University of South Australia

The Hon. J.S. LEE (17:34): I move:

That this council—

1. Congratulates the University of South Australia for celebrating its 25^th anniversary in 2016;

2. Acknowledges the significant contribution made by the University of South Australia throughout its 25 year history; and

3. Highlights the remarkable achievements and significant impact the University of South Australia has made for South Australia, both nationally and internationally.

The University of South Australia was founded in 1991 through the amalgamation of the South Australian Institute of Technology and the Magill, Salisbury and Underdale campuses of the South Australian College of Advanced Education. However, the University of South Australia's foundation has a deeper history that dates back further, to the latter half of the 19^th century, including the South Australian School of Art founded in 1856 and the School of Mines and Industries established in 1889.

At the time of its establishment, UniSA was considered a new force in education in Adelaide. It had a new focus on practical research, knew how to work with industry, and opened up opportunities for many more people who had not seen university as a choice. The university was established with a particular mission to expand access to higher education from traditionally disadvantaged groups, as well as pursue a research program that was focused on industry engagement, collaboration and innovation.

Through this vision, UniSA has been labelled as one of the world's best new universities under 50. At the tender age of 25 years old, UniSA is South Australia's largest university, with more than 32,000 students (including 6,000 international students), over 400 degrees on offer, 2,500 staff, four metropolitan and two regional campuses, eight research institutes and 18 research centres.

The university offers degree programs across a wide range of subjects, including business, law, education, arts and social sciences, health sciences, information technology, engineering and the environment. Twenty-five years old is a very young age, but this young university has shown impressive achievements since its establishment. Perhaps I am allowed to be just a little bit biased here, because I am a proud graduate of the University of South Australia. I have fond memories of my university days, not so much in terms of burning the midnight oil to finish assignments or swotting for exams, but those memories relating to all the interesting interactions I had with my lecturers and fellow classmates.

I am very thankful to mentors and friends I made during my university days. The business qualification, knowledge and multidisciplinary skills I gained from UniSA established a strong foundation for me to build on and certainly prepared me well to expand my local and international connections and seize many rewarding career opportunities, including the privilege of being elected to parliament. It is a great honour to represent the people of South Australia.

The university's commitment to excellence is also reflected in the calibre of their academics and researchers. The number of UniSA staff with doctoral qualifications has grown remarkably, and 73 per cent of the academic staff now hold a PhD, providing highly qualified human capital at the university. Throughout the last 25 years of history, UniSA has produced some of the most cutting-edge, industry relevant research and inspirational graduates who continue to make an impact on their communities.

UniSA has more than 189,000 alumni worldwide. These alumni live in more than 150 countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Vietnam. Ninety-one per cent of UniSA graduates going on to full-time work are employed in a professional occupation within four months of completing their degree. (This is from the Australian Graduate Survey.) UniSA is in the top 50 of world universities under 50 years old, according to the Times Higher Education world university rankings.

In the 2015 Centre for World University Rankings, UniSA is ranked in the top 10 nationally for the indicator Alumni Employment which is measured by the number of university alumni who currently hold CEO positions at the world's top 2,000 public companies relative to their university size. In 2005, BOSS magazine of the Australian Financial Review has ranked University of South Australia's MBAs the ninth in Australia in its national biannual survey of MBAs.

Last year I was very honoured to be invited to attend the inaugural UniSA Alumni Gala Dinner Awards 2015. I would like to highlight a number of exceptional university alumni. Rachael Sporn OAM, who we know participates in elite sport, played at the elite level for 19 years. Rachael took to the court in 340 games as a member of the Australian women's basketball team, the Opals. I am sure the Hon. Terry Stephens knows her quite well in his role as the shadow minister and shadow parliamentary secretary for sport. Rachael played in three world championship teams. They made three Olympic appearances picking up a bronze medal in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics, a silver medal in Sydney in 2000 and again in Athens in 2004.

Rachael graduated from the University of South Australia with a Bachelor of Education in secondary physical education and mathematics. She was awarded an Order of Australia in 2015 in the Australia Day Honours for her services both to basketball and the community. She has twice been inducted into the South Australian Sporting Hall of Fame as a team member of Adelaide Lightning and then as an individual. She coaches and is very involved in the basketball league, and she credits her academic background for her success, in particular in PE teaching for her ability to organise and to lead. She has credited that to the University of South Australia.

Professor Tom Calma AO is a respected Aboriginal elder who, for over 40 years, has worked in local communities at a state and international level, championing the rights, responsibilities and welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Upon graduating in 1978, Professor Tom Calma led the creation of and became the lecturer in the Aboriginal Task Force program at the Darwin Community College in 1979 and 1980, again devoting his considerable talents and energies to improving and extending the lives of his people.

Professor Calma is also a strong advocate for Indigenous rights and empowerment, in addition to the Closing the Gap campaign. His many awards include the Order of Australia in 2012 for distinguished service to the Aboriginal community and being named ACT Australian of the Year in 2013. He is now the Chancellor of the University of Canberra. He was the first Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander man in 164 years of history to hold the position of chancellor at any Australian university.

