Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to express my dismay at the absolute lack of understanding of those opposite about what is important to Australians. I do this in the frame of seeing a local paper where the member for Chisholm is in the headline saying that there is no need for Gonski—no need for Gonski!

I wonder what the good people of Chisholm, who I know value the transformative nature of education, make of that.

I wonder, too, what the people of Chisholm, like the people in Lalor, make of the pursuit of this change to 18C that this government is running down the track to drive home that will hurt kids in every school in this country. In classes and playgrounds across the country, there are children now engaged in a conversation about 18C that they did not to need to be engaged in. There are young people going home tonight and saying, 'I got in trouble today, Dad, because I called someone a terrible racist name.' And Dad will say: 'That's okay, mate. You're free to be a bigot in this country. You can say whatever you like in this country to any child.' This pursuit of change is stirring up concern in electorates and schools across this country. I say to the government: leave alone what is not broken. Leave our wonderful multicultural country alone.

Mr Tim Wilson interjecting—

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