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

University Merger

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:04): Today in question time, the government put forward their arguments as to why they have changed their election commitment from a universities commission to, instead, pursuit of a university merger without a commission, without a cost-benefit analysis, without a business case, without having made the case for why their approach will deliver what they say it will deliver.

To be clear, the Liberal Party has come at this proposal, as we have come to proposals for a university merger in the past, with an open mind, with potentially a level of scepticism, given that this proposal has not come organically from the universities, or from the community or from industry or business, but from the fevered imaginations of the campaign unit in the Labor Party headquarters. Nevertheless, we have said that if the universities sought an amalgamation, if indeed it was in the state's best interest, then the Liberal Party would take to it with an open mind and we would be prepared, and remain potentially prepared if we are convinced, to support legislation.

In our very first question today, we invited the Premier to outline the basis upon which he supports this proposal. We asked him what key benefits he sees resulting from his university merger plan. The Premier outlined very clearly that he sees two benefits for South Australia as a result of this. He said, firstly, that it will increase the volume of research being done in South Australia, and later on he went on to say that would automatically lead to a lift in the university rankings. I point out to the Premier that it is not the only thing they take into account in the rankings; nevertheless, an increase in research is not necessarily a bad thing.

The second point he made was that the government is keen to increase accessibility to as many young people as possible to get a university education. Of course, that is a good thing too. Over the course of nine or 10 questions, what he failed to do was explain how the government's proposition necessarily results in those two outcomes. To the point of the scale of universities, the government that initially wanted a top 100 university, now that we have a top 100 university by all the rankings that are coming out, now say we need a top 50 university. The government proposes that it will be a good thing to have the largest provider of higher education in the land, without taking into consideration the fact that a small minority of the world's top 50 universities have a scale of over 50,000 students, the sort of scale we are talking about. Size does not necessarily lead to a lift in the rankings.

The Premier talked about how it was going to provide better accessibility for students. He went on a Kennedy-esque peroration to suggest that this was something the government would do not because it is easy but because it is worth doing. I forget which quote he was trying to pretend to do. The fact is that the government has put forward no evidence as to why this proposal will lead to greater accessibility.

In fact, when the Leader of the Opposition raised a question about whether campuses would close, the Premier had no idea and refused to answer that question. He said, 'That's up to the universities.' When we asked about a business case or cost-benefit analysis or the sort of work that might have been done by the Labor government's initial promise of whether there are risks and costs in addition to the benefits and the opportunities, the Premier said, 'Well, the universities have done that work. The universities have done their business cases and their cost-benefit analyses.'

When we asked whether indeed there was going to be any analysis of those business cases so that the taxpayers of South Australia and South Australian students and staff at those universities might have some opportunity to analyse whether or not it was in the state's best interest, the Premier said, 'No, that's a matter for the universities.' So we asked the Treasurer—we asked the Premier, but the Treasurer answered—about the funding: 'How much funding are we talking about? Is it in the budget?' and the Treasurer said, 'No, it's not in the budget, but we have enough,' but I cannot find the word he used, but that is okay. He said that there was enough flex in the budget, that there was enough wriggle room in the budget to provide that funding.

They will not tell us what they have had discussions with the universities about. They will not tell us what the taxpayers are going to get for their money and how much it is going to cost. They dismissed sneeringly the concerns of academics and other staff, the union and stakeholders, and they completely dismissed concerns raised by the community.

We do not come here desiring to oppose this plan if it is in South Australia's best interest, but it is in taxpayers' interest for their government to be up-front and clear about how much money this is going to cost and what taxpayers are going to get for their money. So far, the government have utterly botched this process. They need to come clean, they need to be transparent and they need to start right now.

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