The next very distinguished alumni is Rob Chapman. He is the chair of the Adelaide Football Club, the Adelaide Airport, the state's inaugural Investment Attraction Agency and is a director of Vinomofo, one of Australia's fastest growing companies. Rob Chapman also chairs Barossa Infrastructure, Fortis Ago Corporate Advisory, The Engine Room and Perks Integrated Business Services. He is deputy chair of the South Australian Economic Development Board, the South Australian Economic Development Cabinet Committee and a director of TAFE.

Rob graduated in 1982 with an Associate Diploma in Business from the South Australian Institute of Technology which is now part of UniSA. He believes this degree was great preparation for his professional life as it covered the many disciplines such as management leadership and organisational structure that formed the bedrock of his future career. His career highlights include chair of Bank SA Advisory Board, managing director of Bank SA, chief executive of St George Bank and the regional general manager for Western Australia, South Australia and Northern Territory of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

During 2015, the alumni awards also went to Poh Ling Yeow. I know the Yeow family very well through the Malaysian community of South Australia. The community is certainly very proud of Poh Ling. Poh is a fifth-generation Malaysian-born Chinese from Kuala Lumpur, who feels that she really only found her feet from the day she turned nine years old and became a resident of Australia. She graduated from Seymour College and began a Bachelor of Design degree at the University of  South Australia, became an artist and worked as a graphic designer and illustrator, then turned her talents to make-up artistry. Poh was a mature-age student at UniSA. In her words, she said, 'I had already done all my travel, and I went in with a complete focus on my studies.'

She became a full-time artist in 2002, working mainly with acrylic paint on canvas. Her painting explores notions of belonging and reconciling her Asian heritage with her Western identity. Poh participated in 28 exhibitions, 20 of which have been solos. In 2009, Poh's life changed, and she became a household name when she became the second runner-up in the first season of MasterChef Australia. She made her mark then, and in the following years she was offered her own cooking show, Poh's Kitchen, on ABC television, and since then she has definitely become a household name.

The university has a longstanding commitment to equity and diversity. In 1993, it was the first Australian university to appoint a pro-vice chancellor with the task of improving access to tertiary education. Since then, the university has made tertiary study a reality for thousands of students from a variety of backgrounds, including Indigenous students, students with disabilities and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. This commitment to equity has also been recognised by the Good Universities Guide 2015, with a five-star rating for the socio-economic equity of our student population.

On the topic of equity and diversity, I would like to pay a special tribute to Way Lee. Way Lee was a Chinese rice miller who, in the 19^th century, against a backdrop of rising racism in Adelaide, introduced the idea of international trade with China as well as the benefits of multicultural engagement. Fighting through two false criminal accusations that were mounted by anti-Chinese political forces at the time, Way Lee became widely respected and honoured due to his commitment to his new home in Adelaide as well as his charity and community engagement activities. Way Lee's contribution to the state of South Australia may be generally unheard of but is acknowledged at the university's City West campus, as the Way Lee Building is named after him.

UniSA was the first university to implement the Football United program outside of New South Wales. The program provides free football matches for at-risk youth and, particularly, for refugees, migrants and Indigenous children. UniSA has been acknowledged as the employer of choice for women by the commonwealth government's Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency for the past 11 years. UniSA has also achieved a QS five-star business school ranking, awarded by the Quacquarelli Symonds international rating system, placing the university in the top 1 per cent of business schools globally. UniSA's MBA program is also rated five star in five subcategories: teaching and student quality, internationalisation and diversity, facilities, engagement, and program strength.

Their researchers are engaged in more than 500 international collaborations worldwide across 45 countries. The university is well connected to industry through more than 2,000 partnerships of local and global heavyweights, including Hills Limited, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Santos, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Google, ANZ, ESPN, Foxtel, Mars, Nielson and more.

As the shadow parliamentary secretary for small business, I recognise that reputation is everything in business. It is why UniSA sought the very highest standard of accreditation from the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) for their Business School. Their Business School is the largest in South Australia and they have held this accreditation for more than 10 years. They are also one of only eight Australian universities and 156 universities worldwide to gain this prestigious accreditation.

The Centre for Business Growth at the uni guides small to medium enterprises on the path to greatness, with innovative diagnostic tools, research and world-leading experts. I have been quite involved with the Centre for Business Growth through the launch and also with a number of companies that engage in that program. ANZ recently announced that five local businesses will be taking part in an intensive nine-week program that will provide executives with the skills to help accelerate company growth and compete in the global marketplace.

The program is run in partnership with the University of South Australia and facilitated by business professor Dr Jana Matthews and nine national and international growth experts. The ANZ Business Growth program is open to executive teams with between five and 200 employees and more than $5 million in annual sales. It is the small business sector that I look after and I am very proud of their achievements.

The companies who participated in 2015 have since achieved an aggregate 24 per cent increase in revenue, taking earnings from $132 million to $164 million, and created 114 new jobs in total. Forty per cent of the participants are now selling their products and services in nine new countries, with 30 per cent of businesses opening up offices in new countries.

