Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I will. I would just make the point: the Business Council of Australia thinks we need to do this. We think it is that important. We asked the Prime Minister in question time to do this, and we got this silly answer back from him that said:

He says that he wants primary school kids to be taught coding so that they can get the jobs of the future. Does he want to send them all out to work at the age of 11?

It just shows: he does not get it. The Business Council of Australia thinks we should do this. And you have got Tony Abbott with a stupid answer like this. Well, my message to Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister of Australia, and all of the government, is this: remember what happened to Ned Ludd; remember what happened to the Luddites—they lost! They ended up getting caught. I think 17 of them got hung, and seven of them got transported out to Australia. And when you get stupid answers from a Prime Minister like this, it makes me think: some of them must have got away; some of them ended up here! And some of them—or, at least, one of them, made it into the office of the Prime Minister of Australia!

See this speech in context