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Who Controls the Classroom?

In this estimates session with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), I asked whether they can attribute any measurable improvements in education outcomes (such as academic performance or attendance) to its 17-year history.

Mr Gniel defended ACARA’s role, clarifying that its KPIs are tied to its legislative functions, namely, developing the national curriculum, administering national assessments (like NAPLAN) and reporting data. He noted that education outcomes are a shared responsibility involving teachers, parents and state education systems.

I raised concerns about state autonomy, referencing New South Wales’ “back-to-basics” syllabus reforms from early 2025 and suggesting the national curriculum is overly complex. Mr Gniel responded that all state and territory ministers approved the Australian Curriculum, and that state-level documents are simply a localised framework to enact it.

I asked whether ACARA was pushing “propaganda” and “indoctrination,” pointing to Freedom of Information (FOI) documents regarding the UN’s UNESCO Greening Education Partnership. Did ACARA perform due diligence on climate change science integrated into the curriculum? Mr Gniel rejected the premise of indoctrination, stating the curriculum is evidence-based and approved by all education ministers.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today, ACARA. Thank you, Minister. ACARA was founded in 2009. After 17 years, are there any improvements in education indicators which can be shown to result from your work?  

Mr Gniel: We publish information about the performance of students across the country every year through the national results, and we only have that information because ACARA runs national assessments. Certainly at a subgroup level we’ve seen some improvements. We’ve also seen some more challenging areas. ACARA’s responsibility around reporting is making sure that that is available to education ministers across the country, to systems, to schools and to the broader community. I think it’s obvious—and I’m sure you would agree—that education outcomes for all children are not a single entity’s responsibility. We rely on the great work of our parents, as the first educators of our children, through to schoolteachers, principals and those groups that support them. ACARA’s role is around curriculum—making sure we have a national curriculum; assessment—sure we have a national assessment program that provides that information; and reporting, which has been delivered every year as per the functions we have in our legislation.  

Senator ROBERTS: I admire your point that the education of a child involves many, many people right through the community. I accept that, but is there any improvement that’s come as a result of your work? Academic performance, attendance, course continuation, education costs, teacher satisfaction, which is very important—can we attribute any of those, or any others measures, to ACARA’s work? What KPIs are you measured on?  

Mr Gniel: The KPIs for us are within the functions of our legislation, which is that we produce and administer the Australian curriculum. I think we can tick off that we have done that. That’s been in place for a number of years now. In fact, as you would be aware, we’ve just been through a significant review and republication of that, in 2022, with the approval of all ministers around the country, which is no small feat. That’s certainly one of the KPIs for us, against our legislation. We’ve also run the National Assessment Program, year on year, for nearly 20 years now, as apart of that. We’ve delivered the reports, through the national reporting. They are the KPIs, in terms of what we’re responsible for delivering, whereas responsibility for the improvement in outcomes, as I said before, is a shared endeavour.  

Senator ROBERTS: What about a metric suggestion? You produce a national curriculum, which is guidance about what should be in the coursework, right?  

Mr Gniel: Sorry—what’s the question in that?  

Senator ROBERTS: There’s not a question there. You produce a national curriculum, which is guidance about what should be in the coursework. Am I right?  

Mr Gniel: The national curriculum provides the content and achievement standards, and it’s what we collectively expect our children to develop in terms of knowledge, understanding and skills. That’s implemented across Australia through the jurisdictions, who have the constitutional right for delivery of education, as I’m sure you’re aware.  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.  

Mr Gniel: That then is translated into each and every school. Of course, some of those nearly 10,000 schools I was talking about before are in the bush, in remote communities. Others have thousands of kids in the middle of the city. That is why we hand that to the profession, to teachers and principals, to translate content and achievement standards—our expectations, our promise to children in our community. They need to do that with the children that are in front of them. Of course, those children are aged from five to 18. So those are the things that change.  

Senator ROBERTS: Quite a range.  

Mr Gniel: It is, absolutely. Yes. To go to your point, Senator, what we provide is content and achievement standards—what we want children to learn and then demonstrate. The translation of that into everyday practice, though, of course happens in the classroom.  

