Page 1381 - Week 07 - Thursday, 24 August 1989
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AMALGAMATION OF TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS - SELECT COMMITTEE
Report
Debate resumed.
MRS NOLAN (4.59): It has been quite some time since this committee report was first brought into the house, so I am very pleased to see that we are now, today, finally going to approve the recommendations. Higher education has a critical role to play in the development of both Australia in general and the ACT in particular. Of course it is to the ACT that I want to address my remarks today.
The ACT at present has two fine and individual institutions teaching tertiary education at a high level. It would be a shame not only for those institutions but for the ACT if they were forced into an amalgamation with one another. An amalgamation between the ANU and CCAE would destroy the autonomy of both institutions and would run contrary to the widespread opposition of many of the staff and students in both.
The ANU is a university of national significance, Mr Speaker, and should remain so. It undertakes research tasks that have ramifications for the whole of Australia. I am talking about such matters as international trade issues and medical study. The CCAE, on the other hand, is a tertiary institution more specific to the Canberra community, and it fulfils this function to an excellent standard. It is incorrect for the Federal Minister for Education to simply assure us that both institutions will benefit from an amalgamation. This the Select Committee on the Amalgamation of Tertiary Institutions has clearly found.
The Federal Labor Government has consistently failed to give any evidence of financial or educational benefits which would accrue from a merger between the ANU and the CCAE. Mr Dawkins has been under the presumption that bigger is better, with no factual ground for the amalgamation that he is pushing for.
The recommendations of the report of the select committee should be wholly adopted as an ACT Government policy, Mr Speaker, because they best serve the interests of all concerned in the ACT. By adopting the committee's recommendations, the role of the CCAE as an institution responsive to the needs of the Canberra community will be preserved. The recommendation that the Commonwealth Government transfer the CCAE to the ACT Government will improve the situation, and the ANU will remain as a university that is of national significance if the recommendations are adopted. It is no good to come to a compromise between the two institutions by amalgamating them, thus detracting from the effectiveness of each.
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