Senate debates

Wednesday, 21 June 2023

Statements by Senators

Education

1:39 pm

Photo of Malcolm RobertsMalcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | | Hansard source

As a servant to the people of Queensland and of Australia and as a grandparent, I stand in defence of a child's right to innocence. Intentionally misleading children hurts and corrupts children, and exposing children to messages that steal innocence hurts and corrupts children. We live in a time when the World Health Organization has started a campaign to give our children sex education from birth; to show six-year-olds pornographic material and to give nine-year-olds practical sex education. We live in a world where men dressed as women can perform lewd acts or read lewd stories in front of children and, in so doing, achieve a measure of validation from impressionable children that society rightly withholds. And we live in an age when a boy can't look at a doll without risking a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and, with it, a lifetime of prescription drugs. A tomboy hasn't a chance in today's education system.

There's something inherently inconsistent with the fundamental construct of gender dysphoria based on there being only two genders and saying, 'You, young child, were born the wrong one'. Matthew 18:5 to 6 offers this warning:

If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble … it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

We have, rightly, replaced the age of millstones with the age of courts.

Quoting this passage is not an incitement to violence. Those attending 'Leave Our Kids Alone' protests have demonstrated that Christians do not make war, Christians make waves. The voices of all denominations must be as waves on the sand, synchronised and unrelenting. I welcome the attendance of the Muslim community in these protests. Both our holy books stand in strong defence of parental rights and childhood innocence.

Those who seek to destroy the family will certainly respond to my remarks with hostility. As a shield, let me offer Luke 6:26:

Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!

Leave our kids alone!