House of Assembly: Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Contents

CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:41): My question is again to the Premier. Can the Premier advise how many students have enrolled in and how many have graduated with degrees from Cranfield University since its establishment in South Australia?

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) (14:42): If you actually had been following things—there were never any degrees; that's the whole point. They organise short, executive courses—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —for people in the defence industry in the areas that I outlined, and also have formed, as you would know, the Torrens Resilience Institute, opened by the Duke of Kent, with Cranfield University being the founding partner with the three local universities.

We entered into a three-year agreement in 2007 and, if you can count, that is now over and so the executive office ceased to be staffed and ceased operations in April 2010. It was never, ever a campus. They organised short courses. It was about assisting the industry—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —to get the expertise they need to fill the gap. Then, of course, they were involved in a range of projects with the University of Adelaide and other institutions. Of course, what has happened is that since that three-year agreement (which was very helpful to us) has expired, they have secured funding from their capital budget to beam in short courses from Shrivenham from next year. This is all good. I will not apologise for the fact that this government has won $44 billion worth of—

The SPEAKER: Point of order. The Premier will sit down.

Mr WILLIAMS: My point of order relates to relevance. The question was: how many students have been enrolled and how many have graduated. The Premier has not gone anywhere near answering that question. We are still waiting to know.

The SPEAKER: The Premier has actually answered the question, but I think he has probably finished his answer now. I distinctly heard him say, 'None because there were no degree courses offered.' That was the question, so he has answered and he has sat down now.

Mr WILLIAMS: The question was: how many students.

The SPEAKER: The member for Light.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the Minister for Transport! The member for Light.