A majority of the WA committee tasked with determining whether a proposed mega-merger between three of the state’s universities will work have individual ties or affiliations to the University of WA - the only institution publicly backing the case to bring the unis together.
The business case for the proposal, which suggests bringing together Curtin, Murdoch and the University of Western Australia under one brand, will be authored by the state government-appointed steering committee.
Seven members of the committee have been publicly announced, including businessman Mark Barnaba as the chair and medical researcher Professor Fiona Wood as the deputy chair - both of whom have ties to UWA. UWA is the only university that has offered tentative support to the merger.
However, Barnaba said he strongly believed the committee could manage any real or perceived conflicts, revealing he had recently resigned from his board roles at the UWA business school and the investment committee after the steering committee was announced.
“I resigned because I feel it’s important that either real or perceived there is no conflict,” he said.
He rejected the idea that his and his committee colleagues’ connections to UWA posed any impartiality problems.
The steering committee will also include Yawuru academic Dr Peter Yu, former chief scientist Dr Peter Klinken, Susan Grylls, and WA Agent General Rebecca Tomkinson.
The vice chancellors of each university will also be invited to join the committee, as well as a student representative and staff representative from the National Tertiary Education Union.
Curtin and Murdoch had openly rejected the proposal, while UWA is the only university to offer tentative support the merger.
While a connection to the university does not indicate any suggestion of bias towards developing the business case, four of the seven committee members have a direct connection to UWA - either through studying at the institution or working there.
Steering committee university backgrounds
- Barnaba is the head of the steering committee, and is a former student of the University of Western Australia. He studied commerce and graduated with a first-class honours in financial economics and up until this month was the on the board of UWA’s business school and was head of UWA’s investment committee, which makes recommendations to the university’s investment strategy and monitors its investment portfolio. There is also a bench with his name on it at the university.
- Dr Peter Klinken graduated from UWA in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science, and later earned a PhD in biochemistry and a Diploma of Education Klinken is also an Emeritus professor of the institution. He too has publicly expressed support for a merger.
- Dr Fiona Wood studied medicine in London before heading to Australia. She served on UWA’s Business School board alongside Barnaba back in 2011. Wood then became a professor at the university’s medical school.
- Susan Grylls did her undergraduate at Murdoch University to study law and environmental science and later went on to study a Master of Laws at UWA.
- Elizabeth Gaines went to Curtin University and later Macquarie University. She has an Honorary Doctorate of Commerce by Curtin. She is a board member at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, which has a strategic partnership with UWA.
- Rebecca Tomkinson is from the Wheatbelt, and went to Murdoch University. Earlier this year I helped UWA and the University of Galway broker a memorandum of understanding on medical research.
- Dr Peter Yu studied at the Central Institute of Technology - now called Curtin. Yu primarily works with the Australian National University, which is a member of the Group of Eight. UWA is also a member.
Barnaba, Wood and Klinken have publicly praised the government for investigating the merger and Barnaba will speak about it at a breakfast next month.
This raised the eyebrows of Opposition leader Basil Zempilas on Tuesday who has accused the government of setting up the steering committee with a “preordained” pro-merger outcome in mind.
“I see today that the chair of the steering committee is effectively going to go out and sell the benefit of the merger,” he said.
“I thought the steering committee was there to do the business case and to consider it at the end of the process.
“Despite their denials about a preconceived idea, they had a preconceived idea from the very start.”
Barnaba hit back at that criticism, denying his public commentary in the Australian Financial Review amounted to support for the merger.
“I have not, and no one the committee has formed any opinion,” he said.
“Our job is to be objective, independent, and judged by the data and whatever that business case decides, we will be totally driven by that. No one’s formed a view.
“The only view is that, based off the last feasibility studies, the last reports...there’s a prima-facie case that basically a merger should at least be considered.
“There’s a promise-based case that there’s $8 billion of value over 20 years in a merger. There’s a benefit-cost ratio of low side five, top side 15. These are compelling numbers. They’re not marginal numbers.”
“The premier, the ultimate decision-making body ... his undergraduate degree was at Murdoch, and his postgraduate MBA was at Curtin.
“Everyone’s gone to some institution ... it’s not obvious to me why that means that somehow there’s an issue.”
Premier Roger Cook also rejected the idea the merger was a pre-ordained decision.
“The steering committee will guide the business case. On that steering committee, we have representatives from all the universities, student representatives, representative from the union, and obviously some key business leaders and experts in the field. And we respect the work that they are undertaking,” he said.
The steering committee is expected to hand the business case to parliament by the middle of next year.
A student-led protest will be held on the steps of WA Parliament on Wednesday opposing the merger.
