Dr KEMP (Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) (1:45 PM) —I move :

I am pleased to move that the House accept the Senate amendments to the Australian Research Council (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2000. This bill puts in place the second plank of the government's new higher education research and research training framework. It sets the legislative framework for the research training scheme and the institutional grants scheme and, in particular, puts in place strict eligibility criteria for access to block funding to support the research and research training efforts of our higher education institutions.

It has always been the government's intention to tighten access to this funding. In Knowledge and Innovation, the government announced that universities—I stress `universities'—will be able to receive block funding under the Higher Education Funding Act 1988 if they are listed on the Australian qualifications framework registers and submit an approved research and research training management plan. These criteria have been further strengthened by the inclusion of a schedule of eligible institutions, which I am now pleased to say lists all institutions that, at this point in time, would have satisfied the original criteria. Of course, this schedule differs from that which the Australian Labor Party wanted to put in place. It includes institutions such as Bond University and the Melbourne College of Divinity. These arrangements will ensure that the additional funding of $583 million over the next five years, announced in backing Australia's ability to support university research infrastructure, will only be distributed to those institutions that will provide a high quality research and research training environment. I commend the motion to the House.