Page 340 - Week 03 - Thursday, 1 June 1989
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AMALGAMATION OF TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS - SELECT COMMITTEE
MR HUMPHRIES, by leave, (11.06): I move:
That:
(1) A select committee be established to inquire into and report on the amalgamation of the Australian National University, the Canberra College of Advanced Education and the Canberra Institute of the Arts, including -
(a) possible alternatives to amalgamation; and
(b) the appropriate relationship between the ACT Executive and those institutions.
(2) The committee report by 27 July 1989.
(3) The committee consist of Mr Humphries, Dr Kinloch and Mr Wood.
(4) A majority of members constitutes a quorum of the committee.
(5) The committee be provided with the necessary staff, facilities and resources.
(6) The foregoing provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.
Mr Speaker, if I might speak to that motion, I will explain in due course why I have sought the leave graciously given by this Assembly to alter the thrust of my motion today. I will say, first of all, a few words about the reason for this issue being discussed today in the Assembly.
In the last two weeks we have discussed a range of issues that are important to Canberra. Most of them have been addressed in, I think, fairly general terms, and specific action has in most cases not been the order of the day. This matter is quite different. The two most important tertiary institutions of education in the ACT face a very real threat today. Despite the fact that the Assembly has no statutory power to interfere between those institutions and what I would call the threat to them, we nonetheless need to take immediate and effective action in respect of that threat.
Earlier this year the Federal Government introduced legislation into the Federal Parliament to begin the process of amalgamating the Australian National University, the Canberra College of Advanced Education and the Canberra Institute of the Arts. This amalgamation was proposed not in isolation but as part of a nationwide plan called the unified national system put up by the Federal Minister for Education, John Dawkins.
That system has been accepted in some places in Australia but rejected or modified in others, such that today it is not really either a national or a unified system. The Minister responsible, Mr Dawkins, has gone further than merely arguing for the merger of various tertiary institutions, including the three institutions proposed to be merged in the ACT.
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