Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The decision by Swinburne University to close its Lilydale campus is a decision that they should not have made. Recently Swinburne, which has a number of campuses, announced it would close its Lilydale campus. It said that the decision for this closure was largely to do with a refocusing of funding by the state government with respect to TAFE courses. A close examination of Swinburne's recent history demonstrates some other very significant factors and I would say at the outset that a refocusing of funding by the state government that focuses funding on courses where students have a greater chance of getting a job, as opposed to courses where that is not the case, is something anyone with an interest in sensible public policy would support.

Swinburne's history tells the story, unfortunately, of a university with its heart not in the Yarra Valley campus. In 2006, six years ago, they removed their vice-chancellor from the Lilydale campus. Over the last six years, enrolments are down 16 per cent. Over the last five years, their profit is down 20 per cent. All of these points of fact, outlined by my state colleague Christine Fyffe, indicate that Swinburne had been looking for any excuse to depart the Lilydale campus. That track record over the last six years is unfortunate given the history. All these things—the 16 per cent fall in enrolments and the withdrawal of the Vice Chancellor in 2006, all long before any change in state funding for vocational education and training—have been used as an excuse, in my view, for Swinburne to do what it had been planning to do all along.

The Lilydale campus was brought about through a great community contribution around 20 years or so ago. Six large industrial blocks of land were compulsorily acquired and offered for the new facility. Commonwealth, state and some Swinburne capital was used to develop the site, but essentially the land was obtained through the compulsory acquisition and gifted at a peppercorn rate to Swinburne.

If Swinburne is blind to the opportunities of the Yarra Valley and want to leave, which they are doing, let them leave, I say. But let them leave what they were gifted by the community. If they have been gifted land by the community to create an educational precinct in the Yarra Valley, leave behind what they were given. Do not sell what was gifted. If we in the Yarra Valley cannot appeal to their common sense, let us at least appeal to their conscience, because this precinct must remain an educational facility in the Yarra Valley.

I think Swinburne are backward looking in leaving a most dynamic region like the Yarra Valley, with all that it offers. But if they wish to leave let a more forward-looking institution—and there are so many of them in Australia—with a greater capacity to seize the opportunities of our dynamic region come in and be gifted what Swinburne was gifted. Do not use the opportunity of a state budget announcement to cover a plan that has clearly been there for those many years when their heart was not in the Lilydale campus. Let an educational facility remain.