Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Motions
Sex education
Motions
Sex education
Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (10:59): I move:
That this house:
(1) expresses its strong support for the protection of childhood innocence;
(2) deplores the sexualisation of primary school aged children by programs within the Victorian education curriculum; and
(3) calls on the Minister for Education to replace programs responsible for early sexualisation of prepubescent children with more age-appropriate human development programs.
I have always regarded childhood as possibly the most magical time of anyone’s life. There have been times, particularly of late in this place, that I wished in fact that I had never left childhood. But what I like to see is that kids have a childhood that they enjoy and that enhances what they have to look forward to. I look back on my childhood with great fond memories, on the farm down near Colac all those years ago, and that is a very important part of my life, remembering that. I think that we must protect the innocence of childhood for each and every single child in this state. I think it is a basic responsibility of every member of this house, and I think it is a basic responsibility of every adult, because it is my view that every adult has a duty to protect children—every adult. I spend a lot of my time fighting for kids, and I see what is happening in this state at the moment with the sexualisation of kids in primary school to be something we cannot allow to continue. It is not only destroying kids’ childhoods but also providing them with a very perverse outlook on life from that point on, because childhood does provide a base for where we grow into adolescence and into adulthood, and what is happening at the moment is something that cannot be allowed to continue.
I had heard stories about some of the things that have been going on in classrooms for, well, the last four or five years anyway, and I thought they may have been a bit exaggerated, to tell you the truth; I did not quite believe it. But I had a note from a constituent, and I raised this in the Parliament on the adjournment earlier this year. She told me, this particular constituent from Sunbury, of her 10-year-old girl, who came home from school extremely upset, extremely distressed. She went straight to her room. She did not want to talk to anybody, she did not want to see anybody; she just went straight to her room, shut the door and stayed there. This went on for some hours until her mum decided that she would find out what was going on. So she went in and she sat on the bed with her 10-year-old daughter, and she said, ‘What’s been going on? Why are you upset?’. What the 10-year-old daughter told her mum shocked her mum and has subsequently shocked me and many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Australians since. The 10-year-old girl told her mum that she at school had been told as homework to go home and ask her father about his erections and ejaculation. I will say that again because that is I think worth repeating: a 10-year-old girl who lives not far from where I do was asked by her teacher to go home and ask her father about his erections and his ejaculations. Is it any wonder this poor little kid was as distressed as she was? I do not believe this is a one-off—not at all—and it is just extraordinary that we have a situation where this would happen to even one kid, much less that it be widespread. The minister got back to me, which was very nice of him. Some ministers do not bother on the adjournment, but Minister Merlino did. Perhaps it is the faction he is in.
Mr FINN: He should be sound. I suspect that the answer that has been provided to me as a result of me raising this matter was written by a bureaucrat who was possibly a lefty. I do not know. He thanked me for my question regarding ‘puberty education’, as they call it. Well, fair dinkum, if that is puberty education, I just shake my head in disbelief. You fear to think what is coming next. Indeed I do fear to think what is coming next, and I should point out that I am only talking today about primary school aged kids. We could talk about what happens in secondary schools, and that would fair dinkum curl even my hair. That would curl anybody’s hair. It is quite extraordinary. The answer that was provided by the minister says:
Age-appropriate education on sexuality and puberty is an important component of the Health and Physical Education Curriculum.
Well, I agree with that. It is an important part, and that is why I am moving this motion today—because I actually want to see that happen. I want to see age-appropriate programs for human development. I want to see that. I do not want to see kids exposed to concepts, to ideas and to suggestions that horrify them, that shock them and that send them into a state of trauma. I do not want that to happen. The minister went on:
Teaching students about their bodies, brains, relationships and health with evidence-based programs appropriate for their development and led by a trusted source is imported before they discover potential misinformation surrounding these topics online or in the playground.
On that statement I have one question: what about the parents? Isn’t it their right to inform their children in the way they feel is necessary about these sorts of things? For an education system to try to usurp the role of parents in this particular way I think is despicable. I think it is despicable, and I think it is something that none of us in a free society should be happy to allow. The minister went on:
The classroom-based activities and suggested homework in the Department of Education and Training’s sexuality education teaching resource, Catching on Early, do not include a task that directs students to discuss erections and ejaculation with their parents.
