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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3566 ..

Resources, emotion, energy and time have been wasted, and sensible society practice has been damaged by activists who have successfully pressured successive Labor and Liberal governments around the country, and in the territory, to introduce discrimination legislation at extreme levels—extreme levels whereby society has become impeded from exercising best practice in all walks of life; extreme levels whereby political correctness has frightened ordinary, decent members of society—workers, managers, teachers, policemen—into tolerating second-best practices across the entire spectrum of governance, professional life and other societal functions. This legislative amendment bill is clearly aimed at bringing some sanity back to the system.

I want to see urgent action taken to lift discrimination impediments on teacher recruitment. I want schools to competently recruit female, male, indigenous and Pacific Islander teachers and recruit from any other societal grouping to meet any special need. I want to see that schools can do that without the sword of political correctness, legal threats or any other political activist threat hanging over their heads.

It has been clear to me, since I commenced the debate in this place on boys’ education, that these threats exist. The political Left of this town, including members of this government, very quickly remind me, and others, that this threat exists. They have offered no positive recommendations for enhancing best practice or addressing the serious issues affecting our children’s education.

I have argued long and hard in this place that male and female role model teachers are needed for both boys and girls, right across the primary and secondary schooling spectrum in varying balances, depending on the individual school and depending on the student make-up, sometimes including demographics. But right now, school principals and departmental authorities are in fact unable to positively discriminate to rebalance the major imbalance that does exist right across our schools. Of course, we see political activists sitting in the wings to ensure that there will be no positive discrimination to rectify this problem in our schools.

Let’s look at a couple of these examples. What about indigenous teachers? We need to recruit indigenous teachers now. We have a lot of indigenous youth, some of whom are in danger of not completing a reasonable education. They need role models. How do we do that? How do we recruit indigenous teachers with the current discrimination legislation, leaving open the opportunity for legal reaction? Let me just support this argument. indigenous teachers would increase the cultural elements and provide positive role models for both genders. They would also help non-indigenous teachers with expert advice on curriculum and strategies for challenging behaviour.

Let me justify the case for positive discrimination and the need to recruit women teachers in certain speciality areas—despite my previously stated position that I am concerned with the gender balance across our schools. A teacher has advised me that women as role models are increasing in number in some schools, where they have been successfully recruited and trained. They have been increasing their enrolment in physical education, where adolescent females students feel conscious about body image.

Women teaching technology, woodwork and metalwork increase female students’ perspectives so that they think outside the square, reducing the stereotypes. Male

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