100 signatures reached
To: NSW Parliament
Reject the Deprofessionalising Parental Rights Bill
This campaign has ended.
This petition focuses on the industrial issues within One Nation's Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill created by Mark Latham, that affect school staff.
This Bill will cause teachers who unwittingly breach the conditions within it, in relation to not teach content that may contradict with 'parental primacy', to have their accreditation revoked, and in the current climate of retention issues for school staff, this only serves to turn people away from entering the profession. In a time when education stakeholders have also expressed a commitment to declutter the curriculum and remove any unnecessary compliance burdens, the red tape and workload this Bill brings through its requirements is counterintuitive, particularly in relation to teachers having to provide teaching programs at the start of the course. Further to this, the right of parents to withdraw students from classes when certain content is taught would make achieving and assessing learning outcomes impossible and chaotic. There are many subjects taught that have content which may conflict with this Bill, such as Science (evolution), Geography (climate change), Modern and Ancient History (religion, social movements, the role of women, political beliefs) and PDHPE (personal well-being and identity, sex, consent). The restructuring, reprogramming, and resourcing will add to the already growing intensification of work faced by those in the teaching profession.
Therefore, the signatories of this petition call on the NSW Parliament to reject the Bill in its entirety.
Why is this important?
Within the last 18 months, teachers in NSW have had to monumentally shift how they approach their practice, with COVID leading to a change in how their work is done. This is why the consideration of the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill is most deprofessionalising for school staff across NSW.
Fundamentally, this Bill is an attack on the professionalism and deep knowledge and skills possessed by NSW teachers and support staff, and is a distraction from the key work of teaching and learning undertaken in NSW.