To try and put this thread on-topic (seeing as how it started within another thread and got spun off, and never actually discussed the curriculum itself), its worth noting that there are actually several national curriculums that will exist (courtest of a crikey article I can't be bothered finding again).
There is the national curriculum that the politicians want - the one they trumpet to the media. The one that is apparently totally revolutionary because it includes Grammar and History (as an English/Hums teacher I was mystified to learn that what I've been teaching wasn't those things).
Then there is the national curriculum that is in the document, carefully prepared by university scholars who are totally up to date in the latest educational theory, but not actually around to implement it in schools.
What is important is how it actually gets implemented in schools. In most cases, there will be a core group of talented and experienced teachers, who are very good at what they do. Those teachers will look at their current practice, compare it to the new curriculum, and make as few changes as possible while still meeting the legislative requirements and the desired objectives of the school.
Finally, you'll get the new teachers coming through, who know nothing else, and treat it as the gospel. They'll share ideas with the oldies, leading to a compromise that sits somewhere in the middle.
In 5 years time, we'll have a new government with a new education minister who wants to make their mark. They'll decide to overhaul the national curriculum, change the history stuff and make sure we do more grammar and spelling (because that's what is really important), and everyone will kick up a fuss all over again. The teachers will keep teaching. The principals will keep doing their job. The students will keep learning. And politicians will still use something they barely understand to score cheap and manipulative political points.
Who benefits from this? Mainly the textbook manufacturers, who can sell a whole stack more copies every time the curriculum changes (all those SOSE textbooks that got thrown out by VELS are about to be joined by a heap of Humanities textbooks once the new curriculum comes in). University academics who get paid big bucks to write the stuff. And that is about it. The actual education system will barely change, and by the time the effects are digested for remote indigenous schools, Western Suburbs schools full of immigrants, or elite inner-city selective schools, the changes will be so small as to be pointless.