Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Working families will be footing the bill—those schools and those parents will be footing the bill, not Mr Rudd. And, of course, what we now know after the embarrassment of estimates is that the deception goes much deeper. In fact, the minister confirmed this today. Initially the argument was: there will be one computer for every student. Now we know from estimates and today’s answer that at best it might be one computer for every two students. This was a deliberate deception at the time of the election—a very glib phrase, it sounded great, but an absolute deception. What we now talk about, apparently, is access. That is now the new argument, that is the new terminology, not ‘one computer each’. And we learnt yesterday that apparently broadband may not be unrolled to schools until next year. Senator Coonan uncovered that atrocity. So we now know these great laptop computers may not be fed from broadband. So what have they got? Nothing better than typewriters. This education revolution is a glib sham and it is typical of the first 100 days of the Rudd government: all symbolism and nothing below it. (Time expired)