On Monday night around 400 Albany residents and interested parties filled the city’s council chambers for a Special Electors Meeting which was called to discuss concerns about sex education books available in the local library and a twerking workshop that was held as part of the city’s Pride Festival celebrations in February.

Warning: This story contains details which might be distressing for some readers. For 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention call Lifeline on 13 11 14. For Australia-wide LGBTQI peer support call QLife on 1800 184 527 or webchat.

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For more than 90 minutes residents voiced their concerns to their local council, some approached the microphone in front of the large crowd to voice their opposition to sex education books that could be borrowed from the local library, but others stood to share their concerns about censorship, politically-motivated campaigns, misrepresentation and a community debate that was described as lacking fact-based information.

Jennifer McRae, a mother of three, shared that she’d worked as a nurse in primary schools and been a patron of the local library since the 1980s. McRae described the campaign that has cumulated in Monday night’s meeting in front of city officials as “century old moral panic”.

McRae said she felt the messages from local activist group Keep Children Safe Albany had an underlying agenda and were designed to build community panic and moral outrage. In McRae’s eyes it had been a “sustained campaign of misinformation” directed at the city’s library staff and other members of Albany’s diverse community.

The former school nurse voiced her opposition to the calls for certain sex education books to be removed from circulation saying that in her view libraries were places for reliable information and access to the right information is the most effective way to battle perpetrators of grooming and sexual abuse.

Keeping Children Safe Albany deny spreading misinformation

Michelle Kinsella, the former One Nation candidate who is the spokesperson for the Keep Children Safe Albany group, said accusations that the group had been spreading misinformation were not true, and denied that the activist group was trying to cause division within the local community.

Kinsella said people needed to appreciate that there was a “vast difference between sex education and sexualising children.”

A wide range of views put forward

Tony Evers told the council he felt the campaign from Keeping Children Safe had been “inflammatory” while the response from Albany Pride had been “measured and evidence-based”. He spoke about sharing a concern about sexualised advertising in society and the easily accessibility of pornography but stressed that responses to these challenges needed to initiatives that created trust and support for young people.

Teacher Wayne van der Heide said that as a Christian and a father of four he was concerned about the books such as Welcome to Sex, which have detailed content on a wide range of sexual practices, being available in the city’s Library.

Sharing his belief that sex education must be “age and stage appropriate”, he said the books should not be accessible to people under the age of sixteen.

“Children should not be exposed to ideology” the primary school teacher said, suggesting that if young people know about certain sex practices, they will try them out. “An open-minded non-judgmental approach does not help” he said.

Rebecca Voisin, who is a professional in public health spoke about how access to books such as those being discussed was important to those who are neurodiverse. They shared that people who are neurodiverse are at higher risk of being the victims of grooming and sexual assault and access to accurate information via books in the library was one of the best strategies for young people to be well informed and protected.

As the meeting continued speaker after speaker used their four minutes at the microphone to share their views. Dirk Mostert said the community needed to be aware of the “slippery slope” saying that access to sex education books underminded parenting. The famer said in his view the overriding message needed to be the sex could only truly be enjoyed in a slowly developed loving relationship.

Linda Matthews told the council she was opposed to censorship, sharing a quote from Dr Martin Luther King. Gerrit Ballast, a Christian father of five, said he viewed the books in questions of perverting sexual norms, while teacher Stacey Miller said sex education had not be more than information about conception, and accessible information in the library was essential in the era of the internet and growing peer pressure.

Jennifer Maroni’s contribution was brief, she called for a Christian festival to be held in February instead. Tim Jansz said he felt the town’s Librarians should use more discretion in which books were stocked. While Barry Leslie labeled the books under discussion “garbage”, “smut” and “filth” that had “wounded his heart”. Leslie described himself as having grown up in the “early days” and said he was disgusted by the books in question, “It disgusts me to the core” he said.