Senator ROBERTS: What percentage of coursework in active use in schools around Australia follows your national curriculum?  

Mr Gniel: Ministers have approved the adoption of the Australian Curriculum. Some of the jurisdictions use that in their classrooms directly. Other jurisdictions choose to adapt the Australian Curriculum, using the curriculum as a backbone and then providing further supports for schools. For example, in New South Wales they have the syllabus documents, and they’re the things that they’ll provide to their schools for delivering in their classrooms.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. In early 2025, the New South Wales education minister, Prue Car, publicly positioned the New South Wales government’s reformed syllabus as a slimmer—to quote her—’back-to-basics’ alternative to your national curriculum, which was criticised as overly complex or ‘bizarre’. Have you failed in your core mission to produce a curriculum which is high quality or indeed even usable? I must commend Mr Minns, the Premier of New South Wales, for having the courage to do what he did.  

Mr Gniel: Sorry. What’s the question there? If you can provide me with what you’re quoting from, that would really help, because I just want to be clear about what the minister said in this before I respond to that.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m quoting from news reports.  

Mr Gniel: Of the minister’s—  

CHAIR: Are you able to distribute the statement?  

Senator ROBERTS: No. My staff did the research on it.  

Mr Gniel: In that case, I’ll just say that the New South Wales minister for education at the time, along with all other ministers, approved the Australian Curriculum. So have we delivered on that responsibility and function? Absolutely. We don’t position the Australian Curriculum in competition with New South Wales syllabus documents. They’re fundamentally different. If you go on their website, Senator, the New South Wales syllabus documents are their way of enacting the Australian Curriculum. It’s very clear. So these are not in conflict. They are part of New South Wales supporting their teachers and schools to deliver the Australian Curriculum and provide the guidance through syllabus based documents.  

Senator ROBERTS: My staff do excellent research, and I can recall the statement from New South Wales early last year about getting back to basics.  

CHAIR: It would assist the committee, Senator Roberts, if you bring a copy of the documents. Thank you. 

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. Victoria and Western Australia use a modified curriculum. Is your next version going to take on the criticism from the states and dial down on the woke and whatever they mean in New South Wales by the word ‘bizarre’?  

Mr Gniel: Again, I don’t agree with that, and I’d want to see the document you’re referring to. Again, all ministers from around the country approved the Australian Curriculum. It is then up to the states and territories to deliver education. I’ve mentioned before that that is part of the Constitution. The fact that they then maintain that responsibility to translate that into things that are particular for their communities, I think, is absolutely appropriate.  

Senator ROBERTS: So, when a state or a state education department approves the national curriculum, it doesn’t mean it’s going to abide by it?  

Mr Gniel: I’d say there are two parts to that. They approve the national curriculum, as they’ve all done. The delivery of the Australian Curriculum is in the Australian Education Act, and all school authorities and systems are required to deliver the Australian Curriculum or another curriculum approved by ACARA.  

Senator ROBERTS: So ACARA controls either the national curriculum or any alternative curriculum?  

Mr Gniel: ACARA is responsible for writing and administering the national curriculum—the Australian Curriculum—and also for the approval of any curriculum that can be considered as an interpretation of that Australian Curriculum but still with the same level of content. For example, Steiner education and Montessori are the two that we’ve currently got on there—and also International Baccalaureate.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Freedom of information LEX 81815 and 82204 appear to show that ACARA are adding the United Nations UNESCO Greening Education Partnership to the curriculum, which requires the inclusion of nationally determined contributions in the curriculum. This suggests you’re not dialling back but doubling down on the propaganda. Why are you pushing indoctrination over education?  

Mr Gniel: Senator, I probably have to reject most of the assumptions that you’ve made in that question. To go to your question, you mentioned the numbers related to an FOI. Can you just explain to me what that FOI is and if you’ve got a copy of it for us.  

Senator ROBERTS: I don’t.  

Mr Gniel: Right. I think, Senator, you’d appreciate—  

Senator ROBERTS: I can’t get across everything—every FOI that we cite. My staff make sure it’s—but I’ll get it to you.  

