Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Amendment (University College London) Bill 2010, which will enable the university to operate as an education provider in Australia for the first time, to be located in my home town of Adelaide. The amendment in this bill will allow the university to offer an industry focused master’s degree to students in the much-needed area of energy and resources by inserting the university into table C of providers within the Higher Education Support Act.

The coalition welcomes University College London to Australia. We are a party of choice and diversity, and we have long argued that diversity among institutions gives students greater opportunity, encourages innovation and increases competition and excellence. Just as Australia is establishing branches, campuses and collaborations in other countries, foreign countries are also looking to expand their investment and their markets overseas. University College London joins a growing list of foreign universities to establish branches within Australia. Students will be able to enrol in a range of programs to address areas of skills shortages identified by industry and government. Through its partnerships with energy company Santos, the university will offer the exciting opportunity for students to undertake world-class learning.

University College London is a very high-quality research institution and education provider. It ranked third in the UK and seventh globally in the Times Higher Education rankings in 2009, and it has had several Nobel Prize winners. UCL has a distinguished history. Founded in 1826, it was the first institution in the United Kingdom to offer access to students regardless of their religious beliefs and the first to welcome both men and women equally. It is no surprise, then, that in 1888, at the age of 19, Mohandas Gandhi attended UCL to study law and train as a barrister. He was just one in a long list of notable alumni to attend UCL.

It is worth remembering and reminding the House that it was the coalition government who first paved the way for overseas higher education providers to operate in Australia. It was a coalition government that first amended the legislation to enable the table C provision for approved overseas higher education institutions. It arose from a proposal by Carnegie Mellon University to establish an Australian campus in 2004, also in Adelaide. The Carnegie Mellon proposal was to offer postgraduate courses in information technology, public administration and business management in Adelaide, and we faced criticism at the time. Some were concerned that opening up the market to private providers would undercut public universities. My colleagues at that time Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson and Julie Bishop pressed on, and in 2005 the act was amended to provide the framework for all approved overseas higher education institutions to operate a branch in Australia. Subsequently Carnegie Mellon was able to open its first offerings in Adelaide in 2006.

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