Thursday, 1 September 2022

School curriculum

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:42): (2114) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Education. The idea that one should feel superior based on race, colour, sex or national origin is abhorrent. It ought to likewise be abhorrent that these same attributes cause shame or guilt to fall upon an individual. And yet that is the case in Victoria: men and white people apologising for sins they have not personally committed; schoolboys made to stand and apologise to girls; boys having their fingernails painted on International Women’s Day, as if emasculating our men somehow improves the lot of our women; and removing the authority of the parent because the state knows best. All the while there is a downward trend in measured achievement in our schools. It is outrageous to increase the burdens on teachers and students alike by cramming the curriculum full of woke agendas. It has been a case of in with critical race theory and out with critical thinking.

Federally we see our Prime Minister advocate constitutional reform, standing alongside not a great legal mind but a foreign basketball player. This somehow passes for political debate in our country. It goes further to the mental health crisis our young people face. If they were shown how to reason and grapple with the great thinkers of the past, if they were taught science, they could be encouraged to solve the problems of the world with ingenuity, creativity and knowledge. Instead they see themselves and others as victims or worse by dint of the location of their birth, their gender, their religion, as perpetrators of violence and incapable of escaping their lot. It is insidious, it is dangerous, it is failing our young people and our society. Victoria used to be a prosperous place with world-class education. We created individuals who changed the world by dint of their intellectual rigour. We now see the rise of the shy conservative, those who are frightened to speak what used to be considered common sense, because they are shouted down not by the voice of reason but by the hardcore left.

The popularity and renown of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, is rapidly rising because he speaks for so many who feel shut down. He has introduced legislation to make such state indoctrination illegal in his state. It ought to be here. I call on the Minister for Education to require a return to the fundamentals and remove institutionalised Marxism from the classroom.