PM Transcripts

4Jj> AUST HA LIA
PRIME MINISTER PRESS STATEMENT NO. 19.
December 1972
TERTIARY EDUCATION
The Australian Government has begun moves for greater
decentralisation of tertiary education.
Part of this process will be rationalisation of tertiary
education in Sydney to take into account population distribution.
The Prime Minister, Mr. ' hitlamn, initiated the moves with
letters to the chairmen of the Australian Universities Commission
and of the Australian Commission on Advanced Education this week.
He has asked them to prepare a joint report on the
location, nature and development of tertiary institutions
throughout and near the Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan areas
and in the Albury-, iodonga region.
: He asked that the report be made as a matter of urgency
by the end of March next year.
In his letters to the chairmen, Mr. ' hitlam pointed out
that the Australian Government intends to raise with the States
next year the question of the Commonwealth assuming financial
responsibility for tertiary education.
He also said that the Government would not necessarily
preclude consideration being given to the establishment of one or
more location of an institution which did riot conform with
the pattern of existing colleges and universities.
This applied to the extent that the institution offered
courses which perhaps spanned and even went beyond the interests
of both present universities and colleges of advanced education.
As Leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party, Mr. Whitlam
has previously said that tertiary institutions should be established
at Penrith and Campbelltown, near Syduieyo"
In his election policy speech, he said that at Albury-
Wodonga the Commonwealth had the constitutional jurisdiction and
the administrative options to establish another inland city the
size of Canberra.
CANB SRRA. A. C. T.