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Transcript
INTERVIEW WITH MIKE CARLTON - 2UE UWS
Thursday 4 March 2004 - MIN 637/04
Mike Carlton:
Good morning Minister.
Brendan Nelson:
Oh good morning Mike, and thanks for having me.
Mike Carlton:
No, it’s a pleasure, thanks for coming on. UWS is very very worried, and why should they be $10 million worse off when they’re a battling university, serving Sydney’s west?
Brendan Nelson:
Well Mike, as you said in your introduction, and I apologise to your listeners in that it is a complex system for funding universities. What we did, over the last two years, is working with the sector. We said, “what do we have to do to make Australian universities world class and make sure our kids get a decent high quality education, instead of being jammed in like sardines when they get into lecture theatres.” One of the many changes that we did was to say to universities, and they pushed this Mike, was to say, “look, fund us on the basis of what we actually do.” And what happened is, over the last twelve years, UWS, which used to have a lot of people in agricultural science and high cost courses, it moved out of those high cost courses into lower cost courses. So, for example, Mike it costs six or seven times more to train a student in agricultural science than it does business administration.
Mike Carlton:
Yes, I understand that.
Brendan Nelson:
The end result of that is that of the 38 universities across the country, we’ve got a small number, UWS being one of them, that if you actually fund them for what they deliver today, which is predominantly in business and commerce and management and lower cost courses, they would lose money, in fact University of Western Sydney would lose about $7.5 million if we just simply applied the new formula. But instead of that, every last dollar that they would lose, which is about $5.5 million next year and $2 million in 2006, we are actually going to go out there and give them a cheque to fully compensate them for that, but in addition to that I’ll also be committing ...
Mike Carlton:
Let me just work this out. The Chancellor,
Brendan Nelson:
Vice Chancellor
Mike Carlton:
Sorry, Vice Chancellor, Janice Reid, says she’ll be $10 million down, compared to the old funding formula, right?
Brendan Nelson:
Yes, that’s Jan’s argument, yes.
Mike Carlton:
Right. But is she right when she says that? Given the fact they’ve changed the courses and they’re teaching cheaper courses and so on. You’ve said we’re not going to pay for the expenses of courses you’re not teaching, right?
Brendan Nelson:
Yes, basically most of the universities are getting a huge amount of extra public money because they’ve been underfunded for what they’re doing, they’ve moved into higher costs. It’s not Jan’s fault, by the way, but a university responding to demand in the area. They want.....
Mike Carlton:
That’s obviously, I would have thought you’d approve of that.
Brendan Nelson:
Well of course and instead of.. they’ve got less kids with their arms up the backsides of cows on the Hawkesbury and more of them in lecture theatres that are learning how to run businesses. So Professor Reid has spent a lot of time with me and my Department and officials and bureaucrats and we have agreed on the figures in terms of what we need to provide to them to make sure they’re not a dollar worse off. And that’s about ..
Mike Carlton:
And is that going to happen?
Brendan Nelson:
It most certainly is. In fact as a part of the $2.5 billion of your listeners hard earned taxes we’re putting into the sector, extra in the next five years, there’s a $40 million transition fund to make sure that not a single dollar is lost from any university, to fully compensate them until they are demonstrably better off.
Mike Carlton:
Alright, but has UWS got enough of that transition fund?
Brendan Nelson:
Well it certainly has, but I’ve had a long talk to my officials and, I listen very carefully to your program Mike, which is very good...
Mike Carlton:
Righto, you’re just trying to stroke me, go on
Brendan Nelson:
I better not go further into that. But I’ve spent a lot of time working with my officials and what we’re going to do is to commit an extra $2 million from that transition fund to the University of Western Sydney. So, I’ll just say to you Mike, that University of Western Sydney will not only lose a single dollar of taxpayer funding, it will get an extra $2 million from the transition.
Mike Carlton:
And that’s a new decision today?
Brendan Nelson:
It most certainly is. And the second thing is, that there are 223 students there, who are going to get scholarships worth up to $16,000 each, tax free.
Mike Carlton:
Is that a new decision today as well, or?
Brendan Nelson:
No, no, that’s something your listeners may not be aware of. This is actually to help them with their living expenses. The real costs at uni are not HECs, which you pay back when you’re a graduate and earning more than $35,000 a year, the real costs are trying to buy your computer, accommodation, transport, living expenses..
Mike Carlton:
Don’t I know it.
Brendan Nelson:
Yep. And in addition to that, when I met with Jan in the last week of the Senate deliberations, I said “Look Jan, what do you want?” And she said “Look we need more places, particularly for science.” And I said “How many?” She said “About 200”. So what I’ve done is I’ve committed a minimum 200 additional places in science, worth $2.5 million to the Uni. That will grow out to nearly 600 places over three years, that’s before I then carve up the extra 3,500 net extra places for New South Wales.
Mike Carlton:
Gees, anyone would think there’s an election?
Brendan Nelson:
Now, Mike. I appreciate you saying that and you have a healthy cynicism, but I’ve spent, we’ve spent two years working on this and this package was announced almost a year ago. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to get this through the Senate. In addition to that, by the way, there’s more than $2 million additional money for university to train its nurses and teachers. And the priorities for me, by the way, in distributing the extra places we’ve got for universities in New South Wales will be Newcastle University, UWS, UNE, Southern Cross and Charles Sturt in Wollongong. I mean ..
Mike Carlton:
Great
Brendan Nelson:
This is where we want to get them.
Mike Carlton:
Alright. Thank you. So an extra $2 million as of today, to UWS, and these 200 science places they want?
Brendan Nelson:
That’s precisely what they’re going to get. This University is critically important.
Mike Carlton:
Thanks very much, good to talk to you.
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