LGBTIQA+ rights group Just.Equal says Premier Cook has responded to correspondence last month from them which urged him to restart the ‘Safe Schools’ initiative in the wake of violent attacks on gay men. They say the premier’s response was “waffle”.

WA spokesperson for Just.Equal, Brian Greig, said the response was “disappointing”, as it amounted to “two pages of waffle, no specific commitments, and continuing opposition to a program that had been working well.”

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“It is exactly the kind of response you get from any government on any issue, when they have no substance to back a poor policy decision,” Mr Greig said.

In his reply to Just.Equal, the Premier referred to the government’s ‘Whole of Government LGBTIQA+ Inclusion Strategy’, and funding to deliver “crucial supports and services… to improve inclusion and outcomes for LGBTIQA+ people.”

Premier Cook also noted the “online professional learning course” available to teachers, and the supportive and safe environments public schools are supposed to uphold.

Brian Greig said all of this misses the point and fails to acknowledge the ongoing harm occurring within private schools.

“The strength and success of the Inclusive Schools Program lay in its interpersonal training. Optional YouTube clips and online modules addressing homophobia or helping a transgender student answer questions, is not the same and fails to address the seriousness of these issues and the need for professionalism.”

From a curriculum standpoint, the Premier also said he was pleased that the mandated respectful relations education within the WA Health and Physical Education Curriculum includes respectful relationships, protective behaviours, sexuality, and consent content.

Greig said that was all well and good, but what it didn’t include was understanding and addressing homophobia and transphobia, and that it was wrong to bury this material in “Health and Physical Education”, when the issue was systemic discrimination and prejudice.

Greig said we needed less waffle and more action from the government, with metrics to measure success and report failure.

“What is most urgently needed in schools is LGBTIQA+ specific, mandatory professional learning for teachers, funded class room programs, localised Pride groups and school contact officers.”

The recent Rainbow Futures LGBTIQA+ Inclusion Strategy Report identified that:

Education and training must be discipline-specific, trauma-informed, and reflect historical and systemic discrimination. Training should be mandatory and delivered by people with lived experience.

“This is absolutely correct, but it’s not what the current schools policy applies or offers. The Inclusion Report highlights the failings of the current curriculum approach to LGBTIQA+ issues, and stands in stark contrast to the Premier’s two pages of waffle on the topic.”

In closing, the Premier said in his letter he “remains committed to seeking new ways to contribute to a safer, more inclusive Western Australia”.

Brian Greig said the challenge for our community now, is to get him to understand that restarting the Inclusive Schools Program, as the Tasmanian Liberal Government has done, would be a good start.

“We also have to stop tip-toeing around the fact that private (faith) schools are more often the problem here than the public system, but the government has been silent on that. We owe it to students in faith schools to protect, support and speak up for them as well.”