Wednesday, 26 August 2026

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:17): (2734) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Education. The inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups has recently tabled its report. This is a challenging area to examine, with competing rights, questions of freedom of belief and association and the very real experiences that people have of harmful behaviour, especially those that impact children. I would like to thank the committee members and staff for their work on this inquiry and the many people who wrote submissions or appeared as witnesses. While I do not want to reflect on all of the recommendations of this inquiry tonight, there is one recommendation that I want to raise. Recommendation 4 urges the government to:

… consider opportunities to increase and diversify children and young people’s contact and connections with multiple reporting channels … a review of home schooling arrangements in Victoria to consider opportunities for greater contact and connections between home schooling students and Victorian Government schools.

While I understand the intention here, clearly there is a concern that vulnerable children could be harmed in an environment that is largely hidden from view. I am not sure that this recommendation really understands the homeschooling community. The whole reason that many families choose homeschooling is because they are not happy with the government’s school curriculum policies or approach to education. Trying to nudge them back towards government schools could easily be seen as a strategy to undermine homeschooling. As the committee themselves noted, the vast majority of homeschoolers are well supported and flourishing. Any approach to a review should really focus on achieving the objectives of this recommendation through increasing flexibility and options for homeschooling families rather than adding additional requirements or red tape. My request to the minister is to ensure that any work done by the department in responding to recommendation 4 of the inquiry focuses on ensuring flexibility and autonomy for homeschooling families is maintained or enhanced without introducing unnecessary requirements for families that are happy and successful in their homeschooling journey.