Bills

Adelaide University Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (19:30): I will be brief in concluding my remarks on the Adelaide University Bill. As I said at the outset of this second reading contribution, I direct those members of the community who wish to understand the Liberal Party's position on this bill, in full and in great detail, to the joint committee report and the minority report written by the Hon. Jing Lee and myself. I encourage people to have a look at the Hansard of the debate in the last sitting week, where, in the noting of that, I went into some detail on the Liberal Party's position on this matter, ostensibly to save us from having to go through it all again today. So today I have endeavoured to be succinct and to the point in identifying the key issues pertinent to the bill.

I have not gone through the bill clause by clause, the Deputy Premier will be pleased to note. We have an opportunity tomorrow to go through the committee stage, and we can highlight a couple of key points going through there. I should not think it will be an inordinate amount of time, but I think there are a couple of key issues around the nature and the framing of the bill that need to be teased out.

The Legislative Council debate of course had a great opportunity to go through the bill clause by clause, in great detail. I understand there were a large number of amendments moved by different members, some of which were supported and successfully incorporated into the bill. I thank the government and other members in the Legislative Council for their support for a couple of key amendments to the bill, moved by the opposition, in particular highlighting the social aspect of what a university seeks to achieve. In my speech earlier in the day I sought to elucidate some of the key reasons why we thought that was important.

In relation to the audit of the university, the original bill as framed gave the university council power to choose their own auditor. The Liberal Party suggested that it was more appropriate that the practice of using the Auditor-General be required of the university, especially considering the significant amount of investment from the state government that we see in this report. It is absolutely no reflection on the sort of audit that the university council might have sought; it is just that the Auditor-General is of a standard that is anticipated and expected by the people of South Australia in relation to government agencies.

This brings us to the question of whether a university is a government agency. If not, is it a business? If not, is it a non-government organisation? It is none of those things. It is a university, as the Deputy Premier has said. But kind of, in some ways, it is like a government agency: it is established through an act of the state parliament, and it exists in its funding through enormous numbers of different things, such as bequests, research earnings, its own earnings, fee for service and hundreds of different mechanisms for revenue. But, at the end of the day, most roads lead to a treasury, either here or in Canberra—mostly in Canberra, in the university's case.

We think that the investment of state government funds means that it is not unreasonable to expect the Auditor-General to do that work, even if the audit from the Auditor-General comes in at a potentially somewhat higher fee than might be found through the non-government sector. The Auditor-General provides the same service to the state government at a cost to the state government, and agencies have that information provided for members of the community. We felt that was important. It turns out that other parties agreed, and I am grateful for that.

I will conclude by summarising the key points. Firstly, we recognise that there was an election commitment from the government for a university commission. We recognise that a merger, a reduction in the number of universities—from three to two, or even to one, but certainly a reduction—was the desired outcome of that commission for the Premier and for the government. Where we are at is an outcome that is certainly a not unanticipated one from the election commitment, but we do not believe it was the election commitment.

Therefore, that highlights the important policy work that was done by the joint committee, and I certainly thank those other members of the committee and the staff of that committee for doing that work. It had a series of suggestions, and I encourage members of the public, the community and the parliament to read them, particularly the Deputy Premier whose job it is to implement many of these things. The process, I think, warrants the government's consideration of the recommendation moved by myself and Jing Lee in our minority report that it comply with Treasurer's Instruction 17 in spirit as well as detail in all things.

Our support from the Liberal Party for the bill—as we will vote for it, in the circumstances I outlined earlier—is because we want it to succeed and we will help support it to succeed, but we on the opposition benches retain significant concerns in relation to some aspects that have not been fully thought through or, indeed, could be improved. We continue to hope that the government will deal with some of those, both in terms of impacts on the community through Magill, which I outlined in my second contribution today, and on country areas and Flinders University, which I outlined in my first comments today.

I reiterate the support the Liberal Party will provide those three avenues of communities in the eastern and north-eastern suburbs, in the southern suburbs and in our country and regional areas, should we be elected to government in March 2026. I highlight particularly the opportunities for AUKUS, agtech and health science research that Flinders University has to offer, and the support that we believe our government will provide to Flinders and what it will enable them to unlock, not just for Flinders but for the state.

