Page 4773 - Week 11 - Thursday, 20 October 2011
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Mr Doszpot did talk to me about having a date put into this amendment. I have put some thought into that. It was circulated. A date has not been put in there. My view is that we do need to have a report to go to the committee by November. I understand, from discussion with the minister’s office, that there is also a desire to move on this sooner rather than later. I understand that there is a stakeholder who has been given an extension of time for a submission. There is a concern that we do not want to miss out on that by having the November date if they get it in in early December. But I understand that there is a very clear view from the government that they want to move on this sooner rather than later.
As I said, I have not included a date in there, but it would be my expectation that we would be looking at late November or early December. If this does not occur, we can come back into this place and we can take the action at that time. I commend Ms Bresnan’s amendments to the Assembly.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (4.04): I would like to thank all of those who have spoken in this debate, especially my colleague Mr Smyth, who earlier canvassed all of the issues surrounding this and highlighted just how little is known about so many aspects of this proposed merger, amalgamation, fusion or whatever is the word that best describes or reflects the range of possible outcomes.
I also want to thank Ms Hunter and her staff for their cooperation and for the amendment and support for this motion. I flag that the Liberals will be supporting Ms Hunter’s amendment. Unlike many issues we debate in this chamber, this motion was, in truth, not one driven by partisan politics. It is great to see that our mutual concern for education has led us to this point, and I welcome the matter, in time, being referred to the education committee.
The consideration of a merger of any two educational institutions in any state would be deserving of thorough consideration. In Canberra, it is even more critical that we get it right. It is not something that we ought or should undertake without the utmost scrutiny—scrutiny to ensure that we understand all the financial and educational implications of this proposal for the University of Canberra, the CIT and the Canberra community. To date we have not had that. We have had two relatively hasty reports. We have had a contracted examination by Professor Bradley, who, by her own admission, did not look at or consider the financial aspects. We have had a brief, but hardly thorough, public submission process. And an internal committee is now going through these issues.
I do not know what the merits of a merger versus a non-merger might be, based on the information that we have before us at the moment. What I am concerned about is that I am not sure that those tasked with making the decision are fully informed either. There has been too little critical examination of these issues. Like Ms Hunter, I do not have a firm point of view as to the direction we should be taking with this. We need to examine a lot of detail, and a lot of information has to be put before us.
To this effect, I wrote to the minister for education over six weeks ago, I think, asking for financial analysis or any information that could shed a bit more light on why the
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