Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about an article in today's Australian about the Safe Schools Coalition. It is a voluntary program which is all about promoting tolerance. To best to sum up what this program is about, I will read a quote from Senator Simon Birmingham, the education minister. He said:

Homophobia should be no more tolerated than racism, especially in the school environment ... The resource is intended to support the right of all students, staff and families to feel safe at school.

Unfortunately, this voluntary program, entered into by 490 Safe School Coalition members throughout Australia—who are, I stress, voluntary—is being attacked by certain people. The facts in Natasha Bita's article are pretty straightforward, but a subeditor has written a headline that Mrs Slocombe would be proud of in Are You Being Served? or a Carry On movie. The reality is that this program does good things: it saves lives and it makes kids feel more safe. We have the reality where 75 per cent of same-sex-attracted young people have experienced homophobic bullying and four in five of those have experienced that bullying at schools. It is important that we work with our schools to make sure that our children are educated at an appropriate age about appropriate material, and that is what these schools do. The 490 schools that have signed up for this program have made the choice. They should be encouraged to continue to do so because they do great work.