Well, it may not include a task to direct students to discuss erections and ejaculation with their parents—or indeed their father on this particular occasion—but, Minister, it is happening. This has happened. The minister cannot be in denial on this. This has happened. It has happened at a school in Sunbury about 35 or 40 minutes from here. It has happened, and a child has been taken out of that school now and is being homeschooled as a result of what happened to her. The minister went on. Amongst other things he said:
Using the Catching on Early teaching resource is not compulsory, and parents are able to remove their children from these lessons, if they wish.
He should have said ‘if they know’, because I will put money down that most parents will not know. They will not be aware of what their kids are being taught in some of these classes. And let me tell you, the kids would be too embarrassed to come home and tell their parents. They would cringe at the thought of sitting down with their mum and dad and telling them what they were taught at school today in these particular classes, so the parents are not going to find out. It is very hard for the parents to get involved and indeed to take the child out if they do not know. That is a simple fact of life. I just shake my head almost with fury at the thought of these children being abused—this is child abuse, absolutely—by a system that is promoting its own political ideology ahead of kids’ welfare. What sort of government does that? How can we allow that to happen? Well, it is happening. It is happening every day, and it is something that quite frankly we must as a Parliament stand up and say no to. We will protect our kids. We will protect our children. We will let kids be kids. We will let kids enjoy their childhood for as long as they possibly can.
As one parent said to me just this week: ‘My daughter’, as it was in this case, ‘knows all about genders’—you know, all the 73 genders—‘She knows about how she can change her own gender’.
A member interjected.
Mr FINN: 76. Gone up, has it? Okay, fair enough; that is inflation for you. She knows all about these genders that we are on about, but she does not know the capital of New South Wales. She does not know the capital of Queensland. She can barely read. She can barely write. But she knows how to change her gender—all this from a primary school.
Mr FINN: Well, they are the priorities of this government, no doubt about that. There is gender confusion overload. That is what it is. These kids go to school, and the little boys are told by their teachers that they might be little girls—‘Have you ever thought about that? You could be a little girl’.
Mr FINN: I do live in a binary world. Yes, I do, absolutely. And the little girls are told that they might be little boys. So between the two of them, nobody—
Mr FINN: It is a grey area, apparently so, Mr Somyurek. I just find the destruction of childhood in this way to be an act of criminality. I think it is appalling, and it is something that this Parliament I believe should address as a matter of urgency.
You know, from day care right through to year 12, children are being taught to explore and to play with their sexual orientation and gender identity. Is it any wonder we have major mental health issues with kids in this state? They go to school, and from the age of five or six they are being told they might be something that they are not—that they have been a little boy up until that time and they might be a little girl. They are being told this at school. When they get a bit older, they are told that they are all going to die because of climate change. Is it any wonder that these kids have mental health issues? To think that these issues, these problems, are being promoted within our schools is despicable. It is a disgrace, and it is something this government must act on. It must put its ratbag ideologies to one side, and it must put the welfare of children as its number one priority. It must, because to have neutral, health-based education replaced with age-inappropriate, erotic, sexual materials that encourage high-risk sexual behaviours is not on. This is happening in primary schools. God help the kids when they get to secondary school.
The view that is promoted to them is that their sexual orientation is fluid and changeable and that they should explore different sexualities. Strike me pink—your average seven-year-old would not know which way was up. What hope have these kids got when they are taught this nonsense? What hope have they got? They are told to view heteronormality, the prevalence of heterosexuality in society, as negative. Why would they do that? I mean, this is part of an ideology that is harming them in a very, very big way. They are taught that consent and legal age are the two main considerations when pursuing sex. It does not matter what dangers it may pose or it may offer along the way. It does not matter—any of those sorts of things—get out there and into it. As long as you consent and as long as you are within the age limits you can do whatever you like.
Now, I am not sure there are all that many parents who would be thrilled with that, and the kids are being subject to this from a very, very early age. As I say, I shake my head in disbelief, but it is true. I would have loved today to have had the mum and her daughter who I spoke of earlier here in the chamber. Unfortunately they have come down with one of the multitude of lurgies that are now engulfing our city, and they cannot be here. But they were going to be in the gallery, and members would have been able to go up and have a chat to them and have explained that this is not exactly something that I have made up by myself; this is something that has actually happened. This is something that I have come across in the course of my duties as a local member of Parliament in the Western Metropolitan area. I tell you what, the horror and the shock that went through the community when I first raised this matter in April told me that people do not want this to happen. They do not want this to happen. Mr Melhem, they do not want this to happen. You know, parents do not want their kids abused in this way. As I say, this is child abuse. This is horrifying. We are not even talking about adolescents. We are not even talking about teenagers. We are talking about kids in primary school, for God’s sake. What could possibly possess any right-thinking person to regard this as a normal, reasonable practice? What indeed. We know there are ideological extremists out there. We know that they have largely captured certain parts of the government. We know all that, but people like James Merlino, the minister, surely cannot support this. He surely cannot. I have always regarded him as a pretty decent sort of bloke.
