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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-07-06 Daily Xml
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Resolutions

Joint Committee on the Establishment of Adelaide University

The Legislative Council concurs with the resolution of the House of Assembly contained in message No. 88 for the appointment of a joint committee on the establishment of Adelaide University with the following amendment:

Paragraph 2—leave out 'four' and insert 'five'

To which amendment it desires the concurrence of the House of Assembly.

In the event of the committee being appointed, the Legislative Council will be represented on the committee by five members, of whom three shall form the quorum necessary to be present at all sittings of the committee. The members of the joint committee to represent the Legislative Council will be the Hon. C. Bonaros, the Hon. S.L. Game, the Hon. T.A. Franks, the Hon. J.S. Lee and the Hon. R.B. Martin.

The Legislative Council informs the House of Assembly that it has passed the following resolution:

That it be an instruction to the Joint Committee on the Establishment of Adelaide University that the joint committee be authorised to disclose or publish as it thinks fit any evidence or documents presented to the joint committee prior to such evidence or documents being reported to the parliament.

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) (17:12): I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendment be agreed to.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (17:12): The opposition will support this motion. I put on the record some factors in relation to the debate that has taken place today. I reiterate my concerns about process. I am not going to dwell on that, but the concerns I made clear between 12 and one remain. I think there were much better ways the government could have gone about this, in a more collegial way, especially given the outcome they are seeking to achieve.

Secondly, I reiterate that the Liberal Party approaches the question with an open mind. Acknowledging the need for timeliness, the Liberal Party supported the government in the Legislative Council against an adjournment in that time so that this matter could be dealt with today. Notwithstanding that we would not have dealt with it in this way, it provided a mechanism to deal with it today to start a committee inquiry sooner rather than later, and that is a good thing.

I remain concerned about certain aspects in the motion that were not amended by the Legislative Council, particularly in relation to the timing of the return. The Deputy Premier may note that we had a relatively modest amendment that we put forward in the Legislative Council of an extension of even just five weeks, which we felt might have provided some extra time. We are concerned about the brevity of this committee. We will make best endeavours in the time available to inform ourselves of the information necessary.

We remain concerned about the lack of breadth of the terms of reference. We will make best endeavours in good faith to use the terms of reference as they are to explore some of the other issues I referred to earlier, which I will restate briefly to ensure that it is very clear.

We will seek to utilise the terms of reference—and I think there is one on the second page that I alluded to earlier that may be helpful—to explore issues relating to the government's proposal that surround the governance and legislation itself. I am particularly thinking about the land use and particularly thinking about the impacts of the investment funds being targeted for just one institution and not others.

On face value, these terms of reference—again noting that we saw them for the first time about five hours ago—I do not think are adequate to that task, but we will explore that and work with the government in good faith to see if there are ways that we can ensure that those questions are able to be reasonably answered.

I appreciate the fact that there are a range of crossbenchers on the committee proposed from the Legislative Council and I understand that will be added to from the House of Assembly, so the committee will not be entirely controlled by the government. Should the house be good enough to appoint me to the committee, I look forward to working with all of them to explore these complex issues.

We will make best endeavours to get the information we need to find a logical path forward for this from the Liberal Party. We do so in good faith with an open mind, but a level of scepticism—especially, from our point of view, what we see as being a botched process up to now. Indeed, we encourage the government to reflect on the week that has passed. I think that there are ways we can operate as a parliament on behalf of the people of South Australia that are not bringing into question some of these matters that we have seen this week.

With that said, while I am disappointed in many aspects of the terms of reference and the time frame, the motion before us is that the amendment by the Legislative Council be agreed to. The amendment seeks to expand, I think, the Legislative Council representation by one and we certainly have no problem with that.

Motion carried.

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) (17:16): By leave, I move:

That the members of the House of Assembly on the joint committee be Mr Brown, S.E. Andrews, Hon. J.A.W. Gardner, Ms Hood, and the Hon. D.R. Cregan.

Motion carried.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I move:

That this house concurs with the resolution of the Legislative Council contained in message No. 88 that it be an instruction to the joint committee on the establishment of Adelaide University that the joint committee be authorised to disclose or publish, as it thinks fit, any evidence or documents presented to the joint committee prior to such evidence or documents being reported to the parliament.

Motion carried.

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