Wednesday, 31 May 2023

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (12:40): (168) My question is to Minister Tierney in her capacity as minister for higher education and skills. From the budget handed down last week, and particularly given your ministers statement, which spoke about support for industry and skills in industry, what support is being given to the study of metallurgy in Victoria, particularly given resource extraction and mining are significant industries in this state?

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Agriculture) (12:41): This is in terms of my portfolio responsibility for higher education, Mr McCracken, is that right? Okay. In terms of higher education delivery and courses that are delivered, they are determined by the universities. Universities are independent, self-governing organisations.

David Davis interjected.

Gayle TIERNEY: But in terms of my responsibilities, Mr Davis, you well know that in terms of their delivery of courses, it is determined by the actual individual university. You will also know, Mr McCracken, that in terms of funding, the funding of universities is primarily the responsibility of the federal government.

In terms of my responsibilities – and I take it that you are a new member, so you have not necessarily been taken through this before – the fact is that what we have done is make a contribution. We set up a fund of $350 million during COVID because the federal government at the time refused to provide JobKeeper to the university sector. We set aside $350 million so that the universities could make applications so that we could align some of the activities that they needed to get done with the priorities of the state government, and everyone within the sector and everyone within industry said that that was a fantastic contribution and it was well thought through. In fact Dr Bach just said it was – absolutely it was.

We also have interactions with the vice-chancellors through our quarterly forums. I am often on the phone to them about a whole range of things, including student welfare issues. This is a government that takes its relationship with the university sector to be very important. We have got four universities that are dual sector, which do deliver vocational education and training courses as well. This is a sector that is highly regarded, and of course international students are incredibly important in terms of the culture of Victoria but also in terms of our relations with other countries.

In terms of the particular question you asked, this is a question that you should be putting to the universities, and indeed, as I said, there was $350 million that was available for the universities to make applications to do courses such as that. They obviously did not. They did not consider it important enough at that particular point in time, Mr McCracken.

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (12:44): Thanks for that response, I think. Given that there are actually no TAFE courses teaching metallurgy in Victoria, what are you going to do to support the teaching of metallurgy in Victoria, given that our industries are so important for resource extraction?

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Agriculture) (12:44): So now it is a question to the Minister for Training and Skills, not the Minister for Higher Education, is that right? In terms of that –

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: The minister will be heard for the last 46 seconds in silence.

Gayle TIERNEY: If it was so important, I would expect to have received representations in respect of this. I have not received those representations from industry. If I did, I would also get the Victorian Skills Authority to investigate in terms of the need, and then we would have further discussions if the need was determined.