- Christian Kerr: Fiscal conservatism takes centre stage
- Richard Farmer: Rudd turns the tables on election spending
- First reactions from the media
Kevin was rock and roll, Kevin was angry. Even delivering broadband makes Kevin cross. Or is that determined?
“I believe passionately in the power of education.”
Does he believe that children are our future? He probably does.
Hoo wee. There was energy and focus and pep. Rollicking piano/bass riffs looping on and on, and there was Gough, Bob and Paul.
We’re going to get the best education system in the world. And desalination. And a knowledge intensive economy. And the interwebs. And troops out, and no AWAs, and the absolute value of hard work. And values. We’ll be getting values.
And what we really need is an education revolution. And we need it now. But what exactly might that be?
Well, an education revolution has it chapters. So it’s sort of like a book. It starts with four year olds going to pre-school in chapter one. Refunds for laptops in chapter two. More science and maths teachers in chapter three. Chapter four is Asian language education. Five? State of the art trades training centers. Three more chapters to come. They’d be six, seven and eight. 450,000 training places. That’s a bit. 65,000 more apprenticeships. This would be Skilling Australia.
Did we mention broadband? That’s chapter seven: 9,000 schools hooked onto broadband. Chapter eight: computers for the kids on in years nine to 12. Chapter nine probably involves Facebook and YouTube, but we’ll talk about that later.
Then there’s 88,000 undergraduate scholarships for university undergraduates. And 10,000 for post grads. Cos we’re a knowledge economy.
“I’m intensely proud,’’ said Rudd. And sort of cross and determined.
What we didn’t get was a repeat of “Monday’s feeding frenzy of expenditure!’’ Wild applause.
We got “one quarter of the cost’’. Subdued applause.
We’ll get hi-tech, skills and environment. Not much applause at all. No tax cuts? Could this truly be politics? “I have no intention of repeating Mr Howard’s spending spree.’’
This was a launch for working families – six mentions – for taking us to the future – 15 mentions – as opposed to the past – two mentions.
WorkChoices? Never mention it again.
A vote for Rudd would be a vote for fairplay he said. “It’s the right thing to do,’’ but then he would say that. “It’s the decent thing to do.’’ Ditto. “It’s the Labor thing to do.’’
Did he mention that this was his 26th wedding anniversary? Yes he did. Working family.
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