Establishment of Adelaide University

Mr BROWN (Florey) (14:22): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on any proposals to create a new university in our state?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members to my right! The member for Morialta on a point of order under 134.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Thank you, sir: government business before the house. We expect to be talking about the committee of inquiry into the university bill.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! That may be. There is some force in the matter that the member for Morialta has raised with me. However, I do observe that it has been government policy for some time since the government in fact became the government—in fact, it was the opposition's policy, taken to the election, that there be an amalgamation of universities in South Australia, and on that basis I am going to turn to the Premier.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Well, that may be, member for Morialta, but the Premier's answer of course will inform the question that you put, or the standing order that you have raised.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:23): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the member for his question. The member for Florey has a passion and an enthusiasm to make sure that future generations of South Australians get access to the highest quality education options anywhere in the land.

What I am very pleased to report to this house, and to the state more broadly, is that the state government is now confident that this parliament, in due course, will be able to contemplate, consider and ultimately pass legislation to establish a new university here in South Australia, a new university that brings together two fine establishments—the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide—in order to be able to achieve a range of benefits and outcomes for the people of our state.

I won't talk to the independent inquiry that the parliament has undertaken, as that is currently before the house, but what I can say is that there has been a thorough public examination of all of the evidence around what the virtues are—what the challenges are, but also what the virtues are—of a university amalgamation.

What we now know, from a range of interest groups and a range of representations from experts right around the state, and indeed around the country, is that by bringing these two institutions together, we can achieve a range of high-quality outcomes. The first one is unlocking a lot more R&D in our state. R&D is critical, not just for the students who participate within it but for our economy more broadly. R&D means innovation. Innovation improves productivity. Productivity improves people's wages and outcomes for their lives.

This is exactly what we need to be doing more of as a state to improve our position in terms of labour productivity, moving up the value chain of labour, so that more South Australians can have better, more secure well-paid jobs from a wider variety of backgrounds, which is another key benefit of the university amalgamation.

This new university—particularly on the back of the construction of the financial support that the Deputy Premier and the Treasurer have been central to putting together—means that more young adults from a wider variety of backgrounds, whether it be from low-SES backgrounds or regional communities across the state, will have the opportunity to get access to a university education.

As a government, we firmly believe that you don't have to go to university to get a good job and you don't have to have a degree to have a good life, which is why we have already announced the biggest investment in skills education, free TAFE and technical colleges at our schools. But it is also true that if you do go to university and you do get a good degree you are in a strong position to be able to set yourself up for a high-quality career, and university education is central to that.

We don't just want more kids getting degrees, we want more kids from more backgrounds getting access to higher education, which is why we pursued this policy. More than that, we know that there is in the order of a $500 million economic boost to the state on the back of international students increasing in number here in South Australia, which brings a range of benefits that have been well documented in this place for some time.

I look forward to the introduction of this legislation to this parliament and I look forward to the opportunity to work with the opposition, which I acknowledge has had an open mind about this proposition, to make sure we get a good outcome for the state—doing something big and bold and ambitious to set us up for the long term.