6 2/ OW~
STMSGAT ( NVFIIS BILL, l962
SNDE C RP DNG PRE~; c BY rTHE 11011.~ R._ TTETTPTPS
This is a b-;_ 11 to make rrants to the States for
U-niversities purposes. This is not tohe first bill of its kind, of
course, nor do I supposeC that i~ t wil~ l fbe the last. It falls into
two pcrts. In one part it deals witbhe recurrent grants to the
uni'versities under rhat li-1 call the nolrmal pattern-, -in the
second part it directs itselIf to thae proo. er of teact-ing hospitals
at-tached to uaniversitie s0 Th'ose are -two different matters. One
is old, but is being adjusted. The other is new. S o far a s thle
old is concerned~, many honourable members will. recall that, under
the St(-ates Gñ ants ( Universities) Act of 19609 vhich is the
. princi~ pal ect ' for this purose.;. provision was wiar;-e in section 6
that thle rate of basic-prcfessori-al rem-nerationi that is
thie approved ratf. e for the purposes of finaric-lal assistance under
this part -is : 04~., 000 per annLu., being the rate that was on
October, 1960, th., e rate applicable in a majority of the universities
in Aust-raliLa. That was not a * grovision a~ qich fixed professorial
salaries at : 24, 000 pe,. r 3nmn. I t i. a a provision which treated
œ e4 2000 as the average figu. re on " hhec Coxmmonwealth. grant
shiould be based. I viar~ t to mnale that quite cleoar. ': Ie are not
prestufiing to doterm-ine wh. t 19 tate unive.-sities shall pay to tiheir
o; n academiJc stafTfs,, but ~, obvIously, for the pureeses of
caculating whiat oughit to btc grante-,: d -to tho States under our
broad scheme w~ e miust riave soroce, firure as a point of roforence in
i'& i. ation to es~ ria T. e st tes bei-g presu-med to bo
in a certain ralationsliip to them Theefor-e, in te1960 actu-we
nam-ed œ C4_ 00O and then, be causo at hat t-;, Ime tile whole of tihe
salary s~ ructure was in a stato of flux and thecr_ wa re differenit
rules anpp1led in d-ifferent States, w~ e added a provision in section
6 sub-section whnich onablod Lthe Minister by an instrument
under his harid, to a: lter that filgure and thor ) fcre vary the grant,
On theP hole, ve thin! k -that sub-suctiOn is not a good
th-ing, I thirnk tlnat Tmnmrabjeer sv gonerally would agree th-at
if: 1 therve is to bea chonge in on~ e of the basic itams in the
CcuJ-la ion otf a Stato g-, ant t-he. Ho-Lso oughit to liave an opportunity
to look at 1it first., th. e re3fo-re I h-ave doci. ded that thnis subsection
oughit to goand that int fu-tlue if thera is any chiange in
the, poin-t of reforonce, as I hai" ve doscrmie it it ou,; ht to be
done by a measure bj.-ou,_ ht into this Hosone -; hIichi can be
discussed in this Houso,
So what wre are p-. toposing he~ re is to alter the provision
containcud i~ n s: ction 6o and to -Lepeal suction 6 so there
will not ba any adminis trati. ve doci. sion on thio matter, but a
statutory one. ThI'e alteatio i-' n section 6 hiaving regard to
wniat a special comi~ itzeo rocormec. ed to the AustEralian
Univers-ities Ccrrmi s. 5Lon aftur wide consultation, is to jincroaso
the point of refo3rence for -tte calculation of~ the rocurrent
grants from 42000 to œ, Z4., Y00 T'hat doe::-not me-,. an and I repoat
thi~ s that thlat is the salary for a univaisity prcfessor; but it
does mean thlat th-at is the isjr uron uh! c-Ich we calculate what we
are going to pay to tbno States In relation to their universities
for the current pericud.
M~ r. Cpean You do not look at eJ, -her a 7, ax. r. nun or a minimuzm.
MR. MENZIES No. I au C; Ia-d to be remntn'_ ed of th-is0 The
corfmrittee that rcorted on thu a matter thouglit that perhaps the
uniLversi-ties shiould adopt. a range of poXsorclsalarie's and
siuggsted, in fact. thiac i uhtt u ac-co. rn toc their
judmont and according to -the facu,. Ityr concernod, between ". 4,000
and 500. But * Uhat was merely a r~ omnainof the committee.
Mr. Crean ' dithout having low--grade or high-grade professors?
M-. 0 MENZIES. Quite so. e are not putting ourselves in the
position of determining what the pay ought to be in the case of
the various universitics. They are not within our jurisdiction.
Howevor, we do fooeel, having regard to the goenral movement, that
it would be wise to make an adjustment at this stage and date it
back to the beginning of the iriennium because these things are
done on a three-years basis a. l. tring the point of reference for
salaries for this purpose from œ 4,000 to I think that that
is all I need to say about that. The schedule to the bill shows
what the provisions will be, having rugard to this adjustment in
regard to salaries.