Mr Gniel: Great. I think the CHAIR has asked for the previous one as well. If you can provide those for us then I think we’d be in a better position to be able to answer. I’m happy to take that one on notice, but I do want to make sure that it’s also on notice that I do not agree with the assumptions about us indoctrinating children. The Australian Curriculum is a promise we make to our children. It is approved by all Australian ministers— Commonwealth, state and territory. So I completely reject those statements.  

CHAIR: Perhaps you can work with the secretariat to lodge the original document with the question on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: Certainly. The UNESCO Greening Education Partnership is a voluntary global initiative launched in 2022 aimed at integrating climate change education and sustainability across education systems. Did you check the scientific basis for the greening education program and, in particular, climate change education, or did you just take what the UN is feeding you?  

Mr Gniel: We haven’t taken—I mean, this is where, Senator, I really need you to provide the information you’re basing this on so I can provide the answer appropriately.  

Senator ROBERTS: It’s really simple: did you just take what the United Nations claims is science and put that into the curriculum, or did you do your due diligence?  

Mr Gniel: Once you’ve provided me with the details about specifics of what you’re talking about, I’m very happy to provide you an answer.  

Senator ROBERTS: That was the previous question. Now I’m talking about a very simple question: did you take the UN propaganda or UN material on climate science, or did you do the due diligence on it?  

Mr Gniel: Senator, again, if you provide the specifics on that, I can then give you an answer on the specifics. But I can give you a general answer, which is that the Australian Curriculum is based on the evidence that we gather as part of the process for both the development of the curriculum and also its review, and that’s taken through the ACARA board and on to ministers for their approval. As you would expect, they are very keen to make sure it is based on the evidence, and that’s what we have in the Australian Curriculum.  

Senator ROBERTS: By ‘evidence’ you mean scientific proof?  

Mr Gniel: Again, Senator, I think ‘scientific proof’ is a fairly broad term, if I can put it that way. I’d like to see the specific one that you’re asking about.  

Senator ROBERTS: Earlier this year in a Senate inquiry, I asked a senior UN executive in charge of information to provide the scientific proof. She failed to provide it. What she gave me was complete crap. What due diligence did you do on the United Nations material?  

Mr Gniel: I think I’ve answered that, Senator. I’m happy to take on notice, when you provide the specific example of what you’ve asked me to check, whether we’ve put that and used that in the Australian Curriculum. I’m very happy to.  

Senator ROBERTS: You’ll get it.  

Mr Gniel: Great. Thank you, Senator. 

 CHAIR: Thanks, Senator Roberts. 

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Homeschooling on the Rise: Rejecting Indoctrination, Embracing Education

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We live in an age where mainstream education is often overloaded with irrelevant social engineering and is taught impersonally. External forces, including the political opinions of teachers, increasingly influence, pressure and distract students. As a result, Australia experienced a staggering 111% increase in homeschooling over just five years, from 2018 to 2023. In 2018, there were 20,260 home school registrations, a number that surged to 43,892 by 2023. Queensland increased the most with a remarkable 210% increase.

Home schooling offers an excellent alternative for many families, providing a learning environment that prioritises children’s welfare and provides more holistic development. During the COVID-19 school lockdowns, many parents were horrified to see how far mainstream schools had deviated from solid education. As a result, many opted to homeschool, finding it a better option to avoid public institutions’ involvement in raising their children while nurturing stronger family bonds.

I took the opportunity to announce One Nation’s policy to shut down the Federal Department of Education. Education is a State responsibility and federal involvement in this area has proven counterproductive. Under a federal led education system, Australia continues to slide backward in international league tables. This decline is largely due to an education system more focused on Marxist indoctrination than on actual genuine learning.

Closing down the Federal Department of Education, including eliminating the National Curriculum and NAPLAN, will not remove a single teacher from a single classroom. Instead, it will save billions in pointless bureaucracy—money that can be returned to the taxpayer, allowing you to keep more of what you earn.

Transcript

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) 

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Education, not Indoctrination!

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The State Governments constantly come begging to the Commonwealth for money for schools which are State Government responsibility. This money inevitably ends up going towards ‘woke’ agendas, such as those promoted by Queensland Premier Steven Miles.