Mr Somyurek: The party is run by the left.
Mr FINN: Well, the party, sadly, is run by the left, and it is very much the loony left. It is the extremist left, the loony left, that we are dealing with here, and they do not care if they destroy the lives of kids. They do not care if kids are in psychoanalysis for the next 20 years to recover from their primary education. All these nut bags in the left want is to promote their ideology. All they want to do is promote their way of life or what they think everybody should be doing, and that is the simple fact of the matter. They do not care about the kids, and in education the kids should be everything. The kids should be number one, two and three, always, but these people do not care. They just do not care about the kids. They do not care that the kids are having nervous breakdowns. They do not care that the kids have completely lost interest in school because they cannot handle some of this absolutely outrageous material that they are being subjected to. They do not care about the kids. They certainly do not care about the parents, because they are actively promoting the parents and the children being in different places. They are actively promoting that because they know if they can do that, they can control the kids. They can control everything that the kid learns, and that is a horrifying situation. As a parent and as a responsible adult, I intend to do something about it.
Today I urge members to support this motion, but today is not the end. Today is just the beginning. It is just the beginning, because this is a fight that we must have and this is a fight that we must win because it is for our kids. It is for our kids, and our kids are worth fighting for. Every kid in this state is worth fighting for, and I tell you one thing: I am not going to go away on this. Whether this motion is carried or not carried today, I will not be going away. I will be back on this because this is a fight we will have and win.
Mr MELHEM (Western Metropolitan) (11:20): I also rise to speak on the motion moved by Mr Finn. There may be one thing I agree with Mr Finn on: I think it is important that we do protect our children whether at school, at home or in society. I think it is important; we all agree on that. I think children are our responsibility, and as adults, as parents, it is our role as a government to actually provide them with a safe place to be. Whether it is at school, whether it is at home or anywhere, it is our responsibility to make sure we take care of them and look after them. And when I talk about children, I talk about all children regardless of their background, their ethnicity, their upbringing, even children at the age of—I think we will have a debate about some of the issues that Mr Finn talked about—primary school or secondary school or high school.
These programs that have been talked about are age appropriate. Talking about teaching someone in kinder or primary school, some of the programs Mr Finn is talking about—with all due respect, Mr Finn, I think what you are trying to say is way exaggerated. I understand where you are coming from. That is a view you have always had, and you have got a right to express these views. But I think it is important to get the facts right; it is about getting the facts right.
These sorts of programs that have been talked about have been in operation for decades. There have been some changes over the years, and the changes are actually to provide further protection for our children. I am going to talk about a number of the changes. For example, they talk about consent, and that was recently introduced. To me consent is teaching our children that no means no—respect the other person. It is not saying to children, ‘You can go and have lots of sex at the age of 10 or 15—as much as you like’ et cetera. It is not. Let us not twist things. It is about respect from a young age. When they go out, when they are adults, it is about enshrining that in their thinking: respect the other sex, whether you are a male or a female. That is what teaching consent is about. The true meaning is that that person is genuinely saying yes to a relationship. That is what consent is about. It is not the way Mr Finn described it.
Again, with Respectful Relationships, Mr Finn talked about children being under stress with their mental health. But we have got children who are confused about their sexuality, and that is a fact of life. Children go through that. These sorts of things are taught at school, and it is to make sure we address these issues. It is not about conversion. It is not about converting. Some people put the argument that we are converting kids now from being that particular sex to this particular sex. That is not what this program is about. It is about making sure that we provide all the necessary support for children who actually have issues about their sexuality. I think we cannot just ignore them and just pretend it is not there. I think that is stupid. It is important that we actually do something. We owe it to our children. My children, thank God, are not at that age now. They are aged 20 and 23. Maybe, hopefully, my grandchildren one day will go to school and the support will be there to help them. I know the support was there for my children, and my children went to Catholic schools and had support there as well. It is not just public schools; it is everyone’s responsibility. There are obviously certain standards that people believe in in our society. We should respect that. As parents we have got that responsibility as well to apply our standards.
