Higher Education Policy Analyst at Griffith University has Just About Had Brendan Nelson and His Governmental Mates. (May 18, 2005)

    Gavin Moodie is a regular contributor to  The Australian's Higher Education Section. Having ruminated on the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson's, pre-budget announcement that there would be no change to the current method of indexation for university block grants and the Treasurer, Peter Costello's total neglect of funding increases for the universities he has launched a broadside against the current manipulators of federal political power.

The indexation review was conducted by the Department of Education, Science and Training in co-operation with the Department of Finance and Administration, and in consultation with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Treasury. It seeks to justify the Government's indexation policy and is a combination of half-truths and tendentious assertions. It typifies a government that no longer sees the need to persuade those outside its favoured circle.

 

It seems that higher education's only prospect for the restoration of reasonable indexation of commonwealth grants lies in the election of a Labor government.

 

The chairman of the expert advisory group recommending on the research quality framework, Gareth Roberts, insisted in his review of the British research assessment exercise that "the link between assessment and funding needs to be clarified in advance of the next assessment if the assessment process is to retain credibility and consent"

 

Yet researchers and the community are seeking to contribute to, and the expert advisory group is expected to make recommendations for, a research quality framework with very little idea of what the Government may use it for.

 

Meanwhile, the Government has failed to announce any measure to compensate universities for their loss of about $150 million per annum as a result of its bill to abolish compulsory up-front student union fees.

 

Nelson has sought to justify the policy through his characteristic attacks on the students and institutions his portfolio is meant to support, with specious arguments, misleading half-truths and "spivish glibness", as Matt Price observed (The Weekend Australian, March19-20).

And finally Dr Moodie points out that the universities are specifically precluded from making up the $150 million loss through charges for non-academic student services within deferred HECS and FEE-HELP fees.

Perhaps Gavin Moodie may take some comfort in that in the leadership of the Liberal Party stakes Brendan Nelson is currently running a resounding last at 5% approval. For a man who loves to spout statistics 1 in 20 ought to give him pause -- academics and researchers may not be the only members of the population he's alienating though his "spivish glibness".