By Steve Price

It appears Education policy in Victoria is now being announced via Twitter if the ranting from Education Minister James Merlino on Friday is anything to go by.

Victoria’s left leaning Labour Government intends to defy the Federal Government’s ruling on the controversial Safe Schools program that includes homosexual role- playing.

Minister Merlino says he will fully fund the program in Victorian schools apparently unaware that he already part funds the program unlike any other State Government and there is no threat to Commonwealth funding at this stage.

The twitter message said “no changes to Vic safe schools program in wake of Turnbull Government recommendations, total cave-in to bigots. We know Safe Schools saves lives.”

That last statement is clearly a presumption and I know of no-one who has claimed attending Safe Schools lectures had saved their lives. In fact there hasn’t been large numbers of students coming out in favour of the program singing its praises.

As for Minister Merlino’s claim of the Coalition caving in to bigots they have simply ordered a review of the Safe Schools program and demanded that a number of links to other web sites be deleted.

That review has been criticised by those Liberal’s opposed to it as not being rigorous enough with back-benchers querying why parents themselves were not consulted. Safe Schools came out of a group called the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society based at Melbourne’s Latrobe University.

Funded by the former Gillard Labour Government its funding was extended by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and was set to be funded again until people started looking at exactly what this program was doing.

Sold as an anti- bullying program Safe Schools actually advocates and teaches homosexual role playing which will now be banned after the Turnbull Government’s review. That review will finally give parents the right to veto the lessons and instigate the ban around third party websites that include a site called Minus 18.

That site for gay and trans-sexual youth promotes links to sex shops and gay nightclubs. If the Victorian Government takes control of the funding of Safe Schools completely in their State then those bans and the nature of the program would fall outside Commonwealth control.

Victorian parents should be asking their local MP’s and school headmasters to justify the existence of this program and it should be treated in that State on a school by school basis.

Bullying in any form at any taxpayer funded or private school should be stamped out and anti-bullying programs shouldn’t be the political football of politicians running their own agendas. Students in far north Queensland or Tasmania or Victoria should all have identical bullying programs.

Just because you live in a Labour State your protection from bullies of any sort shouldn’t be any different than if you live in say a Coalition run NSW. There is clearly a political agenda being run here by those of the Left who believe Safe Schools is a vital tool for teenagers who are openly gay.

But even the statistics being used to justify the program even existing have been shown to be exaggerated. According to a report in the Australian the same group who designed Safe Schools has published same sex attraction statistics that are being questioned.

The ARCSHS figures show a leap in a same sex attraction that is difficult to explain with 16.8 percent of 16 to 19 year olds reportedly being attracted to the same sex.

That figure is more than double numbers cited in another study done in 2013 that showed numbers around 3.3 percent.

This whole debate around Safe Schools has turned very ugly with protestors invading Senator Corey Bernardi’s office late last week disgracefully smashing furniture, abusing staff and destroying documents. It’s ironical that a bunch of student bullies have attacked a politician’s office over the issue of a program that tries to prevent bullying.

The Federal Government funds education out of the taxpayers pocket and taxpayers deserve a national policy on bullying that doesn’t overtly concentrate on sexuality.

Bullies target people for being short, fat, red-headed and gay and all bullies should be called out for what they do but to use bully-boy tactics to defend a program slanted too far the wrong way should be called out.