Whilst we agree on the motion, I do not necessarily agree that our current programs are basically no good and should basically just be withdrawn and that that is going to basically keep everyone safe. I think the opposite will happen if we accept Mr Finn’s motion. Whilst I accept where he is coming from, I do not agree with most of the stuff he has basically said about the various programs.
I will talk about the respect issue and the consent issue. Whether we like it or not, a 10-year-old or a 15-year-old will go through hormonal change, and I am referring to the LGBTI group. That is the best time for us to intervene and help them to make sure that whatever they want to be, they should be proud. If they are gay, lesbian or whatever sex they decide, we should help them. We owe it to them. Instead of pretending, ‘Oh, no, there’s something wrong with you. You’re sick. Just harden up and just get on with it’—that is not the approach. That probably was the approach 100 years ago, 5000 years ago. That was the approach in the old days.
Mr MELHEM: I am not as old as you, Mr Finn. That is not the approach. It is 2022. We owe it to them. That is when they need our support. I have seen a lot of kids—and a lot of young men now and even older—that have gone through hell and back, and a lot of them are actually not with us because we were not there and giving them enough support. Some of these programs and our school programs provide—not intervention; intervention is the wrong word—early assistance and provide them with the resources and the support they need. It is very important and very vital.
Now, the example that Mr Finn talked about of that person knowing everything about sexuality and so forth and not knowing the capital city of New South Wales is Sydney I think is a long exaggeration, but I get that.
Mr MELHEM: Maybe they need to talk to the teacher or the parents about etiquette. Anyway, the point is this: it is one program, or a number of programs. It is part of the curriculum. What is wrong with teaching our kids about their body?
Mr Finn: Nothing. Nothing at all—age appropriate, though.
Mr MELHEM: Exactly, and that is what these programs are. Thank you for the interjections, Mr Finn. That is the point I am getting to.
Ms Terpstra: On a point of order, Acting President, I am having trouble hearing Mr Melhem’s contribution with the interjections that are coming from across the aisle. I would like to hear Mr Melhem’s contribution, and he should be allowed to continue in silence.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Point upheld, but I know Mr Melhem is sailing close to baiting Mr Finn, so perhaps if we can just move on, that would be good.
Mr MELHEM: Thank you, Acting President. That is the point I am getting at: these programs are age appropriate. We have a particular program for primary schools, a more advanced program for high school and so forth. It is not one size fits all. It is all about making sure we start early with very limited education and then go on and start talking in a bit more detail in secondary school and high school. Proudly I will stand here and say I am very supportive of these programs in our school. Sure, there is always room for improvement, for changes and for delivery. You could have the best program in the world but have it be wrongly delivered. The delivery can always be fine-tuned. But as a concept, as what the state governments have done—and I want to commend Minister Merlino on the work he has done. He came from a very conservative background—and Mr Finn is talking about that and trying to bring that into the debate—but if he did not believe in it, he would not have implemented that. I commend him on the work he did in that space.
With these words, I cannot support what Mr Finn is proposing. I do accept where he is coming from and I respect his right to have his view and to air these views, but I think the kind of programs we have got in our school are there to protect our children, to protect all these kids and to make sure we give them the best start in life. I will leave my comments there.
Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (11:30): I was pleased to see this motion on the notice paper today, as I come to this debate from a place of some experience. Prior to coming into this house just two years ago I was the wellbeing leader at a large secondary school in my electorate. Prior to that I was the wellbeing leader at, again, another secondary school. In my earlier career as a teacher, I regularly taught health and human services and indeed sex education. There are many elements of this motion that I agree with, and more broadly the Liberals and Nationals will support it.
Nonetheless I agree with some of the points that Mr Melhem made also. Mr Melhem spoke about the fact that we should not go back to the old days, as he called them, where children who were questioning their sexuality or gender identity did not get the care and support they needed, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. Certainly my practice always as the wellbeing leader at a large secondary school in my electorate was to work with the psychologists who were part of that team that I led to seek to ensure that the significant minority of students who were questioning their sexuality and the much smaller minority of students who were questioning their gender identity received the evidence-based and age-appropriate support they needed. We know in particular that trans kids are some of the most vulnerable kids in our community, and it is essential that they get the support they need.
