Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Since I can remember, the University of Melbourne has run its veterinary school and hospital in Werribee. Students have studied at the Werribee campus for generations. For generations, we've been involved in the training of Victoria's vets. But, even after a visit to the site to see the recent upgrades this year, I'm really sad to say that the University of Melbourne is delivering us a Christmas slap. They have announced a merger that will see the privatisation of the vet hospital that they now call U-Vet. This puts at risk the local delivery service for our pets—and you can imagine how many pets there are in a population of 300,000 young families. More importantly, there are 83 locals who work at that U-Vet hospital who are now trying to figure out what their future looks like.

I call on Melbourne university today to think deeply about the decisions they are making, to stop looking at the ledger, to remember the relationship they have with our community and to negotiate in good faith with the 83 people, mostly locals, who are employed in this part of the university and ensure that they honour redundancies—but, more importantly, ensure that those 83 individuals know what their future looks like and have good negotiations with the University of Melbourne.

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