Was this thread started y Joe Hocky?
Or was it ment to be a joke?

Sure China (which is effectively bankrupt) and Japan are our big trading partners. How many people does is it take to communicate with them...not every child in the community. Let's be realistic. Let's get children reading and writing English first, then a community language and then, if they can really handle it another language.
Head of Asian Studies at ANU told me many years ago they would rather have students with no knowledge of the language and teach them from scratch than students from schools who often had to unlearn the little they had been taught.
Rudd's approach is simplistic, ill thought out and impossible to implement. It is a waste of time, money and resources that would be better spent giving students practical skills and teaching them to use their leisure time to do something other than play computer games, watch television and play "team" sports under duress.

brace yourself comcat: anu mandarins are not the wellspring of knowledge you imagine. when learning a language, earlier the better.

further, 'asian' languages are not particularly hard. in the first place, they're not all the same. that may surprise you. mandarin in particular is simple to speak and understand although an early start is advisable to get the tones right. this is true of any language tho'.

Ah easy to learn a little and hard to learn a lot - and that comes from many, many teachers of a variety of Asian languages all over the world at primary, secondary and tertiary level.
Even if what you had to say was true that does not mean we should be teaching Asian languages in preference to the languages which have some cultural relevance in Australia.
We have to look at Asia but we also have to look beyond Asia. We are losing trade opportunities in droves because of the narrow minded focus on Asia.
BTW I am familiar with a number of Asian languages

Why aren't our schools teaching Spanish? South American countries present massive trade opportunities for Australia. There has been some talk of an Australia-Mercosur free trade agreement, but Australia's response has been so far underwhelming. Just another opportunity passing us by.

Do you think George Bush would allow a FTA with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Paraguay? I think not.

Bush wants Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)to prevail and I am sure we will follow.