Nonetheless I am on the record on any number of occasions questioning not just the Department of Education and Training in this respect, Mr Finn, but the department and the government more broadly when it comes to the implementation of a whole series of programs. As a parochial teacher, I would like to see Victorian teachers, who I think overwhelmingly are just fantastic, being able to be given more time to do what they know and love—and that is, to teach their subjects. Something that the uninitiated perhaps do not fully understand is that the best pastoral care is delivered in the classroom in normal subjects by teachers that students know and trust. There is not a need to continually expand the number of programs that sit alongside the curriculum. That means we know there is precious little time to do the sorts of things that the majority of parents want to send their kids to school to do.
Back in 2019, before the pandemic hit, Victorian students received their worst ever results in numeracy, in literacy and in so-called scientific literacy. That was according to the Programme for International Student Assessment, the so-called PISA study. That is a matter of grave concern to all of us. Again, something that perhaps the uninitiated do not understand fully is that children often experience a decline in their wellbeing, a decline in their mental health, when they are really struggling in the classroom with their academic work. The two cannot be separated, as this government so often seeks to do—to have academic programs over here and entirely different wellbeing programs over here. There is a need, again as Mr Melhem said, for specific programs, and Mr Melhem talked about some of them, regarding consent, for example—deeply important. There is a need to make sure that there are strong programs to support students who are really struggling with their wellbeing. As I have already said, trans kids are among the most vulnerable kids in our community, if not the most vulnerable kids in our community.
But in the delivery of such programs there does need to be due regard for the evidence. With all due respect, my strong view is that many of the wellbeing programs that have emanated from this government and its department of education are not based on the best evidence. For example, I have recently written about the move under this government to embrace so-called positive psychology. This is a movement that is entirely lacking in evidence. I would urge the advisers of the government to read a wonderful recent book by Professor Mick Power, professor of psychology at the University of Singapore—he recently, very sadly, died—entitled Understanding Happiness, in which he fully unpacks the paucity of evidence behind positive psychology. It is the notion, in short, that you should simply, when you find lemons, think, ‘Let’s make lemonade’. It is in fact an ideology that was fully embraced by the former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump—the idea that if you embrace a happiness agenda, if you simply become more positive, your wellbeing will increase. There is no evidence for this notion, and yet this is embraced fully by the government, by the Minister for Education and by the Department of Education and Training. The evidence points directly in the other direction. Americans are the most positive people in the world; they are also the most anxious people in the world. There is no linkage between positivity and mental wellbeing.
I agree with comments by both Mr Finn and Mr Melhem that the wellbeing programs we run in our schools must be based on the best evidence. My assertion as a former teacher, my assertion as a former wellbeing leader leading teams of psychologists, is that many of the programs that this government seeks to have implemented in our schools are not based on the best evidence. I have said before that, in seeking to support in particular the minority of students in our schools who have such a complex time grappling with issues of sexuality and gender identity, never once in my work with psychologists did they say to me, ‘Well, in order to assist these children’—who desperately need help and support to know that they are respected, dare I say loved; never once did they say—‘what we must do is use a resource from Victoria’s Department of Education and Training’.
There does need to be change. That change must respect, as Mr Melhem said, the need for really strong programs when it comes to consent, a really strong approach in our schools to supporting kids who are same-sex attracted and most certainly to supporting trans kids. Now, as we seek to move forward I hope to ensure that in our schools there is a greater focus on academic learning in the key areas of STEM—and we heard government members, including Dr Kieu, who is deeply passionate about STEM education himself, I fully concede that, talk about that need yesterday—and also literacy and that we strip away, not just in this area but in other areas too, a range of different programs that do not marry well with the formal curriculum.
As we do that we should have due regard for the important role of parents. I have previously been on the record praising the government for its embrace of an early intervention program called Functional Family Therapy. I have called on the government to roll out this program more broadly. It is a really good program. It has been called for by Berry Street, by Anglicare, by Social Ventures Australia—a whole range of wonderful organisations that the Victorian people know and trust. In that regard, in particular in working with kids known to child protection and especially vulnerable Indigenous kids, what that program, which is based on the very best evidence, seeks to do is to further empower parents, in particular fathers—to further empower parents and fathers. So I do have a worry that in some of the material that emanates from our Department of Education and Training there is not due regard for the role of teachers, which is different to the role of parents. We should be having the very highest expectation of Victorian parents, the vast majority of whom are fantastic. The role of parents does not need to be co-opted by schools and teachers. Schools and teachers have no wish, I can tell you as a former teacher, to co-opt the role of parents. There must be complementary programs in our schools; however, my view is that presently that is not done well.
