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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-28 Daily Xml
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University Merger

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): My question is again to the Premier. Can the Premier advise the house what cost-benefit analysis has informed the government's current plan to pursue a university merger? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: The Labor Party's election commitment was to establish a university merger commission which would explore the risks and costs as well as the benefits and opportunities of a realignment of our tertiary institutions. After the election, the government instead entered into direct negotiations with Adelaide University and the University of South Australia.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:08): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I do want to thank the opposition for their interest in this subject matter because it is of material significance to the state.

The work that has been undertaken over the course of the last six months is being led by the universities themselves. Naturally, there has been engagement with the state government, given that we have a substantial interest in the policy outcome, but each university, in conjunction with each other but also, crucially, independently of each other, has been undertaking their own work around the cost-benefit analysis of the creation of a new university between both Adelaide and the University of South Australia.

It is important that each university council forms a view consistent with the best interests of those institutions individually, but it's also important, and I think appropriate, that those institutions think about the long-term interests of the state has a whole, which is our only consideration in terms of government.

Naturally, we have a different imperative from what they may have individually. Nonetheless, if the University of South Australia—and it is an 'if'; there are active deliberations underway at the moment—and the University of Adelaide independently arrive at their own view that the creation of a new university is in the interests of those institutions and their students, as well as in the interests of the state, then clearly that is something we would wholeheartedly support.

We announced that we were putting the university amalgamation commission on hold upon receipt of the news that those two universities were engaging with each other and undertaking that work. I am happy to say publicly that we understand both universities have done their own business cases, have done their own active consultation and have done their own very deliberate analyses that will be the subject of review and then subsequently a decision from those two university councils, and the government awaits the outcome of that endeavour.

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