Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

They choose to cluster together because it is a model that they think will be more effective for their students. I know the shadow minister for education thinks he knows more than everybody else, but perhaps he might think to himself that principals in schools who make decisions to work in partnership with adjacent or neighbouring schools are making those decisions for good reasons. I know a flavour of today has been that opposition members seem to think that they know better than everybody else, including the experts, but I would say to the shadow minister for education that I think principals who are making these applications know a fair bit more.

On the question, of course, of making sure that we have an education revolution, Mr Speaker, you have drawn the House’s attention today to the question of numeracy and whether or not people are numerate and accurate. It is a pretty good question, because my attention has been drawn to a press release by the shadow minister for education, who has put the proposition that the on-costs for 116,000 computers are $3 billion to $4 billion. The shadow minister for education is so numerate that he thinks the on-cost for a computer is $34,482. It just goes to prove the proposition that, when it comes to matters dealing with numbers, when it comes to matters financial and when it comes to matters economic, the last thing you can ever afford to do is trust someone from the Liberal Party.

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