Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Prime Minister mocked Labor's idea for children to learn to code from primary school age. Given that the Chief Scientist, the Business Council of Australia and members of his own frontbench think it is a good idea, will the Prime Minister reconsider his backward response from yesterday and support Labor's plan for every child in every primary school to get the chance to learn to code?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition has been playing catch-up politics on this. This matter was fully dealt with by the government in the competitiveness and innovation agenda that we brought down last year and, as part of that agenda, coding is now on the curriculum at every level, and it is backed up by money which this government has committed. If the Leader of the Opposition ever did his homework, as opposed to going out there with stunt after stunt, political ploy after political ploy, he would have known that.