The shape of things to come

Training is a PM priority

Prime Minister Albanese was asked when he would fix the skills shortage in health at a presser in Perth yesterday – which a bare week in was a bit rich.

But his polite response indicated priorities, focusing on training and mentioning skills minister Brendan O’Connor, without a word about the university system that teaches and researches medicine, nursing and allied health.

But despair not, Ed Husic has big ideas for applying science, scroll down.

 

There’s more in the Mail

In Features this morning

James Guthrie (Macquarie U) on what MU’s annual report reveals, a lack of cash and a reliance on debt.

with Ryan Naylor (Uni Sydney) on student transition. Universities focus on transitioning into, and even out of, study. But what about undergrads who need help post (fingers crossed) COVID transitioning back to on-campus study? This week’s addition to Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed now in teaching and learning.

plus Merlin Crossley (UNSW) celebrates the election process and outcome. “When the whole world is investing in knowledge in science, developing understanding via the humanities and social sciences, how on earth did our past government appear to think the biggest issues at Australian universities are free speech and foreign interference, not teaching and research?”

and Samantha Hall reports a survey of PhD students on the space they need to thrive.

Husic tells scientists: “charge me up”

In his first speech as Industry and Science minister, Dan Husic said science is in his job title and “innovation” isn’t, is because, “we’re putting science back at the forefront”

“We are listening to the science, we’re respecting the science, we’re acting on the science … this is the signal that we wanted to send,” Mr Husic told a Science and Technology Australia dinner, late last week.

“But I need, also, your guidance and advice … you have got to charge me up.”

The minister set out specifics on the government’s agenda, including;

* “a critical technology sub fund” for the proposed $15bn National Reconstruction Fund, to support quantum, AI and robotics

* $1.5bn for medical manufacturing

* a “tweak” of HECS to provide students with $11 000 in capital, “to potentially create 2000 new firms through our university accelerators and incubators.”

Mr Husic also emphasised technology application, stating Australia need to be “a maker” not “a taker” and pointing to the vision of the Hawke Government and mentioning its creation of the Cooperative Research Centre programme.

“What we’re saying to you is, we want to be able to get the edge, because we’ve got other nations that we’re competing against. So, this is going to be really important for us to find that edge and we want to start that process and work with you on it,” he said.

On message

NTEU members at UTS have near unanimously voted to apply for Fair Work Commission approval of industrial action

It’s a “wonderful result, which shows the depth of feeling about secure jobs, workplace restructuring, over-work, gender affirmation leave and a fair pay rise,” says National Tertiary Education Union NSW secretary, Damien Cahill (via Twitter). Which is what pretty much what he said when members at Uni Newcastle voted to go out last week.

Todays Headline Story

Uni merger on Adelaide agenda

The SA budget includes funding for an inquiry

Which should take nobody by surprise. Premier Peter Malinauskas put the issue on the agenda in opposition and campaigned on it for the March election. And so his first budget includes $1m for a “commission to advise the government on a university merger.”

Headed by “an eminent commissioner with experience in higher education,” it will “engage with business leaders, university unions and student representatives” and “the leadership of the three universities”

The commission will have three FTE staff and presumably will report in 12 months, (there’s no money for ’23-24).

But why? : “The harsh truth is that each of our universities is too small and too under-capitalised to make it into the list of top international universities. They simply don’t do enough large-scale research to be recognised as world leading and that is holding our state back,” Mr Malinauskas said in 2019

His objective for a merger is “creating an internationally recognised top 100 university and driving the state’s economic growth for decades to come (CMM November 2 2020)

And to what purpose?: Uni SA VC David Lloyd wonders. In April he suggested that if the premier wants a global top 100 university hiring talent and concentrating research would do it, although that would not have economy-building outcomes. Instead he suggests, having an Australian top-three university in SA, is “interesting and ambitious.” (CMM April 13).

The comrades are ambivalent: The National Tertiary Education Union has surveyed members about a merger. Just over 52 per cent responded agin and over a quarter are ambivalent. Some 85 per cent of respondents supported a term of reference which rather questions holding an inquiry into a merger at all, “it should explore, whether smaller, more nuanced and bespoke universities serve their respective communities and histories better than one giant, super-university.”

Over-ruling the ARC started way back

The conservatives have been vetoing research grants since the ‘90s

Critics of former education minister Stuart Robert vetoing ARC recommended research grants point to predecessors Dan Tehan and Simon Birmingham doing the same – and way back Brendan Nelson did as well (three grants in 2004).

But an excellent analysis by the Parliamentary Library points to an even older example. Back in 2006 then Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone told a Senate  committee hearing she had a memory of vetoing ARC grants – which must have been when she was education minister (March 1996-October ’97).

“There is no point in sending projects to a minister for approval if you mean: ‘Rubber-stamp them.’ Of course you have advisory bodies, and you want to listen to them, but that does not rule you out of having any say. Otherwise, we would simply give the money to a separate body and say: ‘Here. Do with it what you want. Don’t bother coming and reporting to us. We don’t care. It’s taxpayers’ money.’ That is a ludicrous proposition. There will be occasions, hopefully, when a minister will override advice they are given, otherwise the Public Service is running the country and an election is not worth having, because it is just a joke. The executive is a joke; parliament is a joke, if that is what happens,”  she said (February 15 2016).

In opposition, then shadow education minister Tanya Plibersek committed to not overruling ARC recommendations (CMM January 20).