Drag queen story times, welcome to country and gender affirmation in schools is ridiculous and taxpayers shouldn’t be funding such programs.

I have long called for education to be about the basics: Education NOT Indoctrination!

Transcript

The schooling resource standard, or SRS, estimates the amount of public funding that schools need to meet their students’ educational needs. As of 2024, the Commonwealth is responsible for providing 20 per cent of public schools funding and, in line with this arrangement, states are required to take on 75 per cent, leaving a five per cent gap. The Commonwealth wears extra loadings for medium and small schools, which is estimated to cost the federal government $600 million in 2024 alone, as well as other student based loadings. 

This scheme was agreed upon between the federal, state and territory governments under the National School Reform Agreement. Australia is a federation of states, and education is a state responsibility. Not only are the states failing to meet their 75 per cent target; they’re demanding that the federal government tip in more money for an additional five per cent. It is hypocrisy for the Victorian education minister, Ben Carroll, to suggest that the federal government should cut its funding to non-government schools to make up for it. The Commonwealth is already paying its fair share and meeting its target as outlined in the schooling resource standard, and the states are not paying their fair share—their agreed share. The states have even declined the offer of the federal government taking on an additional 2.5 per cent to help in closing the gap. They are asking for the full five per cent. How can the states ask for anything when they’re not even meeting their own target? 

It’s worth noting that, in Australia, states and territories are responsible for the majority of public school funding, to which in 2024 alone the Commonwealth government is contributing $11.2 billion. Contrary to union bosses’ claims, the federal government over the past decade has taken on a greater share of the responsibility of funding schools. In fact, in 2013-14, states were responsible for 87 per cent of public school funding. Today that share is 12 per cent lower. It’s not the Commonwealth’s job to make up for the states’ fiscal illiteracy and mismanagement or the states’ pursuit of woke agenda. Look at Steven Miles, the Premier of Queensland. He is driving an agenda that includes gender bending and kiddies talk. 

Senator Allman-Payne interjecting— 

Senator ROBERTS: Senator Allman-Payne was talking about human relations. This is bending our children. That’s what we’re paying for. We should not be paying for that. Reading kids drag queens’ story times in schools—ridiculous! It’s left to the parent to defend their children and come in and stop it. One Nation stands on the fundamental idea that education is a state responsibility. We support Senator Tyrrell’s matter of public importance, and we thank her for it. 

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Lowering the voting age, it’s a trap

If you know a 16 or 17 year old send this video to them.

To you, 16/17 year old, don’t worry about protesting the end of the world. Focus on having fun, hanging out with your friends and getting your P plates.

We adults wish we had more time to do that.

Transcript

This is my message to our 16- and 17-year-old Australians. You can okay boomer me as much as you want. I’ll happily cop it. Yet, as someone who is 67 and grey haired, I want to let you in on a little life secret. The Greens over here want you to think voting makes you an adult. It’s a trap. It’s something that no one here has really mentioned, but I remember that when I was your age you really don’t want to be an adult yet. Trust me, it kind of sucks and it’s hard.

The Greens are adults. Listening to their speeches, do they seem like happy people? Adults have lots of bills: car rego bills, electricity bills, water bills, gas bills, car insurance bills, private health bills, dental bills, phone bills and more. You might even have to start paying for your own Netflix. Then you have to go to work everyday, on repeat, daily, for 40 years until you retire or die. It’s 9 am to 5 pm—at least!—in an office. It’s up early before the sun rises if you’re a tradie. Don’t forget to do all your laundry in between as well. Then, if you work really hard and get a good job, the government will start stealing 33 cents out of every dollar you earn and waste it on something. These are just some of the responsibilities that come with being an adult.

As fun as I’m sure all this sounds, there’s much more. These are just some of the responsibilities that come with voting. They will all come more quickly than you think, and you will be voting sooner than you realise. Until then, just focus on finishing school or choosing a trade. Don’t listen to the people saying that you need to protest or the world will end. It won’t. For decades we’ve been told the lie that the world will end in five years or maybe 10 years. Hang out with your friends. Just have fun and practise to get your P-plates. You’ll soon have plenty of time to protest and vote and do all the boring stuff that comes with being an adult. It will be sooner than you think—much sooner than you think.

