Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

This is the lowest level for decades. I think that we should just recall what it was that the Leader of the Opposition said when he was education minister. He was looking back to the days when he had portfolio responsibility for education and training and he said:

... I had sort of finally got to accept that I would never be Defence Minister again, so I lost a lot of ambition and I stopped straining ... I thought that there was less capacity to achieve in that [education] portfolio than just about any I have had.

What an absolute disgrace! The Howard government is committed to higher standards in education. (Time expired)

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