Page 841 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 March 2016
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These comments by federal Liberals have been astounding. On 29 February, in regard to safe schools, Tony Abbott stated:
It’s not an anti-bullying program. It’s a social engineering program. Its funding should be terminated.
How a former Prime Minister can take a program based on understanding and accepting and twist it into a form of social engineering is beyond me. Hopefully, this view contributed to why Mr Abbott now has a lot more time on his hands.
Cory Bernardi made a string of statements on 23 February which are unfathomable to someone with any kind of common sense. He stated that safe schools is, and I quote:
… intimidating children, they’re bullying children and they’re indoctrinating children into subscribing to a worldview that no 11 year old should be forced to do within our school system …
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Hinder, could you sit down for a moment. Stop the clock. It is form and practice in the Assembly to refer to members by their title—as the minister, or as Mr Doszpot or Mr Hinder. That extends to other parliaments as well; we refer to people by their title—the member for Warringah, Mr Abbott, Senator Bernardi et cetera. Could I ask you to keep that in mind in your comments.
MR HINDER: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Is Senator Bernardi seriously concerned that 11-year-olds should develop a world view based on acceptance of the differences of others? He went on to say that the program was being used to “indoctrinate children into a Marxist agenda of cultural relativism”. I am unaware what decade the senator thinks we live in, but the wall came down in 1989. If people are still talking about Marxist agendas in this day and age it is a bit outrageous. Again I refer to the fact that we are not pinkos and commos.
This comment shows a severe lack of understanding of the program by Senator Bernardi and his Liberal colleagues. But it goes on, Madam Speaker. His backbench colleague Mr Christensen stated on 25 February:
This material is putting children at risk of being sexualised at an early age. If a man exposed a child to these websites, sex clubs, sex shops and online communities on the internet we would call this a paedophile grooming a victim.
If someone is somehow implying that a program aimed at promoting the welfare of young people and making schools a better place is comparable to a sex offender grooming a child it is beyond the realm of anybody with half an understanding of this program. But leave it to Mr Christensen to never let facts get in the way of hard-right alarmism.
Mr Shorten rightly called Senator Bernardi a homophobe. However, all of these federal MPs clearly have a problem with a positive approach to building understanding towards gender and sexually diverse people. They do not seem to understand the nature of bullying in our schools and how important these years are for lifelong self-esteem.
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