Along with their successful alumni, the University of South Australia has been recognising individuals who have had a distinctive contribution to public service or service to the university by honouring them with a doctorate. A number of outstanding individuals have played an exceptionally strong part in the shaping of our society, economically, socially, academically, culturally and scientifically. I would just like to highlight a few of these wonderful individuals. Unfortunately, I am not able to name them all as the honorary doctorates date back to 1993, with a total of 91 doctorates. However, I will highlight a few well-known personalities today.

There are two former governors of South Australia: Sir Eric Neal and the late Dame Roma Mitchell AC. We also have the Hon. Alexander Downer, who is the current Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom; the Hon. Mike Rann, former premier; Dr Alfred Hwang, the former lord mayor; Dr Wolf Blass AM; Dr Patricia Crook AO; and Maggie Beer AM, to name just a few. The University of South Australia regards as paramount keeping in contact with their alumni and honorary doctorates as leaders and ambassadors of the university.

The educators, management and staff of the university are innovative, creative and focused on graduating the next wave of global professionals. As UniSA continues to strive for excellence, their vision today is that they will become a leading contributor to Australia, having the best higher education system in the world, supporting the best educated and most innovative and cohesive society.

The University of South Australia has expanded its global engagement over the last couple of years and has created further engagement strategies with China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and India. The University of South Australia has a long and rich history of collaboration in China and has recently partnered with three leading Chinese universities—Tianjin University, Shandong and Beijing Normal University—to establish joint research centres.

In addition, UniSA has had a long history of research and teaching interaction with Japan, ranging from university studies at Waseda University to engineering research links with the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Engineering to joint social science research with Keio University's Graduate School of Human Relations. Throughout UniSA's 25 years of establishment, it has managed to create strong partnerships with eight various Japanese universities, some of which I have mentioned already. I will list them: Keio, Waseda, the University of Tokyo, Tsukuba, Nagoya, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, Kwansai Gawuin University and Okayama University.

Another country that UniSA has established an excellent relationship with is Malaysia. Malaysia is a country with a sophisticated education sector and it has many education partnerships with Australian institutions. The long history of interaction with Australia dates from the original Colombo Plan, where many high-level executives in Malaysia were educated in Australia and, to this day, maintain close links.

When I was on a study tour to South Korea last year, I discussed with Mr Jonathan Hwang, President of the Australia-Korea Business Council of South Australia that I am an ambassador for the Confucius Institute. In our discussion we explored and investigated whether there are similar education centres like the Confucius Institute in Korea. Mr Hwang recommended that I get in touch with the King Sejong Institute.

The King Sejong Institute is a brand name that the South Korean government launched in order to comprehensively provide Korean language learners and teachers with an integrated study and information service. Sejong was the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, who created the Korean alphabet in 1446. The King Sejong Institute was looking for opportunities to establish institutions worldwide, and I raised this matter with the University of South Australia through Professor Nigel Relph. I have good news for honourable members. On Wednesday 22 June (two weeks ago), I received an email from Seoul, and I quote:

Hi Jing

Just a brief note (sent from Seoul) to let you know that UniSA has been successful in its application to secure a King Sejong Institute. It wouldn't have come without your original suggestion! We will launch officially on the 30^th September and I do hope you will be available to join that celebration.

Best regards

…Prof David G. Lloyd, Vice-Chancellor & President

University of South Australia

International education is a major contributor to the development of a student's ability to engage and develop strategies that will build an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable world. It is very exciting that the University of South Australia's international students have come from over 140 countries. From these international links, UniSA has been able to contribute to a worldwide alumni network of almost 200,000 graduates.

International relations have benefited UniSA in many research projects, including many publications. I was very honoured to be invited as a guest speaker in February last year, when I launched a book called Rural Transformation in China and Beyond with authors Ying Zhu, Hong Lan, Ke Xing, Kris Schneider, David Ness, Seung-Hee Lee and Jing Ge.

The book represents one of the first attempts by a multidisciplinary research team, encompassing social science, business, architecture and planning, engineering, and finance and economics to help rural communities discover a sustainable and self-reliant path to development and transformation. The authors demonstrated interconnected community enterprises based on renewable energy, water, and waste management, and certainly ought to be congratulated. The book is a fantastic resource that offers knowledge that can be beneficial to our regions. I was very honoured to be able to help launch the book at the University of South Australia.

In my final remarks, I would like to place my gratitude on the record, my sincere thanks and acknowledge the incredible work and dedication of the University of South Australia leadership team, in particular my very good friend Professor David Lloyd, the Vice Chancellor and President of UniSA and my good friend, Nigel Relph, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice President, External Relations and Strategic Projects. They have done remarkable work. I recognise and pay tribute to their great network and collaboration for industry.

I would also like to acknowledge the work and leadership of past and present chancellors, presidents and all the staff for their outstanding contributions over the last 25 years. It is my absolute pleasure to move this motion today. My heartfelt congratulations to the University of South Australia on their 25^th anniversary. Yes, I am very proud of my own university and it is an honour to say a few words and pay tribute to the university. I commend the motion to the council.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.