Stephen's Week - from Australia!

THURSDAY 23rd NOVEMBER 2006

Off to Heathrow with another Lib Dem colleague (Paul Holmes) plus five Labour MPs, one Conservative and two committee staff members. I'm a bit apprehensive about the flight to Sydney. The furthest I've ever flown before is Budapest!

The plane takes off at 5.30pm and I'm going to be stuck in this tin box through to 10am UK time when we land at Singapore to refuel. I get off, my first visit to Asia! The local time was late evening and the outside was very humid. This was the first weird time adjustment. On the plane we had been given breakfast before landing. Now, post take off it was time for dinner as it was after 8pm as far as new passengers in Singapore were concerned. We landed at Sydney 7am Saturday morning local time, or 8pm Friday evening back in the UK.

SATURDAY and SUNDAY

By 8.30am we were checked into our city centre hotel. The jet lag advice was to resist temptation to go to bed and keep going all day. I'd left Bristol in the midst of a hail stone shower. Now I was the other side of the planet basking in over 30 degrees! Spent the day walking around the city centre, which is quite compact for a city of 5m people. Also took a ferry to the seaside resort of Manly, from where you get great views back at the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The team ate out together in the evening and that was when the jet lag hit me with a feeling of exhaustion and also loss of appetite. But after a good night's sleep I was fine and on Sunday managed to squeeze in visits to the old New South Wales Governor's House, the NSW Art Gallery and the Sydney Museum. Then it was back to the airport for a short flight to the national capital, Canberra.

Canberra was even hotter than Sydney and being in land the heat was drier with no comforting breeze. On the way from the airport the bus driver took us on a detour down a country lane so we could see a field of kangaroos!

Our hotel was in the Parliament area of Canberra and along with the old Parliament House itself, was the oldest building in Canberra. This means it dates from 1927, when the Commonwealth of Australia's Parliament moved from its temporary home in Melbourne. Prior to that Canberra was just a sheep farm. The city has since grown to about 300,000 people. It's very obviously designed around the motor car rather than the pedestrian, with spread out low rise buildings. As a townscape it had none of the charm and vibrancy of Sydney.

MONDAY 27 NOVEMBER

After breakfast we walked next door to the British High Commission for a briefing. The UK's higher education fees system is modelled on Australia, where tuition fees were introduced in 1989. They called it the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, "HECS". The fees are repaid post graduation, which is the system we moved to from September 2006.

Australia, like us, is struggling with a shortage in basic skills, particularly in booming West Australia and Queensland where energy production is rising. Incidentally, Australia's attitude to climate change is something that we raised informally several times during the visit.

Off up to the new Parliament House, opened in 1988. It's a low rise concrete structure with its sole distinctive feature being a huge flagpole, supported by a wigwam like frame. Have a look here http://www.australianexplorer.com/canberra_parliament_house.htm

We attended the launch of Australia's new science research strategy by the Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop MP. Australia is a federal system where the "Commonwealth" government is based in Canberra and each State has its own Parliament, such as in Sydney for New South Wales or Melbourne for the state of Victoria. The states have responsibility for most aspects of domestic policy, including education. The Commonwealth government runs the higher education system. However, it is trying to encroach on other education areas that are controlled by the states and we pick up this political tension several times during the visit. The Commonwealth government has a Conservative majority, though the Australian Tory Party is called the "Liberal" Party. The main opposition is the Labor Party. The nearest Lib Dem equivalent is the Democrats, but they are very small and only have seats in the Senate. All of the States are controlled by the Labor party.

We hoped to meet the Education Minister after the launch. One of the projects she had announced was a natural life database and a box of large creepy crawlies was on hand. There being TV cameras present the minister was more interested in being filmed than meeting us. The Labour chair of the committee, Barry Sheerman told the local press at the end of the visit that this was the first time that he had been upstaged by a stick insect! I let one of them crawl up my arm, can't say I enjoyed the experience...

Off to meet the Australian Chief Scientist to discuss research funding. We also bring up climate change. Then to Australian Vice Chancellors Committee, their equivalent of our Universities UK. I ask about their variable fees regime. In practice all 38 universities in Australia charge the maximum permitted amount for each subject, so there is no real market.

Back to the High Commission to meet Prof Bruce Chapman, who devised HECS.

Back to Parliament, where we were to have meetings with the Education Minister and her Labor shadow. But Mrs Bishop has another photo op to attend and as we arrive at her office she breezes past us with the most fleeting of greetings. She is tipped as a successor to John Howard as Australian PM. The Labor Shadow is rather more generous with her time...

In the evening we have dinner at the High Commissioner's residence, in the hills above Canberra.

TUESDAY 28 NOVEMBER

To the Dept of Education and Training for a marathon session of briefings all morning on higher education and skills. Then to the Parliament for lunch with the Australia-UK friendship group. We get an opportunity to watch Question Time in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both are quite rowdy. The Australian Parliament has a wide ranging hour long question time four times a week and all Ministers, including the PM, are expected to turn up. Contrast that with Blair's appearance for half an hour once a week. But I get the impression that John Howard gets an easy ride and the Labor Leader Kim Beazley was unimpressive. The govt should have been on the ropes over a report about Howard's govt selling grain to Saddam.

Later in the afternoon, we finally meet a Minister, Gary Hardgrave, the Minister for Skills. Then we meet with the chair of Australia's nearest equivalent to our own select committee.

We then watch the Carrick Awards, Australia's awards for higher education teaching. This is followed by a dinner in the Old Parliament building, just below the current one. While the 200 or so Australians are driven down the hill in a fleet of buses we prefer to take a 5 minute walk.

WEDNESDAY 30 NOVEMBER

Have to leave the hotel without breakfast as we are getting an early morning flight back to Sydney. We spend the morning at the NSW Dept of Education, getting the State's perspective which is different to the Commonwealth government's in many respects, particularly on training.

Lunch is at Ultimo College, part of the Sydney Institute. The states have Technical and Further Education Colleges, "TAFE" roughly the equivalent of our City of Bristol College. The lunch is made and served by TAFE hospitality students. Incidentally, I have also done this a few times at Bristol College.

We spend the rest of the afternoon meeting with different sections of the TAFE, everything from flower arranging through to boat maintenance.

THURSDAY 30 NOVEMBER

Off to Macquarie University for meetings with the former and current Vice Chancellors.

Back to the city centre for lunch and discussion at the New South Wales Parliament. It claims to be the oldest continually used Parliament building in the world. Which I guess as our's burnt down in 1834, that might be true. Have a look here http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/

In the afternoon we are based at the British Consulate in Sydney. It's based in one of the waterfront skyscrapers, with a fantastic view of the harbour. We have meetings with the Adult Skills Association and then one of the companies that recruits international students for Australia. The country ranks third after the US and the UK in the international education market. But it is much more significant to the Australian economy.

In the evening we go for a reception at the Consul's residence, in the hills above the city. For dinner the chairman was determined to visit a Sydney institution, Harry's Cafe de Wheels. Cut and paste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry's_Cafe_de_Wheels into your browser to see where we joined a group of South Korean sailors eating pie, mash and peas by the dockside. The pictures of diners on the van included Elton John. Less salubrious was the sight of some large rats running around the quay. A novel way to spend our last evening in Sydney!

FRIDAY 1 DECEMBER

Checked out of hotel then off to "Billy Blue" College - a private provider of design and hospitality training. Billy Blue was a convict made good by setting up a harbour rowing boat service.

Then back to the British Consulate for our final meeting with the Open and Distance Learning Association. We had one and half hours free time in the afternoon before heading off to the airport. I wandered down Pitt Street, the main shopping street and went to Queen Victoria Building, an enormous 100 year old department store come arcade. Outside they now have a statue of Queen Victoria moved from Dublin in the 1940s. It was another incredibly hot day, with temperatures over 30 degrees.

To the airport for a 5.30pm take off on a Boeing 747 to London via Bangkok. Another 25 hour journey with disturbed sleep patterns and weird meal times! As we gained 11 hours in time we arrived back in Heathrow at 5.40am UK time on Saturday. Much sleeping and body clock adjusting since!