Peta Credlin: Scott Morrison should push education ahead of the election

Going into the election, the PM needs an issue on which to differentiate the government from Labor so he should look to the Republican win in Virginia, Peta Credlin writes.

It’s not often that an American state election could turn out to be a watershed here in Australia, but the Republican win in Virginia offers Scott Morrison a credible path to an otherwise unlikely fourth term.

The Republican victor, businessman Glenn Youngkin, was no Trump clone. He won on an orthodox centre-right platform of lower taxes, less regulation and more support for the police.

What electrified his campaign, and transformed the underdog into a giant-killer of global politics, was his support for parent power in schools; after the Democrat favourite, a former state governor, said in the campaign debate that parents had no right to object to the teaching of critical race theory in schools.

Critical race theory holds that everything is conditioned by race: that Barack Obama is a victim even though he become president of the United States; and that, depending on race, the homeless drunk might yet have “white privilege”.

Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin, with his wife Suzanne (right). Picture: Anna Moneymaker/Getty

White people, the theory goes, might think they’re non-racist, but they can’t help being the beneficiaries of a system that’s irredeemably weighted in their favour. To a critical race theorist, declaring, for instance, that “all lives matter” is actually racist because it implies that the system can be colourblind; they say it can’t.

Contrary to Martin Luther King’s plea to be judged on character rather than colour, critical race theory holds that colour, actually, is all that counts.

The fact that last year’s Black Lives Matter protests in Australia were just a tame copy of the carnage in America doesn’t mean that this toxic ideology isn’t present here.

For more than a decade, the official national curriculum for all Australian schools has laid down that every single subject has to be taught from an Indigenous, Asian and sustainability (environmental) perspective – presumably because education officials think that’s necessary to counter what would normally be a white, European and man-centred bias.

Not long ago, at a Melbourne school, 15-year-olds were made to stand and apologise for being white, male and Christian. Teachers at a primary school in Sydney had their students decorate the classroom with posters declaring “end white supremacy”, “white lives matter too much” and “stop killer cops”.

The new draft national curriculum would take this leftist indoctrination even further, banishing any reference to Christianity, turning Australia Day into Invasion Day, declaring that Anzac Day is a contested idea, and getting seven-year-olds to identify examples of racism.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison should look to the issue of education, Peta Credlin writes. Picture: Adam Taylor/PMO

Although federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has said that he can’t approve it in its current form, he hasn’t denounced the entire project; and certainly hasn’t insisted, as a condition of continued federal funding, that schools go “back to basics” with a stress on knowledge and skills rather than politically correct consciousness raising.

Perhaps because home schooling has raised parents’ awareness of what their children are taught (Victorians have homeschooled for thirty-five weeks this year), there’s growing resistance to propaganda masquerading as teaching.

A recent poll for the Institute of Public Affairs found 82 per cent of Australians disagree that students should be forced to apologise for their skin colour; 86 per cent disagree that boys should be ashamed of being male; and 69 per cent oppose students being taught that Australia is a racist country.

Yet while the federal government has complained about biased teaching, it hasn’t actually done anything about it.

Going into the election, the Prime Minister needs an issue on which to differentiate the government from Labor.

Regrettably, he’s ruled out nuclear unless there’s bipartisanship; he’s agreed with Labor on “net zero by 2050”; and his big spending response to the pandemic, however justified it might have been, has left a budget drowning in red ink.

This is where the race for the Virginia governorship throws Scott Morrison a potential political lifeline.

Oblivious to the Virginia result – or perhaps thinking that America is different – Labor is spoiling for a fight over what’s taught. All the state and territory Labor education ministers have slammed Tudge and accused him of “inciting culture wars”. Yet if the IPA polling is right, that’s just what the parents of Australia want.

Earlier this year, when the PM was invited to intervene in the “woke” culture wars, he pointedly declined, saying that it wouldn’t create a single job. Sure, but that’s a line for treasurers. He was one once, but now as PM the culture of the country he leads is just as important.

There’s no doubt in my mind that school standards are an issue that would resonate in multicultural seats, be an issue where Labor couldn’t follow them and help rally conservatives who might otherwise defect to splinter parties of the right.

Watch Peta Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm