PM Transcripts

STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER
THE RIGHT HONOU ALo. 3I ROBI: T iMEvNZIZS
IN THE HOUSE OF T1LP1ESENTATIVES
ACADEMIC SALARIES
Honourable members will recall that last year,
when announcing the Government's programme of aid for
universities during the 1964-66 triennium, I foreshadowed
the establishment of an Inquiry to advise the Government on
the levels of academic salaries which could appropriately be
adopted by the Coionwrealth for the purpose of calculating
recurrent grants for universities.
We have now reached certain decisions about this
Inquiry. It will be conducted by Mr. Justice Eggleston of
the Commonwealth Industrial Court and of the Supreme Courts
of the A. C. T. and Norfolk Island.
The Government will appoint two assessors whose
function will be to assist the Inquiry with expert advice and
analysis based on a special knowledge of universities and
government interests in the subject. I have written to the
Chairman of the Vice-Chancellors Committee and to the President
of the Federation of Australian University Staff Associations,
inviting them to submit jointly a panel of three names for
the Government to consider when appointing the assessor with
special knowledge of the universities interest. The other
assessor will be a person with experience in government service.
The terms of reference of the Inquiry are
To advise the Government on the standard
salary or range of salaries for a professor and the
standard salary range for a reader or associate
professor which the Inquiry considers should be
adopted as a measure of academic salaries to be
used by the Australian Universities Commission
for the purpose of recommending grants to be
made to universities, including the Australian
National University, for recurrent expenditure.
It is our intention that the Inquiry should
proceed in an atmosphere of informality and without being
given a statutory basis. It will thus dispense with sworn
evidence, verbatim records and public hearings. Actual procedure
will be a matter for decision and announcement by Mr. Justice
Eggleston. In due course, the Inquiry will be comnnunicating
with interested parties to invite them to submit views in writing.
I would remind honourable members that the Commonwealth
fully accepts that salaries paid in a State university
are, and must remain, ultimately a matter for that university
and its State Government. The basic purpose of the present
Inquiry is to provide guidance for the Commonwealth and, as
already announced, its findings will be applied retrospectively
to 1st January, 1964 in relation to recurrent grants offered
by the Commonwealth to States for their universities. The
Commonwealth will also adopt the findings as a basis for its
recurrent grants to the Australian National University from the
same date.