Seventy-five-year-old grandfather Robert Neillings said the sex education books “didn’t pass the pub test” before going on to list biblical quotes from Leviticus and Romans.

Calls for council to make decisions based on research

For Kevin McCreton the campaign from Keeping Children Safe Albany was one of “good intentions” but he saw the group as being the community’s “squeaky wheel”. He labeled their approach as “fearmongering”. “Is there any evidence that children are being taken to library to be exposed to sex education books?” he asked.

McCreton said the council should be making decision based on research, citing work undertaken at Edith Cowan University, he shared a concern that by removing books from the library the campaign would lead to young people seeking answers “in darker corners”.

It was a point echoed by Jialin Tan, who also labeled the Keeping Children Safe campaign as being “disingenuous”. Tan said it was important that young people were able to get information from reliable sources.

Tan said while many people had made references to “the good old days” of their own youth, the recent Royal Commission into Childhood Sexual Abuse had also shone a light on those times. She noted that in the hundreds of hours of evidence heard at the commission it had not heard about one library, not heard about a single LGBTIQA+ group and not heard about any gaming groups.

Nurse Tara McCready, who works in adolescent health and is a mother to three sons, also urged the council to explore the research from Edith Cowan University. She said the case put forwarded by Keeping Children Safe Albany was based on out of context statements and excerpts. “I do not want my children being represented by this group.” she declared.

Tegan O’Neill also highlighted research, citing work from LaTrobe University that shows teenagers actively seek out information on relationships, safe sex practices and protecting themselves from sexually transmitted infections. O’Neill said that while much was being made of certain pages in the book Welcome to Sex it should also be noted that the text also includes eight pages on why someone might not want to have sex.

O’Neill said the council should acknowledge that role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, which the Keeping Children Safe campaign have highlighted as being an area of worry, actually have many positive aspects. O’Neill said she was concerned that the community group’s approach was causing genuine harm to Albany’s queer community and young people.

Albany youth described his hometown as turning into a dystopian novel

The perspective of young queer people in Albany found its voice in eighteen-year-old James ‘Sam’ Steadman, who shared with the council their transgender identity.

They shared that they were horrified to find the town that they have lived their whole life in was turning into something akin to a “dystopian novel”.

Author Jon Doust delivers an outstanding speech

A highlight of the evening came when acclaimed author Jon Doust delivered a speech that displayed his fine skills as a wordsmith. Doust said that while he found the content in the book Welcome to Sex confronting, he defended the rights of others to have access to it.

“There are many books in the library that offend me!” he proclaimed, before also noting there were also many items in the supermarket that he could take offense with. With a speech that drew laughs while making a solid point, Doust ended his contribution with “Viva la Bibliothèque – long live our library!”

Library staff defended

The voices of Librarians were also represented, Susan McEwan, the Director of Library Services at the State Library of Western Australia made the trip to Albany to defend the library’s Intellectual Freedom policy and commitment to providing information and ideas free of censorship. McEwan said providing free and open access to information was a core value of the service.

Alison Oliver, the President of Public Libraries WA also stood to argue that libraries needed to be free to deliver content that was free of censorship and catering to diversity within the community.

Sue Lushy, a mother and grandmother, said she’d always found the staff at the library to be excellent and shared her view that Australia’s censorship laws are more than enough to keep citizens protected from dangerous content. “We must be wary of people who seek to restrict access to information and question their agenda.” Lushy told the council.

Books are not grooming

Teacher Jem Ruggera said we only had to look to the USA to see the “forces of fear” who want to dictate what other people can and cannot read. “Now they’ve come to our city” he said.

“These books are not offensive. These books are not dangerous. These books are not grooming.” Ruggera said, questioning if many people even knew what grooming actually was. “Books cannot groom children. It’s a book.” he said to a round of applause. Finishing up his contribution the English teacher said he strongly felt that banning books was a dangerous path for the council to go down.

