Page 2408 - Week 11 - Thursday, 2 November 1989
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University of Canberra is clearly vested in the Commonwealth, and it would be not possible for the parliament of the ACT unilaterally to attract that power to itself.
So it would, I think, be regarded as inappropriate for this parliament to consider legislation without the full cooperation of the Commonwealth Parliament. We could end up looking very silly if we were to purport to pass legislation in an area in which we did not have the jurisdiction. I think that it was prudent of the Government not to act on that recommendation at this time.
We have indicated our preference, indeed, for such legislation to be passed by our Government. But, after the $22.7m that we did not get from the Commonwealth this year, it will not be the first time that we have been disappointed in terms of outcomes in relation to our approaches to the Commonwealth.
There has been a range of approaches to the Commonwealth in relation to the legislation and the role of the ACT. The most recent of those was a letter from the Chief Minister on Tuesday night, in which she raised with the Commonwealth Minister responsible particular aspects of the legislation currently before the Commonwealth Parliament, and they are in relation to representation on the university council and the number of representatives appointed on the recommendation of the Commonwealth compared with the number recommended by the ACT Government. To the best of my knowledge, we have not yet had a response from Mr Dawkins on that.
MR HUMPHRIES: I wish to ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. With respect, I am very grateful to hear the Minister say that representations have been made about the composition of council, but the Minister has not answered the part of the question which asked: did the Government discuss with the Federal Government the creation of the University of Canberra as ACT legislation rather than as Federal legislation?
MR WHALAN: Not formally, Mr Speaker. I can answer that there was no formal level of discussion, but at an informal level I had discussions on this issue with Mr Dawkins at the Australian Education Council meeting in Melbourne several weeks ago. It was as an outcome of those informal discussions that Mr Dawkins immediately wrote to Professor Scott of the University of Canberra and informed him that it was appropriate for the university to commence using the designation "the University of Canberra". But it was clear at an informal level that the Commonwealth was not prepared to hand over the jurisdiction in relation to that university to the ACT.
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