Nearly three decades ago, as a member of the governing body of Hawkesbury Agricultural College, I cast my vote in support of the merger which formed the University of Western Sydney. It was close to a unanimous decision.
“Hawkesbury Ag” was just short of its centenary and, under that name, had an established reputation in agricultural and related research plus a supportive alumni network.
We were prepared to subsume all that for the opportunities that we envisaged could flow from the amalgamation:
- Simply being called “university” was expected to open doors previously closed to us – particularly in research.
- We believed that we could continue to attract students from across the state and beyond by maintaining elements of our old identity.
- We expected that there would be efficiencies from the consolidation of administrative support systems that could flow on to support the core functions of teaching and research.
- We thought a merger would enable us to improve the range of tertiary education provision for the rapidly growing western Sydney community - including the north-west corridor where Hawkesbury was located.
We assumed that the other parties to the merger would be as committed as ourselves to working cooperatively to achieve something that was much more than the sum of the former entities.
The reality fell well short of our aspirations.
- Post-merger, there followed more than a decade of dysfunction.
- Rather than savings at the top, there was a new level of bureaucracy.
- Instead of universal cooperation there was a great deal of inertia, internal competition and even outright obstruction.
- It was at least 12 years before administrative systems were consolidated.
- Hawkesbury's cherished identity and reputation are now mostly merely a matter of historical record.
- The more established universities still push for a two-tiered system aimed at diminishing the research opportunities for newer universities like Western Sydney.
- The breadth of course options on the Hawkesbury campus increased for a while and then declined. Taken together with the poor north-south public transport in the area, the hoped-for benefits for the north-west have not been realised.
The merged university has been uncertain in its own identity, changing its name once and it is now onto its third logo.
So was this merger worthwhile?
Hawkesbury really had no viable option to stay as it was. As with the current round of Council amalgamations, we were merging to the beat of a government agenda; the Federal Government in this case. There were a couple of other merger options but who knows whether, had we chosen one of those, the outcomes would have been better or worse.
Is there anything I can take from this experience that might be relevant to the proposed council mergers? Perhaps only: that the reality may be totally different to our expectations!
What I do know is that, hard as it is for our Cove to get GLC's attention now, in a greatly enlarged council we may be seen as nought but a minor minnow. We will have to be prepared to stand together and voice our needs and concerns through a strong and cohesive residents association. Only in this way will our squeaky wheel have a chance of being heard!