Albany Pride say they don’t need to respond to baseless accusations

Albany Pride’s representative Millie Reid said the 2024 Pride Festival held in February and the group’s monthly events had been a great success and the organisation rejected all of the accusations that has been directed towards them in recent months.

Reid’s message was straight forward, they had no need to defend the raft of events they held, because none of the accusations being levelled at them were true.

Amusingly she signed off her contribution with a thank you to the town’s Mayor and “most of the councilors”.

After a succession of four minutes speeches that ran for 90 minutes the meeting moved on to voting on fiver non-binding motions that were being put to the council.

While the meeting had begun at 6:30pm, people had queued to get in the council chambers for two hours ahead of the gathering. Some local residents had reported getting flyers in the mailboxes calling for “believers” to flood the meeting. The flyer was filled with biblical quotes and called for support for the Keeping Children Safe campaign.

Outside the meeting Albany Pride had staged a peaceful protest, at first a small number of supporters, but as the time towards the start of the meeting their numbers grew to around 80 people.

“It just horrifies me that there’s this much hate and anger in the community” said local resident Matt who has lived in Albany for over a decade. He said the strong turnout of supporters for the LGBTIQA+ community had been reassuring.

Speaking to OUTinPerth Verity said she was very angry about the amount of public resources that the Keeping Children Safe Albany campaign was using up by pushing for the Special Electors Meeting. She described their positions as “vile” and “incorrect”. “They’re not only wrong, they’ve been proven to be wrong, and they’re hurtful” she said.

Retiree Ray said he was pleased so many people had turned out in support of the local LGBTIQA+ community. “In this day and age, we shouldn’t have to be here for this. Youth today should have access to information, you should not be able to censor what’s in a library, young people should be able to have access to information about their sexuality to help them deal with it.”

By the time the meeting started the council chamber was filled to capacity, people stood around the periphery of the room, they filled additional space in the hallways, and an overflow area outside.

The outcomes of the motions

The first motion called for support for the library and its current policies in curating its collection. Speaking to the motion Heather Marr said the authors of the books in questions were experts in their fields, as were the city’s librarians. It was defeated 180 votes to 224 against.

A motion to keep the book Welcome to Sex under the counter of the library so it can only be accessed by people over the age of sixteen, until a section of the library is built which is only accessible by those over the age limit is built, was carried. It was passed with 224 votes 180.

A call to remove the book Sex: A Book for Teens from the Library until it is classified by the Australian Classification Board was also successful passing with 231 votes to 169.

A commitment to ensuring that all events held in the local Town Hall have sufficient safeguards, and all entertainers working in the city have Working with Children checks was also carried with 224 votes to 152.

The electors also voiced support for the removal of the graphic novel series Sex Criminals from the online catalogue of the library was also passed with 236 votes to 145.

Finally, a motion was accepted from the floor. A call for the city to ensure that anyone working with children, including churches and religious groups, are compliant with all the recommendations of the 2017 Royal Commission into Childhood Sexual Abuse.

The motion was put forward by Albany Pride, and despite the objections of the group from Keeping Children Safe Albany, Mayor Greg Stocks accepted it and put it to the vote. It was carried with 173 people voicing support and only 75 against.

At the end of the meeting Keeping Children Safe spokesperson Michelle Kinsella told OUTinPerth that she believed the meeting had been a success and the community had come together in a positive way.

“I’m glad we could have these discussions, I’m obviously passionate about politics and for the democratic process to be followed, and I think it went really well.”

Kinsella said she was upset that “false allegations” had been leveled at her group. “We have never said anything about LGB people grooming people, we have never said anything about transgender people grooming people, that is not our issue at all – it’s really about children being sexualised and the normalisation of sexual activities and children being exposed to graphic sexual books that I think are not age appropriate.”

The issues raised at the meeting will now be discussed by the council at their September meeting. The elected officials are under no obligation to adopt any of the motions passed at the Special Electors Meeting.

Declaration: Graeme Watson is also employed by Edith Cowan University.

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