Universities of Adelaide and South Australia say they could lose $250m if legislation to allow merge is delayed

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The universities of Adelaide and South Australia say they could lose $250 million if state parliament fails to pass new laws to merge the institutions by March next year. Leaders from both universities have fronted a parliamentary committee warning they could also suffer irreparable consequences if legislation to allow a merger is delayed.

Transcript

00:00 It's a quarter of a billion dollar warning if Parliament drags its feet passing new university

00:08 laws.

00:09 The prospect of delay would have irreparable consequences for our organisations, our staff

00:14 and students and frankly the credibility of higher education in this jurisdiction.

00:19 The universities of Adelaide and South Australia have set a January 2026 deadline to open a

00:25 new merged institution called Adelaide University.

00:30 For that to happen they're relying on Parliament to pass legislation by the first quarter of

00:35 next year.

00:36 If legislation is not enacted by that stage we will not get registration, we won't have

00:39 tax accreditation and the university won't open.

00:42 The minimum impact on the delay of legislation is six months and the value of that six months

00:46 is $250 million.

00:48 It will be too damaging to the two organisations who in good faith have explored what is in

00:58 their own best interest and in the state's best interest.

01:01 The government hopes new university laws pass Parliament by the end of this year but the

01:06 opposition says it needs more time to scrutinise a plan.

01:10 I'm interested in the detail on the business case, the risks to the people of South Australia

01:15 and we'll form a logical and considered view once we've had that information.

01:20 This is the right thing to do, have all the information out there on the public realm

01:25 for it to be considered in detail.

01:28 The universities are yet to publicly release a full business case for the proposed merger.

01:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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