Q: Obviously have said you will invest in those areas. Will that be at a similar level that they are currently invested?

Dutton:

As you see the numbers in the budget papers now in relation to health and education, that is our commitment. We have said we will legislate

Q: Last night a woman asked you about getting the woke agenda out of schools. You spoke about potentially conditioning funding from schools to change their curriculum, to influence the curriculum. I think influence was the word used. Can I ask specifically what lessons or units you are concerned about having a woke agenda and in the same as you spoke about the Department of education employing a lot of people and not running any schools. Would the Education Department be one of those areas you would look to make cuts as part of your pledge to cut 41,000 public servants.

Dutton:

We have said we want to take waste out of the federal budget and put back into frontline services. The second point is I want to make sure our kids, whether they are school or secondary school for young Australians at universities receiving the education of their parents would expect them to receive and our position will reflect community standards in relation to what is being taught at our schools and universities and you have seen some recent examples in relation to law school and the requirements being made. I think Macquarie University of the time. You have seen other academics that are out as part of protests on the streets and teachers similarly. That is been translated into the classroom. That is not something I support. I support young Australians been able to think freely, being able to assess what is before them and not being told and indoctrinated by something that is the agenda of others and that is the approach we would take.

OK, few things there. One, protest is a democratic right. It doesn’t matter who you are, you have the right in democracies to protest. And the thing here is that Dutton doesn’t have a problem with protests (he did not bat an eyelid at the protests against lockdowns, and has had very little to say about far right nationalists marching in Victorian streets, or the protests anti-trans advocates have held. He has a problem with with some of the issues people are protesting. Like genocide. That’s what he is trying to control.

Secondly, the Coalition under Scott Morrison wanted to do the same thing – which is a continuation of what John Howard did when he started protesting against the ‘black arm band of history’. Abbott and Morrison both wanted a very euro-centric western civilisation version of history taught, where there were no questions of actions taken by settlers, or those who attempted genocide of Australia’s Indigenous people. Dutton is also against age-appropriate sex education being taught in schools and wants a very rigid binary taught to children (imagine the 1950s version of sex ed) where the research shows that children taught appropriately about their bodies and sex ed not only have healthier views of it, they are also better protected.

There is not a ‘woke’ ideology taught in schools. There are research backed facts. That is what he is pushing against.