Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Preventing Family Violence) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. The opponents of marriage equality have sought to conflate the marriage equality debate with Safe Schools. Obviously, people are entitled to debate Safe Schools, but we should not be conflating the two issues, because nothing in the marriage equality legislation that we're being asked to consider today would change teacher development or the learning resources made available to schools. I would note that, as the Law Council of Australia has advised, the Safe Schools resource is a non-compulsory and optional component of national state or territory curricula, and of course independent non-government schools determine which programs they will fund and implement. The marriage equality bill is not a bill that seeks to amend education policy.

On those bases, the amendments ought to be opposed.

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