If I had had my way, I would have liked to see a motion that was a little broader, as I said, that deals not just with these specific issues but a whole range of other issues that I think also impact the standard of education that our kids receive. Nonetheless this is the motion before the house. It does hit upon some significant issues, and the Liberals and The Nationals will support it.
Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (11:39): I rise to make a contribution on this motion standing in Mr Finn’s name. It is couched in terms around protecting children, but I have grave concerns about the way that this motion is framed and about the way in which it is presented in this house. What it really seeks to do is drive a wedge—and, again, using children as one of those wedges—to say that the government is bad, that we are sexualising children, whereas there is nothing further from the truth. I am going to speak to this motion as a parent of children who attend government schools, and I find it quite distasteful that we find ourselves in a position where we are debating a motion that again seems to suggest that the curriculum that children are being taught is sexualising children, where it is not. It could not be further from the truth.
So we have got a motion that is framed in a way that seeks to lead us down a particular path which is ill conceived and inappropriate. It is frustrating to me as a parent of children who attend and have attended government schools that I am having to listen to a debate and participate in a debate that is completely misleading and is completely offensive, and I find it frustrating here that we are having to listen to people talk about children as if they know what is good for them—politicians in this chamber—where really I have faith, trust and confidence in the government school system to be able to educate my children in a number of ways that they need. But we are having discussions that some experts are better than other experts and there is this program and that program, predicated on the idea that the government is not getting advice and information from the best experts that it can that are available, and so I completely reject the premise of this motion as being just another stupid political wedge to have a crack at children who might be feeling vulnerable because they are perhaps questioning or curious about their sexuality and a whole range of things that often children find themselves going through.
I have to say we talk a lot about schools here in this chamber and in the other place. We talk about teachers and the amazing work that they do. But as a parent I will say this, and I have said it a number of times: I am my child’s first teacher. Parents are their child’s first teachers. Parents teach their children a whole range of things. But of course as your child gets older you need to send them off into the world, and we send them off to schools in the government system. The reason why I chose the government system for my children to attend school is that it is the system that has the most diversity. It embraces diversity, and I am proud to say that with my child who attends a government school, when I go to that school and drop her off I see children who are transitioning, I see children in wheelchairs, I see children who are from a diverse range of backgrounds—and that is the whole point about diversity. What this motion really tries to do is to say that all-knowing adults seem to be able to suggest what should be right for our children, notwithstanding the facts of what our own children are telling us—that they need help and support to deal with some of these issues, particularly if they are curious or questioning their own sexuality—and I find it offensive, as I said before, that we have to be here today talking about a ridiculous motion like this.
Some of comments that Dr Bach made I agree with. He was a teacher, of course, and he taught these sorts of programs that talk about assisting children to understand, work through and navigate their own personal development or the like. Those programs are appropriate. Of course children need to know that, and as kids get older they need to interact with other teachers in their lifetimes. But again it is just another wedge from Mr Finn. Now that he is off the Liberal Party benches, he is off the leash and he wants to come in here, throw another wedge at government and have us debate this stuff again. It is really offensive and ridiculous. With some of the points that have been made I just shake my head in disbelief that in 2022 we are still having these sorts of ridiculous discussions.
I commend the government, the Department of Education and Training and all our really dedicated, hardworking teachers for the care, compassion and concern they show in educating our young people and helping our young people at schools. I have said I am my child’s first teacher, but there are kids who cannot go to their parents and discuss some of these things because they are very sensitive in nature and perhaps their parents are not supportive. So of course schools often provide an environment where kids who might be curious or questioning can actually go to their teachers, discuss this sort of stuff and know that they will be supported in that in a non-judgemental way. So I completely reject the premise of this motion that Mr Finn has put forward and that we are sexualising children. Our children are telling us that they want help with navigating these sorts of things, so it is completely offensive to suggest that we are sexualising children in some type of way. I think the member might have to reflect on his own motivations in bringing this and his own strange way of internalising these sorts of matters. I could go on and on, but I will try and move on to other points, because we could just go down a rabbit hole that has no end. As I said, it is offensive to have to discuss this kind of motion again based on the frame that is being put forward.
