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July 1, 2008
It is such a classic image of the ALP's NSW Right isn't it. Their understanding of politics is about power corrupted.
Their threat to scuttle Kevin Rudd's computers-in-schools program unless they got handouts to pay for broadband infrastructure costs and ongoing costs of running and maintaining the computers shines a light on their bully boy behaviour, their corporate developer friends and utter indifference to making a better world for citizens.
Moir
This episode also highlights the systematic failure of the state government to invest in public education so that kids have the capability to be able to participate in the information economy and the knowledge society. That is a huge indictment. Surely this is a government that is in its death throes?
Conservative commentators, such as Malcolm Colless in The Australian use the computer episode to attack Rudd. Colless says "And the fiasco around his promise to give computers to high school students across the country is quickly emerging as another case of all froth and no bubble", even though Colless acknowledges the mismanagement of public services under the scandal-wracked ALP government. For Colless the computer episode is just another example to underpin the conservative narrative about growing resentment in the community at Rudd's failure to deliver on the expectations he has created and that the this particular emperor has no clothes.
The reality is that Gillard is delivering the computers and it is the states who are blocking the way as they are unwilling to do their bit to invest in broadband infrastructure for their schools.
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Gary,
we have a two tiered education system as the non-government schools are already much better resourced than government schools. The poorest can get an education that approximates to that of the rest of the community only if the state schools on which they depend are properly resourced, thereby making these schools an attractive alternative to the children of the middle-class. The states have not done this. They have run down public education.