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

It is my absolute pleasure to rise today on this important matter of public importance. As a classroom teacher and school principal for 27 years in the state system, after a wonderful local education in the Catholic system, I rise today to make my contribution and to focus that contribution on what I know about what happens in classrooms and in schools. What I know, from my many, many years in classrooms and in schools, is that our bright, curious children don't only listen to what they're told in the hours of nine until 3.30. They hear us, and they see us.

One of the proudest moments I had as a former teacher who joined this parliament was when we voted for marriage equality in this place. It made me proud because I knew that children around this country were watching us and could hear us. And what they heard was that, no matter who you are and no matter who you love, in this country you won't be discriminated against.

So this debate this week is incredibly important if we look at it through that lens. We told children that we valued them all. We told every adult in the country that, regardless of their gender or their sexual preference, we valued them all. What we're doing today is setting up to confirm that to the children around this country—that we value them all.

I worked in schools for a long time. That means that I have worked with children struggling with their sexual identity. I have seen what can happen where they don't feel included—where they feel that they're being asked to deny who they are. We know what the consequences of that world can be. We've seen it firsthand in schools around this country: the damage it can do to a person's self-worth; the damage it can do to their mental health; the damage it can ultimately do in terms of young people taking their own lives. So this debate today is really important.

I welcome the government's support to remove discrimination for children. I welcome it. But children hear us. If we agree to remove discrimination against them, they have to hear that we've removed it against the adults who work with them. It really is that simple.

I'm reminded of my own education. I'm reminded of the gay teachers who taught me in my Catholic school. I had the privilege of catching up with a few of them at a recent reunion, and it was a fascinating night because all we girls—it was an all-girls school at the time—couldn't wait to chat to our teachers because, of course, we always knew that our teachers were gay! They lived, and held to what they were asked to do in their workplace, and they never discussed it with us. It was never spoken of.

Children are not stupid. They are insightful. They are curious. They test parameters. They know these things.

I'm reminded of teachers that I've worked with—young teachers that I have worked with in the state sector, who were allowed to be openly gay in the school that they worked in. Their experience was vastly different from that of the teachers who taught me those many years before. And I'm reminded of the students who interacted with those teachers.

Kids are not born into a place where they come into classrooms with prejudice. It's exactly the opposite. Our children hear us and see us. They see their teachers in their classrooms. They value them. This place needs to be reminded that in classrooms we do more than the stated curriculum. They are human places of human interaction. The best schools get the best results because of the quality of that human interaction.

What we're debating today—the decisions that we are going to make going forward in this space—is critical. We can't, on one hand, say we have to stop discrimination against children, and continue to allow active discrimination against the adults who will be working with them. It really is that simple.

I want to make this one final point today. Many people have made it, and it's about federal funding. I think it is really important because kids know that too. They know that what we fund is what we care about. I want to fund inclusion. I want to say today that this debate has raised the importance of a strong, state, inclusive secular system of education in this country. (Time expired)

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