By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A Casey councillor has described the Building Respectful Relationships curriculum in Victorian schools as fostering “paedophilic sexualisation” of children under the guise of anti-bullying.
Cr Rosalie Crestani told a council meeting on 6 June that the anti-family violence program stemmed from the “same rotten fruit” as the withdrawn Safe Schools program that the council objected to last year.
It should be scrapped and replaced with “bloody good commonsense”, she said.
“We just want to protect our kids.
“It’s truly up to our parents to parent, and our education system should respect that.”
Cr Crestani cited a parent who had withdrawn her blind daughter from a school that allowed a “boy in a skirt” to use the same toilets, as well as a teacher who refused to take part in Safe Schools’ “lewd material”.
The teacher had said she’d rather be fired than teach the “sleazy drivel” such as porn to her students, Cr Crestani said.
She also cited a police officer in Casey and Greater Dandenong who claimed cultural norms, rather than alcohol, was the major driver of family violence.
“There’s some cultures that are extremely violent, in her words,” Cr Crestani said.
“There are some cultures that accept and view it as normal.”
She said BRR targeted young men, though “white Anglo women” were underestimated as a culprit of emotional and physical abuse against men.
Cr Crestani successfully moved for Casey to re-commit to lobbying against the program, and to convene a forum of stakeholders to consider the “premature sexualisation” of young people and the “sexual political agenda” behind the program.
A similar Casey-led forum was abandoned last year due to a lack of interest, according to a council report.
After a query from Cr Tim Jackson, Cr Crestani said she would invite an LGBTI community member as part of the forum.
The $21.8 million Building Respectful Relationships curriculum was described by the State Government as a whole-of-school approach to ending the cycle of family violence.
It included “age-appropriate” resources for learning social skills and applying them to relationships.
“This is about teaching our kids to treat everyone with respect and dignity so we can start the cultural change we need in our society to end the scourge of family violence,” Education Minister James Merlino said at the time.
Cr Amanda Stapledon said the program was a form of “grooming” that sexualised children “way beyond their minds”.
She said children at that age didn’t know what sexuality they were, and were forming a “confused generation”.
“They get told they don’t have to be a boy or a girl.”
Cr Crestani’s amendment ramped up a council report’s recommendation seeking an update from the Department of Education on the curriculum’s roll-out.
Currently 10 secondary schools in Casey have implemented the curriculum in some way, the report stated.
It described the curriculum as designed to “reduce family violence, build inclusiveness and cater for a diverse student population”.
It noted that Casey also provided programs for young people to identify and cope with bullying or harassment, develop healthy relationships, build social connections and trust with health agencies.