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Indoctrination curriculum sent back to the drawing board

https://youtu.be/hXynA4dlLEo

Our education standards have been slipping for years, yet ACARA’s draft curriculum was more focused on erasing facts about our judeo-christian heritage and implementing Critical Race Theory.

Curriculum should be focused on ensuring our kids are skilled in reading, writing and numeracy first, not political ideas.

The ditching of the draft curriculum follows two successful One Nation motions on heritage and critical race theory drawing attention to the draft’s shortcomings.

Transcript

With the steady downward trend of education all standards for reading, mathematics and science for Australia’s children over the last 20 years, ACARA needed to deliver a curriculum review that reflected proven teaching methods.  Rather than provide a robust review that would turn the tide, ideology got the better of ACARA and their efforts have been binned, as it deserves to be.

One Nation put forward two successful motions which highlighted significant fundamental flaws in ACARA’s reviewed curriculum.  Instead of focussing on proven methods for teaching mathematics and reading, ACARA thought it more important to demolish out our 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 indoctrination for left-wing ideologies that denounce Western civilisation as something to be ashamed of, by promoting notions of imperialism and re-packaging significant and defining Australian historical events.

There is an urgent need to lift the educational outcomes for our children and One Nation will continue to monitor the efforts of ACARA to ensure that our cherished western liberal democracy is enshrined in the national curriculum.

It is not by 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, either at home or through the curriculum, which reminds them of what Australian men and women have defended in past decades – our right to a free society with laws and customs of Judaeo-Christian origins, and only when our children know that can they defend and uphold those values.

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One Nation wins Senate Motion banning Critical Race Theory for kids

UPDATE 19 August 2021

The Government has told ACARA, the Curriculum Authority in Australia, to re-write the draft curriculum. We thank Minister Tudge for listening to the criticism, including from myself, on what was an obviously deficient draft curriculum

This follows One Nation’s motions in the Senate criticising the de-emphasis of our Judaeo-Christian heritage and the inclusion of critical race theory in the draft curriculum.

Read Full Story (click here)

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority must rewrite draft curriculum: Alan Tudge

From Rebecca Urban | The Australian

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/australian-curriculum-assessment-and-reporting-authority-must-rewrite-draft-curriculum-alan-tudge/news-story/d2e0c0e1a824b3f1ce8652c0c0d18806

Education Minister Alan Tudge says the board of the country’s schooling authority must substantially rewrite its draft national curriculum, warning he will not endorse the proposed document amid concern student outcomes would be harmed.

Writing to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s acting chairman Norm Hart, Mr Tudge criticised the proposal for supporting “ideology over evidence” and presenting an “overly negative view” of the nation in the study of history and civics.

In the letter, seen by The Australian, Mr Tudge urged the board to seriously consider recent feedback from education experts, who have flagged concerns that the proposed changes amounted to a weakening of learning standards.

“Some of these groups, such as Australia’s peak mathematics association, believe that the current draft will take Australian kids backwards,” he wrote. “If the current draft is simply tweaked, it will not be supported. It needs fundamental changes.”

The warning comes as the ACARA board meets on Thursday and Friday to discuss feedback to the highly anticipated update of the Australian Curriculum – an important document laying out what students are expected to learn across the mandated subject areas of English, maths, science, the arts, humanities, health and physical education and languages.

The curriculum also seeks to cover general capabilities, or skills, such as critical and creative thinking, as well as ensure young people develop an understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures. Its release in April, however, sparked a torrent of criticism, including from high-profile historians, academics and reading specialists.

Among the most scathing criticism was from the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, whose membership spans leading universities, government agencies and industry, which called for any ongoing review of the maths curriculum to be halted pending further consultation.

The institute was particularly critical of a proposed push towards having students learn maths by engaging in open-ended problem-solving activities, noting that “mastery of mathematical approaches is needed before student problem-solving can be effective”.

Under way for more than a year, ACARA’s curriculum review was launched in the wake of Australia’s declining performance on the OECD’s PISA, which has shown that Australian students have gone backwards in reading, maths and science over the past 20 years.

