Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have a question to the minister. I first need to provide the minister with a little bit of background in order for him to be able to answer this question. On Friday, I had the opportunity to meet the new principal of the King David School, David Opat. King David is an independent Jewish school in my electorate of Higgins and is one of the many fine independent Jewish schools located in Melbourne. David Opat is taking over from another fine principal, Michele Bernshaw, who served the King David School for more than 14 years and served it so incredibly well. The reason I want to draw the attention of the minister to the King David School, and other independent Jewish schools in the Victorian community and right around Australia, is that, unfortunately, we have seen many acts of graffiti, many acts of violence against property and threatened acts of violence against the person of staff, students and parents of students that attend these schools.

I hate to say it, but even in a great country like Australia there are people who do propagate anti-Semitic thoughts. In fact, I have seen this in my own electorate of Higgins, where there have been unnamed individuals who have distributed brochures supporting the boycotts to business and sanction scheme. Again, I know that it is a scheme that is supported by some members of the trade union movement. I think it is a very anti-Semitic movement and it is one that propagates some pretty unhelpful and inflammatory thoughts against good members of our community and good members of the Jewish community.

The question I have for the minister is: obviously, students have the right to feel safe at school. Parents want to know that when they send their students to school that they are going to be safe, and teachers need to be safe in their workplace. Can the minister explain what the Australian government is doing to secure the safety of students at schools like King David? For example, I know that we made a commitment to the Secure Schools Program and the reasons behind that commitment, and how that commitment has in fact extended beyond the previous commitment that we provided as a coalition government when we first got elected in 1996.

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