George Christensen faces backlash for likening Safe Schools to paedophile grooming
COALITION party backbencher George Christensen has come under fire for likening the Safe Schools program to paedophile grooming, prompting calls for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to act.
The Dawson federal Liberal-National MP argued in parliament yesterday that Safe School’s website links to a number of websites that allegedly include adult-only and/or erotic material, the program’s initiative was a ploy to “recruit” children into being gay and was comparable with child grooming.
@GChristensenMP That’s the entire internet dipshit.
— Brendan Maclean (@macleanbrendan) February 25, 2016
A number of community leaders have since publicly criticised Christensen for his comments on the anti-bullying and LGBTI inclusion program for schools, including South Australian Senator and the Green’s sexuality spokesperson Robert Simms.
“To compare a program that’s about helping young people to ‘grooming’ is utterly reprehensible. It’s profoundly offensive and deeply hurtful,” he said.
“The Prime Minister should condemn this homophobia, rather than indulging it through this senseless investigation into safe schools.”
Christensen’s comments comes just days after South Australian Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi gained almost 10,000 signatures that opposed the Safe Schools program, which then led to the PM announcing an inquiry into it on Tuesday.
“I’m concerned this kind of hateful debate is a taste of things to come if we have a plebiscite on marriage equality. We’ve seen in this last few days what can happen when you let the genie out of the bottle and provide a platform for homophobia and bigotry,” Simms said.
A counter-petition initiated by Simms, which supported Safe Schools, attracted twice as many signatures as Bernardi’s in just two days.
Meanwhile, South Australian Labor Senator Penny Wong has slammed fellow Labor Senator Joe Bullock for speaking negatively about Safe Schools.
“This is a Labor program that we funded in government,” she told ABC News.
“It is a program that is designed to address terrifying statistics of self-harm, of abuse, of discrimination.”
Additionally, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has called on the PM to take a stand against the far right members of his party.
“Malcolm Turnbull needs to be the Malcolm Turnbull of old,” he said.
“He needs to get a grip on his party and just say, ‘listen, we are not going to have this right-wing agenda distracting form the big issues of Australia’.”
In a press conference in Canberra today, Turnbull did not respond directly about a question to Christensen’s comments, but said the Safe Schools program needed to be discussed in “very measured language”.
“Every single one of us is absolutely resolutely opposing to bullying of children of any kind,” he said.
Turnbull’s comments were made just as federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced the inquiry into Safe Schools will be a full independent review by education experts.
The Terms of Reference for the Safe Schools review is one page: pic.twitter.com/rAGtgMNs8y
— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) February 26, 2016
Could it be that George Christensen recently last financial year, got a donation from the Marriage Alliance and the ACL of $27,456.92? It is on the AEC website! Just exposing the truth and political donations of bigoted politicians!
Oh how I wish people would NOT conflate paedophillia with homosexuality.
Please inform your mind Matt, and find out the difference, it is confirmed researched fact the the majority of men convicted of abuse against both male and female children are self identified as heterosexual. Abuse of children has no connection to same sex attractedness.
Do some research please.
Oh how biased can u be, how desperate to win votes from bigots.
Try searching the internet for anything, bomb sites are one click away from boobs, heterosexuality one click away from homosexuality, the man needs to expand his mind, Stop attempting to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Try being a humanist, instead of a bigot
How does he know that? Has he been trawling through the internet looking for all this garbage he claims is there or has he wasted some neo-con, fascist Public Servant in his office time and money digging his bullshit out?
Bullying is rife in our schools amongst all types. Fatsos like him would have been bullied unmercifully or he would have been one of the offenders – over-weight children very often are.
This politician is the peadophile!
The trouble is that these politicians on both sides of politics, are all taking the drug ice! This is exactly the reason why this country is in such a huge mess!
Well, I agree with George. This ‘programme’ is just a way of the gay rights lobby to bring attention unto itself once again. Not a day passes now where some twit is telling us that we should embrace them, accept them, be like them etc.
I am actually the victim of gay people but people can’t talk about that because it’s not the flavor of the month.
As a young child I was called to car windows, approached on trains and touched by the ‘poor innocent gay’ people who wanted sexual intimacy with me. I guess I must have invited their advances because no gay person is ever wrong according to people nowadays. Thank God I was able to escape their advances in the 4 occasions this has occurred.
Mate you are completely nuts and insane, you should join the Liberal party! What are you doing on a gay website anyway?
Both him and Cory Benardi should retire! We really need new blood within our parliament! We really do not need people like that, because him and Cory Benardi get secured pre-selection within the bigoted outdated Liberal party, every 3 years! If it was a CEO of a company or a teacher, etc – you would get an immediate sack for that! If you compare paedophilia to homosexuality within the UK, you can in fact go to jail for hate speech!
These LNP politicians are actually no different to ISIS really, with there 20th century viral anti-gay and anti-abortion filled agenda! It is very scary there actually within the Australian Parliament!