https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/adelaide-merger-would-have-been-disaster

In the November 18, 2018 Times Higher Ed, after the 2018 SA merger failure, reported there was a similar proposal in WA back then and that it "failed because the state government had baulked at the cost."

“There is an illusion that these mergers create efficiencies. Sometimes you get an initial experiment to mould everything together, but pretty soon it all devolves locally again."

The article ages on to describe how UniSA and UoA have quite different mission and so the 2018 merger would have been a failure.

None of these factors. appear to have been openly debated in the latest 2013 round.