“Mr Rudd has dragged the nation once more through pain of an incredible rendition of "happy birthday" to announce the delivery of a very small cake. Once more we had to struggle through the announcement of a study into a committee to write a white paper into the future to deal with a concern about a problem to bring a revolution needed for our children to survive in the 21st century.

“I am wondering whether those in attendance could discern whether they could have easily been informed of the substance of this landmark speech in a paragraph.

“3% of real growth to defence over the next 10 years, and some sort of vague idea about schools that will fall flat on its face as soon as the Teachers' Union gets hold of it.

“Individual reporting requirements are widely criticised as being anything but transparent. The concept of supporting comparisons by parents of schools in their area based on average academic benchmarks falls short of taking any real action to increase performance. How can a parent move their child from one public school to another when they are restricted by their residential location?



Ends