A clutch of very curious correlations in Canberra

New funding for ‘regional’ universities correlate almost perfectly to marginal seats crucial to a Morrison government win.

How curious. There is a nearly perfect correlation between the new money announced for certain “regional” universities by federal Education Minister Dan Tehan on Monday and several highly marginal seats that the Morrison government needs to win to have any chance of victory in the coming federal election.

Even more curious is the government’s definition of a regional university campus.

The biggest share of the $92 million that will be allocated for boosting student numbers at “regionally focused universities” is $41m for the Berwick campus of Federation University, which is in an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne.

This is not to say that Federation University doesn’t need the help. It took over the Berwick campus from Monash University last year and it has always suffered a paucity of students. Monash’s main campus at Clayton was close enough to be attractive. But Berwick is in the highly marginal seat of La Trobe, thinly held by Liberal MP Jason Wood.

 

Other universities to benefit from the largesse also happen to be in hotly contested seats. The University of the Sunshine Coast’s Caboolture campus is in the seat of Longman, site of the Liberal loss in the July by-election that was instrumental in the fall of Malcolm Turnbull.

James Cook University, based in Townsville, is in a seat held by Labor by a handful of votes. Central Queensland University is based in Rockhampton, which straddles two highly marginal Coalition held seats.

And the money for the University of Newcastle’s Central Coast Medical School goes to the electorate of Robertson, the bellwether seat that has been held by the party of government since 1983.

The only beneficiary electorate that is not marginal is Hinkler, the location of the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Fraser Coast campus.

We can console ourselves that this is not big money — less than $100m across four years. But the election is probably six months away. Time enough.