Plans for a future defence hub at the Australian Maritime College could be dashed after an announcement by the federal government.
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Defence Minister Christopher Pyne revealed plans for a Maritime Technical College, to be based in South Australia, to help funnel students to defence and naval training organisations around the country.
There are fears the AMC could be relegated to a secondary training facility under the plans for Adelaide, released on Friday.
“While it is clear that the training organisation will need to be based in South Australia, the AMC is well placed to lead the delivery of training of the necessary workforce given its particular expertise,” Bass Labor MP Ross Hart said.
“It is inappropriate to relegate Australia’s leading maritime training and research institution to one of many training organisations who might be delivering training in conjunction with this new training college.”
Mr Pyne said the technical college would not work in competition with the AMC but would help to direct students to courses already offered at the Launceston campus.
“There are already institutions around Australia from Edith Cowan University in Western Australia to the Australian Marine College in Launceston who are doing a lot of this training and we want to not replicate that, we want to use what they’re doing, but we also want to funnel them towards the naval shipbuilding that is going to be a big part of our economy and is already starting to show up in the national account,” he said.
University of Tasmania Provost Professor Mike Calford said the AMC may now be challenged for federal funding due to the establishment of the technical college.
“We have spent five years building the Australian Maritime College towards financial sustainability and the emerging key to this was a defence and design precinct developed around the existing site,” he said.
“This outcome is perplexing given the bipartisan support of the Tasmanian Senators last month in the AMC’s capacity as a defence training and research provider.”
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