QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr CLARE (Blaxland—Minister for Education) (15:03): I thank my friend the legendary member for Lalor for her question. Over the last few weeks, our country has been shocked by allegations of sexual violence against women. We've got serious challenges that we have to confront as a country.

I want to take my hat off to the headmaster of St Joseph's College, Michael Blake, who told boys at his school last week: I want every young woman who encounters a Joeys boy to be safer because you are there. Not merely safe from you—safer because of you … For many women, this has not been a hard week, it is a sad ongoing reality … [It has been] a difficult week to be a man … it's been infinitely harder to be female.

That's a hard truth, and the truth is there's a lot more that we need to do. Our schools don't just teach our kids how to read and write; they help to build character too. Ultimately, what this is about is one simple thing, and that's respect.

Teaching boys to respect girls isn't woke; it's just common decency. Teaching them about consent isn't woke either; it's the law. The real heroes here are our mums, our dads and our teachers and principals like Michael Blake.

The bad guys are people like the Tate brothers, who want to spew out all this poison that's affecting our kids, and the tech companies who profit from it and who are supercharging all of it. To give you just an idea about what this looks like in practice, these two individuals have run an online course that they've got the hide to call a PhD, and in this course they teach young men how to sexually exploit young women online.

The idea that it's our teachers, our schools or our curriculum that is to blame for sending kids towards all of this is one of the most extraordinary things that I've ever heard, but that's what happened last week. That's what the Leader of the National Party argued. The truth is it is not our schools that are to blame, and, if you want evidence of that, look at this.

The other day, a female journalist pretended on TikTok to be a 17-year-old boy. It took just 17 minutes before TikTok started sending her videos about what to think about girls—17 minutes. That's algorithms that are doing that.

And remember the average 17-year-old is spending 14 hours online a week at the moment, being force-fed all of this. This is where the problem is, and this is where real leadership is required.