TAFE NSW described its Singleton campus as "surplus to requirements" and listed it in a document of 19 sites for full or partial divestment.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
MP Courtney Houssos presented the document dated September 4 last year - obtained under a parliamentary call for papers - at Thursday's Skills and Tertiary Education Budget Estimates hearing.
The document was seeking Minister for Skills and Tertiary Education Geoff Lee's approval for nine divestments - including Singleton - in the last financial year and approval to start planning for 10 divestments this financial year.
Mr Lee approved the divestment of Scone campus on August 6 last year.
IN THE NEWS:
- Hunter remains biggest COVID-19 contributor in NSW
- Unrenovated Hamilton East house sells for $2 million
- Charges after gun allegedly pulled outside Denman pub
- GP Access services to be slashed after funding cut
- Car of interest in Stacey Klimovitch Stockton murder investigation
- 'Pretty intense': hero of Kurri Kurri house fire tells his tale
- Knights: Pearce explains why he wants to say au revoir
"Part of the Singleton campus is recommended for divestment as service delivery is not affected as training has been consolidated on the part of the site to be retained, so that the balance of the site may be divested to Department of Education," the document said.
It said the government had a $3 billion land and property sales target over the four years to June 2023 and the 'education cluster' would contribute $90 million. It said TAFE was expected to contribute $1.31 million in the 2020 financial year and $2.4 million in the 2021 financial year.
Mr Lee and TAFE NSW managing director Steffen Faurby both said on Thursday they did not recall ever seeing the document.
Mr Lee said his chief of staff had signed it 'not approved'.
Space on the document for the signatures of then-TAFE Infrastructure NSW general manager Gwendy Arnot, then-acting chief corporate services officer Catherine Grummer and Mr Faurby were blank. Mr Faurby said this showed it was a 'draft' brief and not a formal recommendation.
Mr Lee said since then, Mudgee and Goulburn had been sold and the proceeds reinvested back into TAFE infrastructure; he had approved Grenfell's sale and he had withdrawn his approval for Dubbo's sale.
Mr Lee was asked to rule out the sale of the other sites.
"It would be silly for me to actually say anything in terms of what's going to happen in the future," Mr Lee said. "We'll consider each site, we regularly review our portfolio right across the state of what's necessary and what will meet industry demand, community demand, student demand, so it would be silly for me here today to make a broad blanket statement we're never going to do anything with any one of those 19 or any existing sites, we'll always look at their merits.
"Let me say this, any money that we [get] for the disposal of those sites - I won't sell unless we reinvest back in TAFE."
A TAFE NSW spokeswoman told the Newcastle Herald there were "no current plans on Singleton".
Shadow Minister for Skills and TAFE and Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp said he was still "very concerned" about the campus.
"There's so many unemployed people up in the Hunter at the moment, youth unemployment which is the target market for TAFE is at 14.7 per cent, now that's very high, we should be investing in our young people, not selling the campuses."
The government has set up a Connected Learning Centre in Singleton.
"Once you set up a CLC you can kiss your TAFE campus goodbye," he said.
Committee members said the creation of the document and the timeline around it raised further questions.
Ms Grummer said she was on leave when Ms Arnot, who has since left TAFE, sent the document to Mr Lee's office.
She said before reporting to her, Ms Arnot had direct correspondence with Mr Lee's office about infrastructure matters.
"I had a conversation with Ms Arnot to indicate all briefs that were to go to the minister's office were not to be sent in draft form and that any formal brief...should go through the formal process where it requires signature and that we should not be floating around draft briefs with the minister's office," Ms Grummer said.
"After that, what I call the omnibus [draft] went to the minister's office, the discussion with the minister's office was that going forward any divestments that TAFE NSW was considering were to go as individual briefs to the minister's office on a particular property and that is at that point in time when we changed the process."
A series of documents with Mr Faurby's signature seeking approval to divest some sites were then sent to Mr Lee's office, including on September 24 for Quirindi and Dapto.
Mr Faurby told MP Anthony D'Adam he wanted to seek clarification about whether Mr Lee's office had sent the draft document back to TAFE NSW.
"Mr Faurby the problem I have with that evidence is that seven days later there's a brief about divestment of the TAFE NSW site in Dubbo with your signature on it, which suggests that you were clearly cognisant of the process, you clearly knew that there was a divestment proposal being considered by the minister's office and the agency acted on the instructions that came back from the minister's office about reformatting the proposal for consideration so I find it very hard to believe that you weren't aware of the document," Mr D'Adam said.
Mr Crakanthorp said he was "flabbergasted" at how the hearing had unfolded.
"It was a phenomenal example of a total breakdown in the administration of a ministerial office," he said. "When the managing director of one of the biggest institutions in the country and the minister of it aren't aware of a proposed plan to sell over $100 million of assets you've got to be worried."