Page 2272 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 August 2006
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Recruitment activities are ongoing and primarily focus on Canada. These activities in Canada include attending a “study abroad” fair. ACT Health’s web site has been updated to provide information for overseas recruitment. I hope that more students come to study health and allied health programs here in the ACT to assist us in dealing with the skill shortages that not only we are experiencing here but also are being experienced across the country and, indeed, internationally. We need to ensure that we continue to be an attractive place for students to come to.
I think our contribution of around $14 million in the recently opened ANU medical school at the Canberra Hospital and the Calvary campus, which I opened earlier this year, will assist us in attracting medical students to the ACT for study. Hopefully, once they have finished their degree, they will make the decision to continue working in the ACT. I should say that our first graduates coming out of the ANU medical school will finish next year. We will also take in our final-year students. We have also recently seen additional graduates in our physiotherapy area, and Allied Health is due to finish in December this year the work that is being done on the purpose-built building at UCan. So, again, there have been significant areas of investment by this government to make sure that we are attracting international students to the ACT.
This motion points out that student organisations continue to provide invaluable support for international students, and I have spoken before in this place about my concern around the federal government’s legislation against student unionism. Already we are seeing that this is seriously undermining student services in our campuses here. Anecdotally, my office is hearing that student organisation membership at the University of Canberra has dropped from 10,000 to a little over 300 members. Because of that reduction there has to be a consequential drop in the services provided to those students and that will affect local and international students alike.
We know that if you are given the option whether to pay for something, many people, particularly young people, will not choose to pay. Because of voluntary unionism, services which provide support to victims of sexual violence, services that support students with disabilities, services that provide childcare facilities for students while they pursue their education, and, of course, the provision of sporting facilities, which we have heard a number of speakers talk about, have been affected. I think it is really regrettable that in recent years we have seen this ideological push, and the effects of that push will be felt for many years to come by students at university who will not have access to the services that we had when we were students at university and which many of us took for granted.
We saw in Western Australia that the minute voluntary student unionism came in the services that were the first to go were the ones that were probably most needed by disadvantaged, vulnerable students on campus. They no longer have cheap, often free, access to support services. I guess this is in line with other decisions that have been taken where those who are poor, who are weak and who are not in a position to purchase services for themselves are being disadvantaged. I think all of us, even those on the opposition benches, will come to regret this decision once its full effect is felt in years to come. I have spoken before about this.
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