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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-04-09 Daily Xml
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Renmark High School Presentation

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:24): Again, noting the minister's previous answers, will the government conduct a review or audit of those third-party providers that offer respectful relationship and consent education within our schools and the procedures used to engage such providers? With your leave, sir, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Earlier in question time the minister advised that there would be a commitment to develop an approved provider list. This question seeks to ensure that such organisations that would be on the list have the content and nature of the presentations reviewed both for content and appropriateness.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (15:25): I thank the member for Morialta for his question. Yes, he is correct. What I said in answer to a question earlier was that one of the responses we have already started to put in place here is to create an approved provider list as a means of making sure that something like this can't happen again.

I think it is fair to say that as part of compiling that list it will necessitate obviously the department going through current providers and having a look at which ones are used and where they are used. There are some complexities around that, as the member would know as a former minister, particularly in regional areas where the choice that is available to schools around providers can be limited, but we will make sure that this approved provider list is put in place and done in a way that, as has been explained to me by the chief executive, will also furnish principals with some basic fundamental questions that they can ask before choosing who the provider will be for their school as a way of making sure that it is appropriate and as a way of making sure that a presentation like this can't happen again.

There are a couple of reasons why that is important, if I could just explain. Obviously one is to put something in place and do everything within my power as minister and within the power of the education department to make sure this doesn't happen again. However, preserving the credibility and importance of having respectful relationships sessions in schools is also important.

I just want to make mention of what I thought was a very interesting article that appeared in the Sunday Mail just a couple of days ago, which was a pretty forensic examination of Andrew Tate—which I'm sure is a name that would be known to people in this place—and the incredibly damaging influence that Andrew Tate is having on generations of young people, particularly young men and boys. This was an excellent and forensic analysis of what this person has done. It didn't pull any punches. I read it with concern, of course, as the education minister but also as a father of three primary aged children.

Also, given that I had already been dealing with issues around this inappropriate presentation that took place in Renmark, it did bring into sharp focus for me the fact that what we are offering in schools in terms of combating some of these outrageous misogynistic views of people like Andrew Tate is making sure that we have some kind of respectful relationships program. It can't be what it was in Renmark—that is inappropriate; I am accepting that and doing everything I can to make sure it is not the case, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

We need to make sure that we offer things in our schools to do the work that often parents aren't doing or can't do to make sure that young people have an understanding around how to treat people with respect and also understanding the very damaging views of people like Andrew Tate, the effect it is having on them and that it is having on not just other young students and female students but, as the Sunday Mail article pointed out, the influence and effect it is having on teachers, who are receiving some of this incredibly humiliating sexualised behaviour from young people who are following Andrew Tate online. He is telling them that these things are okay.

One of the few things we have between Andrew Tate and a generation of young people is respectful relationships programs—call it what you will—sex education that we run in our schools. We need to keep doing it. It needs to be preserved, but we need to put strict controls around it to make sure that the kind of thing that happened in Renmark doesn't happen elsewhere, and I am committed to doing that.

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