Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the steady downward trend of education standards over the last 20 years for reading, maths and science among Australian children, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, ACARA, needed to deliver a curriculum review that reflected proven teaching methods. Rather than provide a robust review that would turn the tide, though, ideology got the better of ACARA. Fortunately, ACARA's attempts have been binned as deserved. Back when formal motions were allowed, One Nation put forward two successful motions that highlighted significant fundamental flaws in ACARA's reviewed curriculum. Instead of focusing on proven methods for teaching maths and reading, ACARA thought it more important to demolish Judeo-Christian heritage and the role of Western civilisation in Australian society, laws and customs. Australia is proudly a liberal democratic society, and these values should be at the very basis of our national curriculum.

I acknowledge that Minister Tudge has ditched the reviewed curriculum. He has recognised that ACARA has tried to turn our curriculum into a tool for left-wing ideologies that denounce Western civilisation as something to be ashamed of and is, instead, promoting notions of imperialism and is negatively repackaging significant and defining Australian historical events. There is a need to lift the educational outcomes for our children. One Nation will continue to monitor the effects of the efforts of ACARA to ensure our cherished Western liberal democracy is enshrined in the national curriculum. It is not an accident that Australia is one of the most sought-after places to live. Safeguarding our way of life comes from the teachings we give our children, whether at home or through the curriculum. They remind them of what Australian men and women have defended in past decades—our right to a free society, with laws and customs of Judeo-Christian origins—and only when our children know that can they defend and uphold those wonderful values.