Keep a-Hold of Nurse / For Fear of Finding Something Worse. (May 20, 2009)

Hilaire Belloc's admonition to the young citing Jim's demise at the jaws of the lion might be allegorically cautionary to the Australian higher education and research sectors when examining the 2009/10 budget brought down by the Rudd government. And interestingly, the take home message given the government in Treasury Secretary, Dr Ken Henry's advice, could have been uttered by that staunch Keynesian Nobel Laureate, Paul Krugman, that the government must not lose its nerve and must not be spooked by the looming string of budget deficits into doing too little.

That was what diminished the effect of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies.

 According to Dr Henry, the government must press ahead with a "vast" reform agenda ranging from global warming to tax and education if Australia is to achieve a healthy recovery.

Now a week after the budget was brought down, the spokespersons for the higher education sector have come to the realisation that the full force of the promised additional resources will take a couple of years to materialise and there is something of a Greek Chorus of anguish on show.

Tim Brailsford, president of the Australian Business Deans Council and dean at the University of Queensland to The Australian's HES: "We are reliant both on a return of the incumbent Government, as an election is due before many of these changes will take effect, and on the accuracy of the economic forecasts being sufficient to generate the budget position to allow future distributions."

And Richard Larkins, Universities Australia chairman and vice-chancellor of Monash University said: "It is still going to be difficult for universities to give staff the sorts of salaries that their hard work entitles them to," though he agreed, "These are real steps (in the budget) towards addressing the progressive decline in the funding of the recurrent costs and the neglect of infrastructure for universities, (but) times will continue to be difficult. This is addressing a progressive decline rather than giving a whole lot of money that is really new and discretionary money."

University of NSW vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer told the HES that the sector faces a difficult "bridging task" between now and 2012-13, and warned that the lack of near-term recurrent funding meant pressure would remain on staffing costs and that if universities gave in to a 20 per cent pay demand from the union, the result would be retrenchments.

Really and truly, the universities have a Hobson's choice, it's this government or it's limbo, you would have thought that lesson would have been learned over the past decade.

And if our universities are to ever be able to significantly improve as institutions of learning and research they had better begin to shape up in the belief that this government will last three terms, and will make good its "promissory note" of an education revolution. Ken Henry's advice to government is equally valid to the university administrators --  don't get spooked into gutlessness or your international cohort will leave you in the dust.

So far the reports in the popular media indicate that both Kim Carr and Julia Gillard were outstanding advocates for research, development and higher education.

Sure the concepts behind Excellence in Research for Australia, and a top-down construction of  hubs and spokes are daft, and one can only hope that somewhere along the line common sense will prevail, but obsessing that the sky will fall down any tick of the clock is not a sensible plan B.

By all means the universities should continue to make their case rationally, but now it's time for university administrations to get on with it.