Finally, in relation to the new institution, there is an enormous number of people whose lives are impacted by this merger: the students, the staff, the people who feel a deep connection to the university, alumni, the leadership, the academic staff, future students and the businesses who engage with the university. We want this to work. It must work. It is getting the endorsement of the parliament and it is a significant enterprise with a dramatic impact on the people of South Australia going forward.

We, as the Liberal Party, will work very hard in opposition and in government to identify challenges where they exist and opportunities for improvement, and we particularly look forward to talking about the review in due course to see what impact it might have on the future of the institution. We will hold the government to account as challenges arise, but we do so in a spirit of constructive opposition and we will seek to add to the outcome that the government is seeking to create. With that, I conclude my remarks.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (19:37): I am delighted to close the debate on the second reading in such a bipartisan and convivial way. I am grateful to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who I think has probably always had a view that this might be the right thing to do and was able to test that and form that more firmly through the process of the committee that was established in this parliament.

A number of issues have been raised by the deputy leader in his reasonably substantial second reading contribution, most of which I think will be addressed when we go through the committee stage and, therefore, I will not exhaustively respond to all of them. I will just pick out a couple. One is about the interest in the way in which risk management will be approached from the government's perspective.

It is important to note that we have stated that there will be someone with a strong university background who will be used to act as an independent voice on behalf of the government, to be part of the process of the merger and to be able to do testing from the state's interests of how that process is working. We made that announcement when the two crossbenchers in the upper house agreed to support the principle of the bill, and I think it is an important point that although we did not go through a commission process, we nonetheless recognise that the state's interests are not always identical to the interests of individual institutions.

I will very briefly pick up the point made by the deputy leader on the Auditor appointment. We were pleased to support the Liberal amendment in the Legislative Council. In fact, the existing legislation at present requires the universities to use the Auditor-General. We had in our original drafting attempt to do some futureproofing to enable, should that legislation ever change, a process whereby the Governor could approve a process, but given that it is currently the Auditor-General, and there is no prospect of that changing, we were pleased to support that.

The Leader of the Opposition has raised the question at reasonable length, not only in his contribution to this bill but also in his response to the report from the committee, about the importance of treating the Magill site in particular with some care, and particularly focusing on community consultation. I understand why he raises that, and we have given many assurances to that end—equally for Mawson Lakes—and no doubt there will be some more specific questions asked during the time that we go through the committee stage.

The leader has frequently raised the question of Flinders University, and I have probably talked about this previously, but if the chamber will indulge me to understand the extent to which Flinders is important to me personally as well as to the state. I am South Australian because of Flinders. I am Australian because of Flinders. My parents came here in early 1967. The university opened in 1966 as a sort of extension of the University of Adelaide at that point. My father, having freshly finished his doctorate, was employed when History was added to the disciplines that Flinders University offered.

My mother was finishing her doctorate, not being quite as speedy as my father who is unnaturally fast at that kind of work, and discovered once they arrived that she was expecting a baby—me—and therefore took a bit longer to finish her doctorate, but the family story is I was such an excellent baby that that was easy; I am pretty sure that is not entirely true. Nonetheless, after she completed her doctorate, she was employed in the French department, and the two of them worked their entire working lives at Flinders University. In honour of that, both my brother and I studied at Flinders University, and I obtained my PhD there. Flinders has in every way you can think of shaped who I am. Now, that of course does not mean that I make particular choices in policy terms; it is simply to indicate the extent of my respect for that institution and the way in which it shapes people's lives.

I raise all of that because there is an understandable concern that when we have two universities, not three, or we return to having two universities rather than three, that they are treated in a way by the state government that enables both of them to prosper. I think we can say that there is this bipartisan view that that will always be the case.

It has been particularly demonstrated through the creation of a student fund for Flinders University of $40 million in order to ensure that disadvantaged students are able to choose subjects, degrees, at Flinders University without being cut off from the support that is currently on the table, and will through this legislation exist for the new Adelaide University, but that is not the extent and the limit of the support that this government—nor I gather an alternative government—would offer to either Flinders or to the new Adelaide University.