The second thing that this bill does is to take up and
deal with, for the first time, the problem of the teaching
hospitals. This is a matter rhich has been put to me and to many
of us, no doubt on a number ox' occasions, There are universities
which have hospitals in wv. hich they provide clinical instruction
for their medical students in their senior year, and those
hospitals are staffed vary frequently by men of great distinction,
very many of them in honorary positions, who are giving instruction
which is vital for the complete education of med: ical students. It
has booeen said for many years, I think with a good deal of truth,
that if we are dealing with the universities problem we ought to
provide for instruction in the teaching hospitals, because this is
properly part of the work. of the universities. And in order to
get a pretty clear mind on this thing, if we could, I had
discussions with the Chairman of the Universities Commission and
we established a very powerful sub-committee to advise on the
problem of teaching hospitals, T1he sub--committee contained
outside p) eople, medical men of great distinction and academic
people of note. It made an examination and finally made to the
Universities Corissrwon a report -r'hich I have seeon and which I
may say this to the honourable membor for Melbourne Ports ( Mr.
Crean) I hope I wiill. be able to have printed in adequate time
beforc he has to resumzne the second-reading debate. The report is
not actually ready at the imoment. There are on or two difficulties
about it, Jhich I will mention.
The sub committeo, wrhen it got co work on this problem,
found, of course, that it had to divide the matter into two parts.
One was the capital oxpnditue that would be requirod if the
Commonwealth, making its œ 1 for œ 1 grant to the States, was going
to take on that proportion of the responsibility for capital
equi.-pment needed for this extended university function in a
teaching hospital. Honourable imembers will see particularized in the
schedule to bill the items that are involved under that heading.
We propose in this to adopt that portion of the sub-committee's
recommendations and to provide on a : U for œ 1 basis the money
required to carry out the capital programme that the members have
in mind a very substantial one, but a very important one,
Honourable members may ask thrmsulves, as indeed I did when I read
this report, how i. t comes about that so much capital expenditure
needs to be made at this stage to equip teaching hospitals for
their work The answer to that luary is that medical science
changes year by year. Noew methods are dovised and new fors of
equipment are needed.,
Incidentally, when a new univorsity is set un you can
get most acute probleos, To give an example, I take my own
State, which I know best. In Victoria in the past the University
of Melbeurne conducted its mdical school ope-rations in at least
two hospitals, the Ro yal M; elbourne H. sital and the Alfred
Hospital, In oach of thc elinical classes woer conducted and in
each of then the instructors did their werk, A new university
the Monash Univcrsity has boon established and it is to have a
meodical school
If it is to have a medical school which is to be offective it must
have a hospital in which its senior moeical students can do their
clinical work and receive t hir clinical instruction.
The result will be that, whereas in the past the
University of Melbourne has had accoss to the teaching hospitals
within its own area, in the future, when Mionash is completely
establishod, these will have to be divided. The Royal Molbourne
Hospital, for example, will remain with the University of
Melbourne and the Alfrod Hospital will go to the Monash University.
I do not need to tell honourable members that when that
kind of thing happens you cannot throw up new hospitals overnight.
The fact is that to accormenodate in one of these hospitals more
students than it has over had to dcal with before, because of the
demands of other universities, you will need to establish new
buildings, new equipeont and new matters that are required for the
teaching of perhaps twice as many students in the hospital as were
taught befo:. o. If honourablo members will be good enough to run
their eyes over the schedule to the bill they will see the nature
of the things which are involved,
Mr. Crean I do not know whether your schedule is the same as mine
but rine has not pages 9 and 10. It goes straight from page 8 to
page 11.
vMENZIES Oh doarJ Do not bla Le me for that. I will look at
the one I have been working on. It is marked '" Confidential", so
perhaps I have been given something different, ;! hat pages are you
. acking?
Mr. Croan Pages 9 and
MR . MENZIES They are in my confidential draft. There has been
some discrimination Lhero in favour of fellows on the Governmont
side. I am sorry about that. TJe will see that you get a proper
copyo
Mr. Crean Thank you. I have now been given an adjusted copy.
MR. MENZIES That is a comfort. I would have hated to think
there was some discrimination against yeu.
Coning to the capital side, all I want to say is that
honourable members will agrco that the great movement in
assistance to university training would not have been complete
unless we had decided to take a nove for rard into this extra
provision for teaching hospitals run in association with the
univursities. On the other point, recurrent expenditure, a report
was made. It is frightfully difficult to determine, as members
will understand, hor to divide up the rocurrent expenditure in
hospitals between teaching and ordinary hospitalization. What
percentage of the, tiie of the nurses is to be reg: arded as
attributable to teaching and clinical instruction? How much would
be -ttributable to the normal conduct of the business of the
hospital and so on? I want to say quite frankly that we are at
the moment not entirely satisfied with that branch of the report
that was made, I have had a conference of a very friendly kind, I
hasten to say with the chairman of the Universities Commission
and with the very distinguished Prof ossor Sutherland, from
Melbourne, who was a rme~ ber of this conmittee, and the Treasury.
At this moment work is being done by the officials of the
Treasury, ~ ry officials and representatives of the Universities
Com~~ ission to se whethr such pints of difference as arise in
relation to rocurrent itoiLs can be worked out and accommodated,
4.
That is not a matter of urgency, although we do not propose to
delay it. The urgent matter is the provision of the capital
equipment, and therefore I thought it would be wise to get on with
tne thing that was urgent and not to hold it up until the next
sittings of Parliament, when we wuld have the recurrent problem
worked out. I will, in the spring session, if I survive so long,
present a second measure dealing with recurrent expenditure
attributable to the medical schools. I was going to say that I
am full of hope on that matter, but perhaps that is an entirely
unnecessary remark to make.