The Australian Christian Lobby has complained that the cuts to the Safe Schools Coalition anti-bullying program do not go far enough.

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Yesterday federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced a raft of changes to the national anti-bullying program including removing some lesson plans, limiting the program to secondary schools, and requiring students wanting access to some of the programs core materials to seek parental permission before being given access.

The changes to the program were announced following a review of the program by Professor Bill Louden from the University of Western Australia.

Lyle Shelton, the Executive Director of the Australian Christian Lobby said his organisation welcomed the changed announced, but still had concern with many parts of the program.

Mr Shelton said that if the program still contained sections which described gender as a social construct then it was still pushing a political ideology.

“An ideology that says someone’s gender is largely a social construct continues to be the underlying idea taught to children and that is something most parents would have issues with.

“Gender specific speech should not be purged from our schools to suit an ideology. This has nothing to do with stopping bullying.

“Kids should not be confused with the prohibition of words like “he” and “she” or innocuous phrases like “ladies and gentlemen” or “boys and girls” – this is ideological madness.

“It also appears that the program continues to encourage schools to change their toilet policy in a manner that could allow boys identifying as girls to use the girl’s toilets.” Mr Shelton said,

The Australian Christian Lobby said the changes announced yesterday were a result of their 18 month long campaign to have the program removed from schools. Mr Shelton said he would be seeking more clarification from the Education Minister’s office regarding the parts of the program that the ACL were still concerned about.

OIP Staff