What is important is that both sides have expressed support for a strong university sector, and that requires, when there are two, both universities to be strong, independent and capable of obtaining government support as well as, of course, private support at times, and to get a large number of students. That is in all our interests, and I hope we are never in a political situation where either major party thinks that it is worth stepping away from that.

There has been some mention of the election commitment that was made to create a commission. As one of the people who was one of the architects of that policy in opposition, I can say that the reason that we created that device, that institution, however temporary, to address this issue is that from opposition it is very difficult to say that one configuration is superior to another. It is dangerous for any government, let alone an opposition, to simply declare that a certain outcome with major institutions that have an enormous economic as well as social impact on this state, that one solution is the only solution that is possible.

Recognising that and allowing for a mechanism that established that we felt that a merger was likely to be useful, when you have two of the three significant institutions saying that they want to go through a process of determining if they ought to merge, it would be beyond arrogant for a new government to nonetheless say, 'Hold your horses. We're going to have our own process. Don't do anything.' We therefore allowed that process to happen, as it had started to happen in 2018. Although it has never previously gone as far as what occurred in 2018, until recently, there have been these discussions that have been in the background for decades.

Flinders University declared that it was not interested in going into a merger with the University of Adelaide. The University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide said that they were interested. Respectfully, we allowed that to happen, but we have never lost sight of the importance of the state's interests being protected, that although the state's interests are frequently aligned with the universities' interests, and we can only prosper if the universities are strong, nonetheless, we need to make sure that we maintain our own view about what is right or what is wrong in the configuration of higher education.

So we did, through the process of observing their relationship and our engagement with that, our involvement in memorandums of understanding and heads of agreement, and that will continue in the way in which we do a risk management process that will run alongside the merger process. That is the mature way in which to deal with institutions that are large, important and dearly loved.

Let's not forget that international students alone are the biggest export that South Australia has. I do not believe that there is another state that can boast that. Wine comes second. Occasionally, over the past several years, wine has come first and international students have come second. They are our big exports and that is only part of what universities do. With research and teaching of domestic students, they have an extraordinary impact and we have always regarded that as something that needs to be treated with respect, as I now believe the opposition have chosen to do as well.

The fact that the opposition have now chosen to support this means that the two universities as they become a new university can have confidence that this is a bipartisan long-term view. For that I am very grateful because while sometimes in politics it is easy to want to be the one side that has seen the right thing to do, and done it in spite of the views of the opposition, in this case, as in some others, this is more important than party politics. The micro-economic reform that is represented by creating a new university of these two is not to be underestimated. It will transform our economy over time.

I am someone who has grown up in a university, studied at one university, worked at another, who has friends throughout all three universities, and I have constantly heard about this idea of whether we should have two rather than three after the creation of the University of South Australia. I had been sceptical or at least open-minded to different views about that. I have genuinely formed the view that we will deeply regret not doing this if we do not do it now.

In 20 years, a university system of small universities with some excellent work but nothing with scale would be to the detriment of South Australia. While it will be painful and at times we will find ourselves wondering if it is worth all the effort, it is something that is essential if we want to have a modern, complex, sophisticated and high standard-of-living economy, which I believe everyone in this chamber wants. For that reason, I welcome the Liberal Party, the opposition, choosing to join with the government now to support this effort.

The words of the deputy leader are of good cheer for me, and I suspect of the people who are involved in the merger, that they want to see this as a success. That is essential. If both sides of parliament do not want to see this fail for political advantage, but see this as something that is of value for the state collectively, then that can give great confidence to those two great institutions and to Flinders, which must continue to succeed, continue to grow and continue to teach people.

With that, I simply thank everyone who has been involved. We have not had long second reading speeches and we have had very few people speak. Most of the debate has occurred in the Legislative Council already and in response to the report of the committee. That does not suggest a lack of engagement or interest in this chamber—quite the contrary. I look forward to going into the committee stage and, within I hope the next few days, being able to deliver the University of Adelaide Bill. It will be one of the most important things that any of us have been involved in in this parliament for the long-term future of this state.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Such is the device of parliamentary procedure, I now wish to report progress.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.