According to Mr Tudge, the curriculum should seek to be ambitious on students’ learning outcomes and should prioritise evidence-based practices, particularly in reading and maths.

“However, to my great frustration, evidence-based practices have not been consistently embedded in your current draft,” he said. “There is still too much emphasis on whole-language learning of reading and insufficient emphasis on phonics.

“Thirty years ago, determining the best way to teach reading may have been a legitimate debate, but it is not now. The evidence is crystal clear … that the teaching of phonics is vital.”

The minister also urged the ACARA board to re-examine the draft history and civics curriculum to ensure that it provided a balanced teaching of Australia’s liberal democracy that has made the nation attractive to millions of migrants.

“Your draft, however, diminishes Australia’s western, liberal, and democratic values,” Mr Tudge said. “The overarching impression from the curriculum is that the main feature of western civilisation is slavery, imperialism and colonisation.

“Important historical events are removed or reframed, such as the emphasis on invasion theory over Australia Day. Even Anzac Day is presented as a contested idea, rather than the most sacred of all days where we honour the millions of men and women who have served in war, and the 100,000 who gave their lives for our freedom.”

Referencing the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Tudge said the education system had “been shaken in the last 18 months … in ways we had never imagined”.

“I believe that the best way to serve the interests of our young people now is to seize every opportunity to lift educational standards,” he said.

“The draft of the Australian Curriculum is such an opportunity.”

Remember what critical race theory is? It says that the whole of our society is infected with racism and it only helps whites, that you can only succeed if you’re white and if you’re anything else you can’t succeed which is a shocking message.

Transcript

[Paul Murray] Let’s talk to one of the Senators who was in the chamber for that nonsense in and around coal but I want to talk more so about his success in being able to get the Senate to agree to keep critical race theory, the crazy stuff all about teaching white people to hate themselves including the video we showed you a bit earlier in it day. Malcolm Roberts is the One Nation Senator from here in beautiful Queensland. Lovely to be here and I’m sure you would prefer to be in Gladstone rather than Canberra now mate but alas that’s the gig you have. Tell us how important was this vote and what message does it send about critical race theory in the national school curriculum?

[Malcolm Roberts] Let’s help everyone to understand what critical race theory is. It says that – it claims that everything, every aspect, the whole of our society is infected with racism and it only helps whites so what it does is it says that you can only succeed if you’re white and if you’re anything else you can’t succeed which is a shocking message but what it also does is infects all whites – kids in particular – with guilt and shame. What they’re doing, Paul — with guilt and shame, and what they’re doing is using critical race theory to indoctrinate our kids, telling them what to think not how to think and that is what’s so damaging about it. Our kids are our productive capacity in the future and they’re killing off our productive capacity.

[Paul Murray] It is extraordinary to me that a country that has been able to achieve so much including in a multiracial fashion has been able to be the story of immigration from all over the world has been one of the great successes of Australia yet for some reason reason all of the people who want to sit in the modernity is only possible because of the great rise of the West who want to use their position in the power structure of the West to somehow say there is something fundamentally wrong with the system that pay their wages or think something like critical race theory is worth implementing via their jobs.

[Malcolm Roberts] You just nailed it. At the core of this it is about control and reveals an extremely arrogant approach. These people who are pushing this nonsense, they don’t want to get into parliament and go through the work of being elected, putting their policies and their ideas under scrutiny. They just want to get in through the back door and then they want to use their power over innocent kids. I mean, there’s nothing more shameful than that. They don’t want to have any scrutiny. They just want to work through the back door ideology. What they use, Paul, as you know, is they use shaming language to silence any dissent because if you go against it, mate, you’re a racist and there’s nothing worse than calling someone a racist and that’s what they do. It is all about control and getting control of the future of our kids. Don’t go through parliament, fight to change and enact laws, just bypass it all and indoctrinate the kids. It’s frightening stuff.

[Paul Murray] Thank goodness you are there to fight it and congrats on getting the Senate to see sense on this stuff. Well done and it is one of the many reasons I’m glad you and Pauline are in the parliament.

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