Mr [Nathan Rees] discounted the reports. “It (leadership speculation) is boring for the people of NSW and boring for me,” he said. “We don’t get diverted by this.”

Mr Rees said he would not waste money conducting surveys to find out. “This is going to transform the way high school students are taught,” he said. “We are at the vanguard of this sort of technology.”

NSW Premier Nathan Rees hasclaimed he is untroubled by the factional infighting and leadership speculation dogging his premiership.

Mr Rees’s comments came after the naming yesterday of 21 Labor MPs who make up a new bloc in the party’s Right faction. The Sensibles, whose existence was revealed in The Australian last week, are hostile to ALP powerbrokers Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid, who orchestrated the rise of Mr Rees to Premier last September.

Mr Rees discounted the reports. “It (leadership speculation) is boring for the people of NSW and boring for me,” he said. “We don’t get diverted by this.”

Mr Rees scoffed at suggestions Mr Tripodi and Mr Obeid were acting as his warlords. “I don’t look over my shoulder at these things,” he said.

“You can spend all day thinking about these things … I have to lead from the front.”

Instead, the Premier wanted to emphasise the positives, attending a high school in western Sydney to announce a program to provide free laptops to the25,000 teachers working in NSW high schools.

He also indicated he was prepared to bring forward major infrastructure projects to combat the economic downturn, but would not name specific projects.

And his announcement on the laptops was marred by his admission he did not know how many teachers already had laptops, meaning those provided by theGovernment would be surplus to their requirements.

Mr Rees said he would not waste money conducting surveys to find out. “This is going to transform the way high school students are taught,” he said. “We are at the vanguard of this sort of technology.”

The government laptops, linked to the NSW Department of Education server, will restrict teachers from accessing a number of outside sites, including Myspace and Facebook.

Credit: John Stapleton