Wonderful visit to Blackheath Public School

Four hours talk without stopping at Blackheath Public School with other local schools too and it was WONDERFUL.

Fantastic kids, brilliant questions, inspired teachers giving their kids the richness of Australian books.

And everyone, it seems, from teachers to taxi drivers asking about The Unproductivity Commission.

"How can they do that? Is Malcolm Turnbull going to destroy all we have spent decades working for, a rich and productive children's literature?"

Some of us even remembered the days when an Australian had to head overseas to make a living as a writer. And now they want to rip our industry away again.

I thought, deep in my valley, that most of the public neither knew nor cared. But the Productivity Commission had become a byword by governmental stupidity.

It shouldn't be like this. We need a productivity Commission. But we also need one that uses up to date data and can tell the difference between a mean and an average, and does not say that our industry is too successful and we would be better employed in more productivity industries.

Greyhound racing? Building submarines? Exactly where do they think an experienced Children's editor, bringing millions each year to our export economy, would be more productively placed?