Page 1053 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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For me, amalgamation is still the aim. I believe that in due course the institutions will merge; inevitably, the benefits will be recognised; they will see the models in all the merged institutions around Australia and recognise that that is where their future lies. I do not know whether that is going to be three, five or ten years. I look now to discussions between this Government, bearing in mind the recommendations in this report, and Minister Dawkins. Let us look to the future of these institutions and secure the very best future for them that we can.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.55): I rise to commend the recommendations of the report to the Assembly. I think that this committee was a good example of the benefits in this Assembly of having open-minded inquiry through the agency of our committees. I would not be so naive as to pretend that all inquiries necessarily achieve the same level of open-minded inquiry that we would like but I think that this particular committee did.
I do not think either that I would entirely agree with or use the same words as Dr Kinloch when he described how each of the three of us approached our task at the outset. I think he said that none of us came with any preconceived conclusions. I think all of us had at least some politically motivated or preferred starting points, if I can put it that way, and I think the advantage of the way in which we conducted our inquiry was that we all, by the end of the inquiry, had moved somewhat in our positions. I know that is true of myself and I think it is also true of the other two members.
From my point of view, and I think I probably speak for Dr Kinloch as well, we started from the position that any compromising of the existing role of the Australian National University in particular would be unfortunate and to be resisted, and I think that Mr Wood probably started from the point of view that he had something of a brief to defend the position taken by his Federal colleague, the Minister for Education, even if that was only a rearguard action on the question.
It is now true that both Dr Kinloch and I, at least, accept that some compromise in the role of the ANU, in particular, must occur and, although Mr Wood has made it clear that he prefers amalgamation as his first choice, he accepts, I think graciously, that the second preference, which is our view of what should occur, is a good one and that is that there should be some gentler, more long-term and better negotiated collaboration, perhaps leading to amalgamation between the ANU and the CCAE. We have accepted already that the ANU and the Institute of the Arts should amalgamate immediately because they are contiguous, because their aims are compatible, and because both institutions in particular want the amalgamation to occur.
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