Page 1244 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 29 March 2017
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Without opportunities to work with counterpart commonwealth agencies in areas of common specialist interest, our higher education institutions may start to lose some relevance. If commonwealth agencies are moved out of Canberra it adversely affects our institutions and the thousands of students we attract to Canberra each year.
We educate around 44,000 higher education students and over 20,000 vocational students each year, including more than 14½ thousand international students and a similar number from interstate. These students come here because we have great higher education and training facilities but also because we have career opportunities in government agencies. (Time expired.)
MR PETTERSSON: Minister, how important is it to maintain close linkages between research agencies located in the territory and counterpart commonwealth agencies also located here?
MS FITZHARRIS: It is vitally important to maintain close linkages between research agencies located in the territory and counterpart commonwealth agencies. I have already outlined the impacts of the move of the APVMA, as have other members. Members opposite may not fully appreciate the breadth of the collaboration between our higher education sector and the commonwealth government. For example, let me focus on one area: climate change.
The ANU Climate Change Institute works closely with a number of commonwealth agencies based here, including the Climate Change Authority and the CSIRO. For example, the Climate Change Institute and the CSIRO have worked closely on the impact of climate change on agricultural systems. This is crucial work that requires sustained interaction between research scientists based here in the capital.
The value of having these key institutions based in Canberra has long been recognised. It is the reason the Chifley government moved the CSIRO headquarters to Canberra from Melbourne nearly 70 years ago. That decision was right then and it is right now.
Research, with national application, undertaken in concert with our great universities and commonwealth departments and agencies should rightly be conducted here and the agencies that undertake that work should remain here. We should be proud of the excellent research capabilities we have here in Canberra and do more to support them and the work they do to support commonwealth government agencies.
Relocating the CSIRO or any other capital-based commonwealth agency purely for political purposes undermines the city, our research sector and the Canberrans who work with these organisations.
Some of the research that comes out of Canberra is possible because of the links from our higher education sector, and the ability of our city to attract and retain leading thinkers and scientists. I am proud to support our research sector here in Canberra. I know that our government agencies benefit greatly from having scientific and research expertise so close by. Risking that by moving government agencies out of our city is foolish, and we condemn it.
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