Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted this evening to stand in this place and record that the Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management course conducted by Charles Sturt University here in New South Wales is now once again being offered in Western Australia at the Muresk Institute of Agriculture, where I had the privilege of being an academic for some 13 years. It is a long story. Muresk was the first institution in Australasia back in 1976 to commence a degree course in agribusiness, recognising the importance of professional education and training beyond the farm gate, from production through to the customer's plate. Over the years it was a highly successful course. Graduates were in high demand. Employers would have said it was because of the fact that the students themselves had their feet in the soil of agriculture, that they had a deep understanding, and of course the business aspects of the program made them very employable.

It is regrettable that over the years, particularly in the last four or five years, this agribusiness degree course, then conducted by the Curtin University based in Perth, lost its impetus, the students were removed from the Muresk campus some 100 kilometres east of Perth at Northam down to the city and the course fell apart. I think it was a tremendous effort by a lot of people: the Western Australian government, the federal government and particularly a group of us who saw the absolute need for it, supported strongly by industry, supported in fact by many graduates of the original agribusiness degree course who were moving towards their retirement and asking where was the succession plan.

It fell then to a decision taken, and I am very pleased the decision was taken, by the Western Australian government led by the Premier, Colin Barnett, to involve Charles Sturt University, with its basis in Wagga, where I had the pleasure of meeting the vice-chancellor and the deans of agriculture and veterinary science. They had already got themselves to the stage where they were in a position to offer the academic programs at the Muresk campus. Muresk in the meantime had passed over the management to the CY O'Connor Institute under the direction of a very competent, hardworking and visionary gentleman by the name of John Scott. It was John Scott, along with others, one of the directors of Muresk Institute, Dr Ian Feeney, Mr Brian Piesse, very much involved in agribusiness in the south-west, and others who worked with the West Australian government, a succession of ministers, particularly ministers Murray Cowper and now Minister Kim Hames, to ensure that this course got up and running. I am delighted to report to the Senate that it was the intervention, in some part, of then Senator Chris Evans, who was instrumental in ensuring that there would be Commonwealth supported places from Charles Sturt. I must say it was Charles Sturt places that were offered from New South Wales rather than new places in Western Australia, but it all came together.

There are now, I understand, some 24 students enrolled and underway in the first year of this Bachelor of Agricultural Business Management course and I am pleased to report that I believe three of those people are mature farmers who have come back to undertake this course. That fits very much the pattern of the past, where those who had been graduates of the Diploma in Agriculture from Muresk had gone either back into farming or back into other aspects of agribusiness or indeed industry itself, came back to complete their course in agribusiness and they became very employable. The job opportunities have been enormous. The places in which they have found their employ over the years have been enviable.

In the few minutes left to me I also want to place on record the work of the Hon. Hendy Cowan, Deputy Premier of Western Australia at the time to Richard Court, who was detailed by the Western Australian state government to go to industry, talk to people and report on whether there was a need for the agribusiness degree course to be resumed. I am delighted to report that I chaired a Senate committee which reported in June 2012 into higher education and skills training to support agriculture and agribusiness in Australia. One of the key recommendations of that report was that nationally we should work far more closely to break down the silos to ensure a national spread of expertise. It is wonderful that Charles Sturt is running that program.