defence industry, both in terms of technical skills and academic skills. We were told that our universities here, whilst—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The deputy leader will be quiet. Has the Premier finished his answer?

The Hon. M.D. RANN: So, what did we do?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Williams: Answer the question.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: This is just hopeless.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. Foley interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Treasurer will be quiet also. There is no point us having a question time if you are just going to roar at each other across the room. The Premier.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: So, what we did is that we invested in our universities. In fact, I remember the CUF facility. We invested in the University of South Australia and we worked with the University of Adelaide and Flinders. But we still had some areas where we needed specific expertise, so we approached one of the world's great defence universities, Cranfield—easily the best in Europe.

It did not establish a campus like Carnegie Mellon or like University College London, which, by the way, Santos put $10 million into. But it established a branch office that ran short courses (it was a three-year contract) on things like explosives, not just for the defence industry but also, of course, for the mining industry, electronic warfare and other areas.

Cranfield University established a business development office in July 2007 with a three-year business development agreement with the SA government to support South Australia's defence capability by providing executive short courses and workshops in its areas of defence expertise. We had a three-year arrangement, and what has happened since then (and I can go into more details if you want) is that, on 23 August 2010, Cranfield signed a MOU with the University of Adelaide to continue work for a joint degree and/or joint executive education in electronic and information warfare with the University of Adelaide. Isn't that fantastic?

The Hon. M.J. Wright: Fantastic.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: We are building the expertise.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: We are drawing on the—

Mr WILLIAMS: Madam Speaker—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! There is a point of order. The Premier will sit down.

Mr WILLIAMS: Madam Speaker, the point of order is that we asked a question: why is this operating out of the Premier's department? The universities usually operate from their own campus.

The SPEAKER: It is the normal practice for a minister to answer a question how they choose, so I do not uphold the point of order.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Can I say, there was a three-year agreement, which has finished, and we have now got Cranfield involved with the universities here so that they can draw on its extraordinary world-class expertise for the benefit of our defence industry. I would have thought—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —that was a good thing, and the fact that we have an ongoing relationship—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —through the university's city office in the Premier's department is bloody good for South Australia.

The SPEAKER: The member for Croydon.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!