But age-appropriate school-based sexuality education is one of the core teaching responsibilities that a school undertakes. It is important. I reflect on my own schooling. I remember many, many years ago when I went to school we learned about sex education and those sorts of things. That is not sexualising children. It is just ridiculous. It is learning about your body and about what safe boundaries are. Sometimes children may not have had the best start to life, and they need to understand and learn from a different source about what a safe boundary is and asserting their own safe boundaries with adults. That is entirely appropriate. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In Victoria it is compulsory for government schools to provide age-appropriate sexuality education within the health and physical education curriculum. Again, the curriculum is written by experts, it is put together by experts and to suggest that it is not is a complete falsehood and ridiculous. This curriculum is aimed at supporting students to learn about their bodies, brains, respectful relationships and health.
I have got just about 2 minutes on the clock, and I know Mr Meddick wants to speak on this. I will move on quickly so he can get a go before question time, but I just want to talk about consent very quickly and respectful relationships. The government has invested $82 million in Respectful Relationships, including funding for professional learning for teachers on topics of consent, sexual harassment and building positive, respectful relationships. Since 2016 more than 35 000 educators have participated in this training from more than 1950 schools, including more than 380 non-government schools. This stuff matters because we see things in the media where boundaries have been breached. We see people in all walks of life behaving in less-than-respectful ways towards each other. We are seeing some of this being played out in the media right now with football players, for example. So what is wrong with teaching people about respectful relationships and boundaries? Absolutely nothing. It has got nothing to do with sexualising children. Ridiculous.
Let us talk about consent for a moment. Yes, any child has the right to say ‘I welcome someone touching me’ or ‘I don’t’. They have the right to say no to that, and it is important that we reinforce those notions. In the primary years, the curriculum focuses on relationships, body awareness, changes associated with puberty and age-appropriate information on how babies are conceived and pregnancy. In the secondary years, sexuality education focuses on developmental changes, transition, healthy and respectful relationships, safety and help seeking. These are things that are obvious and that are happening now.
If we all took a leaf out of Mr Finn’s book, we would just be closing our eyes, sticking our head in the sand and saying that none of this stuff ever actually happens. We know that these things do happen, and we also know that children who might be questioning their sexuality are subject to bullying and harassment in schools and they suffer from depression and anxiety. So if it was a leaf out of Mr Finn’s book, we would go ‘Let’s do nothing’, put our heads in the sand and just talk about innocence. What we are saying over here on the government benches is, ‘Let’s help and support children navigate through whatever transition they need at the time they need it in a respectful way and an age-appropriate way’. I just want to say a huge thankyou to those dedicated teachers in our school system who help young people each and every day navigate some very difficult and challenging personal journeys in their own lives. It is disappointing and it is shameful that we have to be here talking about this kind of ridiculous, stupid motion brought by Mr Finn.
Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (11:49): I rise briefly to speak on this motion. It is a very disappointing, ill-thought-out and frankly offensive motion. I wish the member who brought this motion today cared as much about the real challenges facing young people in schools. I know about these because as a parent I have lived through them. One thing the member and I have in common is that we care about the safety of children. That is why I never left mine in the care of the church. All I am saying is that a child has never been harmed by a drag queen, but I cannot say the same for a priest.
I have spoken openly in this chamber about the fact that both of my children are transgender. Their journey to realise and accept this fact was not smooth, because they had not been told in their most formative years that this was okay, that this was normal. My children are both adults now, and I can only imagine how different their school lives would have been if they had had the support that is currently available in the education system, especially when they were beginning to realise they were different to how they thought they were meant to be, which I can tell you was much younger than when they actually came out.
The argument that schools are forcing or deliberately misleading children into gender dysphoria is shameful. Recently I led a task force into the establishment of LGBTIQA+ safe spaces in the Geelong, Surf Coast and Ballarat regions, and I know through this process that inclusive education and accessible resources will literally save lives. School education programs will do the same. Our kids need support, not the continued and persistent denial of lived experience—experience that should be celebrated.
To the member, I have a message. It is a message I saw articulated by brilliant young activist Matt Bernstein on Instagram a few days ago. They had this message to say: if you think kids are too young to learn about LGBTIQA+ people, it is because you only view LGBTIQA+ identity through the lens of sex—that you view queerness not as a complex part of someone’s identity from the time they are born but as a series of sexual acts exclusively for adults. This is wrong. It is for this reason that I will be vehemently opposing this motion today. Not only that, but I hope these programs can be expanded and developed in even more schools across Victoria to save more lives. It is 2022 and beyond time that young LGBTIQA+ people should need to defend themselves and their lives against the continuous attacks from the likes of the member and the outdated, hurtful and harmful ideologies he seeks to continue—a crumbling artifice seeking relevance in a world that is fast leaving them behind.
Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (11:52): I rise to speak in support of Mr Finn’s motion and his contribution which began this debate. The three parts of the motion are fairly straightforward and easy to agree with, and I also endorse the very erudite contribution of my colleague Dr Bach, who more than anyone in this place speaks from real experience about wellbeing programs for students.
I do believe that the innocence of childhood should be protected. I do deplore the sexualisation of primary school aged children, and I do believe any programs responsible for the early sexualisation of children either in their content or in the licence they give teachers to go too far should be replaced by properly bounded, age-appropriate material. Children should be free to develop at their own pace. They should be guided by their parents. It is just fundamental. Child safety is one thing, and I agree that proper sex education supports this, but indoctrination is another. And what we see in Victoria has gone way beyond child safety. It used to be that parents trying to protect their children from inappropriate sexualisation faced the challenge of advertising and marketing on television and more recently the internet. Now it is the government which is doing it. The biggest threat to children’s innocence and parents’ rights is no longer commercial. It is not Hollywood or television or big business marketing and selling, it is social engineering by government. And it is no wonder that some parents feel not just uncomfortable but isolated. Some feel they now have to protect their children from not just predators but the state—from the education system and their teachers, who are supposed to nurture and develop them.
It is often seen through a religious prism, and there is no doubt that many parents in different religious and cultural groups feel deeply uncomfortable with what is forced upon them. But it is not just a religious matter, it is also about the state interfering where it should not be. Nor is this interference with the curriculum the end of the matter. It is all of a piece. It fits with the creeping replacement of parental authority. This is exactly what we in this place unfortunately endorsed in passing the Victorian Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill 2020. It is no longer a parent’s right to choose how they bring up their child. They must affirm their gender identity.
While I oppose this creeping extension of government authority in itself, what is worse is that it seems to exclusively occupy the attention of the Department of Education and Training in the Andrews government. There is far more we could be doing, that we should be doing, which would actually help kids improve their life chances, their agency, their futures, their achievement and their self-esteem and incidentally which would liberate their teachers and improve their job satisfaction. Just this week, for instance, we heard that from next term all Victorian educational settings, from kinders to schools and even universities, must comply with new directions to provide culturally safe environments and to recognise that Australia’s colonial history has caused significant trauma and hurt that individuals, families and communities still feel today. How insulting is this to schools and to teachers. Are they not already providing safe and caring environments? Do we need the full weight of the law and a heavily oversubscribed bureaucracy to enforce this? This is the same instinct which has brought about the problems Mr Finn has highlighted, and in the same way that we should allow teachers to use their own good sense to properly educate all pupils in their care regardless of their cultural or racial origin, we should also trust them to teach age-appropriate sex education programs.
These cultural obsessions are failing our pupils, failing the next Victorian generation. The evidence shows that we ought to concentrate on other programs. Last year in Victoria, for instance, the Mathematics Heads of Faculty Network wrote to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, saying:
Standards have dropped, content has had to be omitted during remote periods of learning, assessments have become less rigorous, student understanding is often superficial, and resilience is low.
In March this year the latest NAPLAN data showed that the numeracy and literacy results of Victoria’s most disadvantaged students took a serious hit in the pandemic. More than a third of primary school students assessed by the Smith Family made little progress in their literacy and numeracy, and in fairness, it is not just a Victorian problem. The OECD’s most recent Programme for International Student Assessment report, which assesses the achievement of 15-year-olds in science, maths and reading, confirmed that yet again Australia’s international assessment has fallen, a trend which has continued now for 20 years.
Worst of all, it is the disadvantaged who suffer most. NAPLAN results show that disadvantaged students are falling drastically behind their peers in literacy and numeracy skills, with year 9 students more than four years behind their most advantaged peers in reading in both New South Wales and Victoria. Regional schools and students suffer too. Last year just 37 out of 265 schools with median study scores in the top 50 per cent statewide were regional schools, and the attendance record in regional schools is demonstrably poorer. Why is this not the focus of our education system?
We need a return to the basics of education. We need the three Rs, not affirmation, not apologies, and I deplore the situation which occurred in my electorate when male students were asked to stand up at Brauer College and apologise for being male. At the Parkdale secondary school they were called oppressors—white, male and Christian. This is deplorable. This is the sort of thing that has to be stamped out of our education system. We desperately need students to be able to learn about the three Rs in preparation for their next level of education and the workforce.
Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.