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

We live in an age when mainstream education is often packed tight with irrelevant social engineering and is taught impersonally. External forces, including the teachers' political opinions, increasingly influence, pressure and distract students. As a result, Australia witnessed a 111 per cent increase in homeschooling in just five years, from 2018 to 2023. In 2018, homeschool registrations were 20,260, compared with 2023's 43,892. Queensland has the highest increase, 210 per cent, tripling. The second highest is New South Wales, at 127 per cent, followed by Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tassie.

Homeschooling presents an excellent alternative for many families, providing an academic setting that prioritises children's welfare and provides more holistic development. Anecdotally, during COVID school lockdowns, many parents were absolutely horrified to see how far mainstream schools had deviated from solid education, and they pulled their children out of school, preferring to homeschool. Educating children at home means avoiding public institutions' involvement in their raising while nurturing strong family bonds. In traditional school settings, children spend most of their day away from home, leaving little room for connecting with family members. In contrast, homeschooling can not only facilitate academic growth but foster emotional stability and the family's core values.

One of the biggest misconceptions about homeschooling is that it does not allow interaction with other children, which is needed for developing social skills. On the contrary, parents can choose a variety of social experiences in which the child can engage, such as community groups, sports, homeschooling co-ops, and visits to live community events and businesses. In this way, parents can guide such interactions, avoid influences not aligned with the family's values, avoid negative influences and ensure the development of healthy relationships, free of the peer pressure and bullying that today often characterise traditional school environments.

Furthermore, socialisation takes place every day within the family unit, and the bonds created in interactions throughout every day are incredibly beneficial for the child's mental and emotional wellbeing. In a traditional educational setting, though, children spend most of their time at school, leaving little time for deep and meaningful interaction with family members. Home education allows the development of trust among family members through shared experiences, activities and discussions—and connections and safety. Ultimately, the presence of a supportive family is an invaluable asset in children's lives, especially during developmental stages, enduring strengthening of bonds fundamental for children's wellbeing.

A notable benefit of home education is the program, which can be personalised and delivered in a way that suits the children's learning styles and interests in ways not possible in traditional, overcrowded classrooms. Homeschooling's flexibility ensures a stress-free learning environment and allows enough free time for extracurricular activities and personal interests, employing an allistic development approach. Lessons on emotional intelligence and social responsibility, for example, can be added along with core subjects and life skills such as financial literacy, household management and practical problem-solving, which is what adults need. There will be the exploring of peace within the child, regardless of the child's surroundings. As a result, children grow up as well-rounded individuals with skills and knowledge which can be absent in their traditionally educated counterparts.

As said earlier, in the five years from 2018 to 2023, homeschooling more than doubled across Australia, with rates in Queensland more than tripling. This trend reflects parents' distrust of educational institution. Several social and political factors drive this growing distrust, leaving parents increasingly feeling uneasy and concluding that traditional schooling is no longer the best environment for their children's academic, moral, emotional, physical, spiritual and social development. Research on homeschooling shows that reasons parents take a step towards home education include the elements of dissatisfaction with the government, with conventional schools and with the curriculum. All these remained consistent pre and post COVID, as well as children's needs and family lifestyles, which include religious or family values, for example.

Educational institutions are perceived as increasingly ideologically driven. To put it bluntly, they're woke. Their purpose is to indoctrinate, not educate, and to create serfs who cannot think critically. As John Rockefeller said, these are factory fodder for his business empire, which is now global. Cross-cultural priorities of race and sustainability are integrated into the curriculum along with other aggressive narratives of gender and identity. I'll give you a story about my son and daughter, who attended a school with many different races. One day I asked my son, as a four-year-old, how he enjoyed the Ethiopian twins in his class. They were two wonderful little kids. He said he didn't know. I mentioned their names—Thomas and Anthony. He didn't know. I mentioned they had black skin; he didn't know. He really didn't know. Then I mentioned their short, frizzy hair, and he said, 'Oh, great, I play with them all the time.' They played well together. Playing, working and studying with diverse groups builds tolerance experientially—the way people learn. Students discover for themselves.

Meanwhile, imposing welcome to country chants and calls to pay respect to the custodians of the land loses people. Adult teachers telling students they can change gender is ludicrous, with children having absorbed like sponges since birth the innate difference between 'mum' and 'dad', male nurses and female nurses and male teachers and female teachers. They're all the better for it. Children are being taught about gender identity and pronouns and in some cases are made to apologise for the sins of their forebears, encouraged in the abrasive gender and transgender ideology. Children are in fear daily with climate fraud and lies saying we have only five years to live unless we stop driving cars, which will stop the global boiling. Unfounded guilt damages children. All this builds distrust in children and disrespect for woke teachers. Parents and increasingly people across society have had a gutful.

Meanwhile, between 2003 and 2015, the Australian academic landscape has been in steady decline. One in three students failed reading proficiency. Fifty per cent of students failed science literacy tests. Half are scientifically illiterate. No wonder the climate fraud and climate fear have taken hold! The average in mathematics declined 26.7 points. All these factors accounted for, taking back the lead on their own children's education makes sense for parents. This sentiment was clear when Queensland Labor's education minister put forward legislation enforcing the national curriculum in home education. Through the public pushback, with 900 submissions and a petition of almost 22,000 signatures, parents have made their feelings about education clear. Parents are unhappy with public educational institutions and with the national curriculum. Some are angry. More and more parents are re-evaluating educational choices for their children. From here, home education will only grow because it offers an academic pathway that's more well rounded and allows for learning that is tailored and delivered in a way which takes into account the child's or family's interests, values and needs. When this speech is posted on my website, I'll put in links to assist any Australians considering home education.

Whilst speaking of education and the growing home school revolution, I'll comment on two more factors. Firstly, charter schools. This is an American term used in states where schools are started from community initiatives. The state provides funding per student and the money follows the child. Simplistically, to illustrate the concept: if parents withdrew their child and placed them in a public state school, the money goes to the public school. If the parents enrol their child in a private school, the money goes to the school. This gives choice. Principals have real authority to improve their school's delivery of education to attract more students and more funding. Parents have real choice. Choice breeds competition and fosters initiative for improvement. Choice drives accountability.

Secondly, abolish the federal department of education. Reportedly, this bloated department employs 4,000 people, yet it has no schools. Constitutionally, education is a state responsibility, not a federal one. Now it's become a wasteful duplication of resources. It has destroyed a fundamental tenet of our Constitution: competitive federalism. It's destroying accountability and wasting taxpayer money. It destroys accountability because underperformance in schools leads to states blaming the feds and the federal government blaming the states. Worse, it enables a single gateway for UN initiatives to be ingrained into one national curriculum that then infects all states. When six states and two territories are responsible for education, globalist agendas have to be driven through six gateways, not one. If states alone return to managing and directing primary and secondary education, then we would restore competition between states—competitive federalism—improve accountability and improve efficiency. Universities can be regulated as businesses, which is what they now are.

Aligned with closing the federal department of education is abolishing the national curriculum, an initiative of the Howard Liberal-National government. I'm told New South Wales has just abandoned the national curriculum. The ACT is claiming it cannot be taught, because it's too packed with politics and not enough reading and writing. Every parent's top job is raising their family's children. One of our nation's most important tasks is educating children. We must support homeschooling, reform education and give parents choice. (Time expired)