Men and Women of Western Sydney!

Honorary Doctor of Letters
University of Western Sydney, Parramatta Campus
Saturday, 6 April 2002, 1500 hours

"Men and Women of Western Sydney" is the appropriate salutation for this great occasion.

I am truly delighted at the honour you have bestowed on me. It gives me the opportunity to give a brief history of the University of Western Sydney and a brief lecture on constitutional law. The Constitution of Australia is our Declaration of the Rights of the Citizen and our Charter of Responsible Government.

I entered the University of Sydney in 1935. It was the only university in NSW and had 3,000 students. It received a yearly grant of £100,000 from the State Government. The Constitution did not originally mention education or health other than quarantine, but under s.96 Parliament has always been able to grant assistance to any State on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit. At the Federal elections in September 1946 the electors approved a referendum to give the Parliament power to provide benefits to students and medical and dental services.

In November 1952 I was elected the MP for Werriwa, which covered the Shire of Sutherland and the Municipalities of Liverpool and Fairfield and contained no modern hospitals, no high schools and no university. I set out to convince the Parliament that it had the power and the duty to provide financial support for education and health in electorates like mine. In October 1953 I said

Education is absorbing an increasingly larger part of the Budget of each of the States. At present, education is the largest item in each of those Budgets. I have no doubt that, as with every activity in respect of which the Australian Government makes finance available, the Commonwealth will gradually be obliged to take over that function from the States. Everybody in Australia is entitled, without cost to the individual, to the same education facilities, whether it be in respect of education at the kindergarten or tertiary or the post-graduate stage.

After the 1946 referendum the Chifley and Menzies Governments paid some fees and salaries and the cost of new buildings. No new faculty was established in an existing university and no new university was established without Federal grants. In December 1953 I stated:

The universities are costing more and more, and in the future will be catering for more and more Australians. We should not limit university education by leaving it primarily to the States, but we should make it a Commonwealth responsibility. With our primacy of financial opportunity we should undertake the primacy of responsibility for university education.

Between 1955 and my retirement in July 1978 my electorate included all Sydney's suburbs between Westmead and Toongabbie in the north and Narellan and Appin in the south. I represented suburbs that are now located in seven electorates in Western Sydney, four of them currently represented by Labor members and three by Liberal members.

In December 1972, as Minister for Education and Science, I requested the Australian Universities Commission and the Australian Commission on Advanced Education to produce a report on the location, nature and development of tertiary institutions (a) throughout and near the Sydney metropolitan area; (b) throughout and near the Melbourne metropolitan area; and (c) in the region of Albury-Wodonga. The Bull-Swanson report, as it is known, was completed in March 1973.

From the outset of the 1974 academic year my Government accepted financial responsibility for all existing universities and colleges of advanced education. Access to tertiary education was enhanced not only by abolishing fees but also by improving secondary education, introducing TEAS and establishing universities in new and outer metropolitan areas. In 1974 my Government announced its intention to establish Sydney's fourth university as part of the Macarthur growth centre. The Fraser Government shelved this plan. A decade, an educational generation, was lost in Western Sydney.

The Hawke Government, elected in 1983, would not support new universities in Western Sydney or anywhere else unless fees were reintroduced. After three years the Wran Government lost patience with the leisurely Federal approach to hospital and university reform and introduced the University of Western Sydney Advisory Council Bill. The Unsworth Government passed the Chifley University Interim Council Act 1987 and asked the University of Sydney to advise on the highest academic standards for the new university. After fees were introduced, the Greiner Government made grants for the new university and renamed it the University of Western Sydney.

Peter Wilenski, who had been principal private secretary to me as Prime Minister, was the President of the Councils from December 1986 to December 1988. He insisted not only on the highest standards but also on the most relevant courses. The University of Western Sydney encouraged a range of cultural, civic, medical, and economic institutions that would not have been possible without the stimulus that a university of high quality teaching and research provides to a region. This university must continue to meet the aspirations and desperations of the region, which is more populous than Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane or Tasmania.

Last year, Australia ranked only 20th out of 28 industrialised countries in education attainment levels of people aged between 25 and 34. Federal funding of public universities in Australia has fallen from 90 per cent two decades ago to 50 per cent today. The subsequent commercialisation of universities has been grossly uneven. The University of Western Sydney continues to bring equality of opportunity to tertiary students. Every undergraduate student enters this university on his or her own merits.

On its reelection in 1974 my Government announced that, under its power to provide medical and dental services, it would construct and manage the Westmead Hospital which the Askin Government had delayed too long. The Westmead, Liverpool, Campbelltown and Mt Druitt hospitals were then constructed. I have detailed their history on several occasions at Westmead.

Federal leaders of the Labor and Liberal Parties are failing to follow the United States in having all Federal and State elections on the same day. They should end the demeaning buckpassing on education and health issues at separate Federal and State elections. The parties ought to agree to support a referendum for fixed four-year terms at the next Federal elections. The parties should put the interests of the electors ahead of the interests of their own State factions and fractions.

I congratulate to-day's graduates and their friends and relatives on the successful outcome of their studies. I wish them well in their careers in the service of their fellow-citizens. I say to them, cherish your education and stand up for your University. Keep us great and make us proud.