The Science and Technology Plan should encompass Australia's activities in these international programs and address the issue of Australia's continuing membership and financial contributions. There is a strong case for an in-depth review of opportunities for the Western Australia OMES community, including industry, government agencies and universities, arising from the emerging national Oceans Policy.
The initiative to try and locate a branch office of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Council in Perth fits in well with the aim to maximise Western Australian participation in OMES programs arising from the new Oceans Policy.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
While many educational institutions have been successful in recruiting overseas students, education and training policy is primarily domestic in focus.
There is little explicit recognition of higher education as an industry - even though, in 1996, the higher education sector represented about 1.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, employed nearly 83,000 people, enrolled 53,200 international students in public institutions and generated $1.4 billion in export income.
Publicly funded educational institutions are being given considerable encouragement to market courses to fee-paying overseas students. Overseas students are involved, in the majority of faculties of most institutions, but significant student number concentrations can be found in Business and English Language areas. They are less likely to be involved in specialist marine education programs, although the Australian Maritime College at Launceston has successfully recruited overseas students, mainly from the Australasian region. Western Australia could increase its marketing of marine related education programs.
The recently created Marine Education and Research Alliance (MERA) provides a one stop shop for accessing the skills and expertise of WA tertiary education institutions. MERA's role is to help clients quickly and accurately source specific marine-related research skills and training expertise.
Conflicting aims may emerge in marketing some areas of education in marine science and technology. Where research training is offered involving high technology projects, an assessment should be made of the extent to which marketing of research degrees is compatible with support for key domestic industry sectors which are seeking to gain or sustain international market share. In general, however, course offerings, particularly at TAFE and university bachelor's degree level, should not raise this difficulty.
MARINE BASED TOURISM
The foreign exchange earnings generated from international tourism to Australia rose from $1.5 billion 1981-82 to $4.5 billion in 1987-88. However, many tourist operations are foreign owned and repatriate their profits. Policy makers need to know the extent of this 'leakage' in order to evaluate the true benefits of tourism as a commercial opportunity, but almost no data is presently available.
Of particular interest to the marine industries is the estimated value of the recreational sports fishing industry at more than $3 billion a year. It directly employs about 80,000 people out of the 187,000 employed in marine tourism (about 35 percent of the 535,600 people employed in tourism throughout Australia).
