They called me ‘loser, wuss, square, boring’: Federal MP Claire Clutterham on the school bullying that shaped her life
With raw and powerful honesty, new federal MP Claire Clutterham tells how being relentlessly bullied in the schoolyard shaped her determination to stand up for others.
Picture this: a local public primary school in a small country town with old transportable classrooms, creaky air conditioners that barely work and 30-plus kids crammed into a room. Picture the bathrooms, with cold concrete terrazzo floors and a row of leaky taps that either can’t be turned on or stay on permanently.
Now, picture recess and lunchtime, and a young child in year 2, year 3, year 4 and then year 5 hiding in one of the stalls because to hide in there alone was better than sitting outside alone where everyone could see you are alone, where you might have to face another gibe, another comment: “Loser, wuss, square, boring.”
This little girl was me and the impact was profound. If this happens enough, you start to believe it is true. You are a loser. You are boring. You have nothing of value to add. Nobody likes you.
If it happens enough, it means the moments when the teacher calls on you to speak up in class become moments of dread, when you start to sweat, to stumble and to blush so heavily you turn a deep red – or beetroot, as the other kids liked to describe the colour of my face.
We moved around a lot because of Dad’s job as a bank manager. This meant three different primary schools and three different high schools, each move requiring hard work to make friends and try and fit in. The start of year 6 in 1993 heralded another move to another new primary school.
Year 6 also brought with it new dental work – not just braces; they were the least of my problems. I unfortunately needed the torture device known as headgear.
Time for another visual. Picture a thick silver wire attached to braces, hooked into a platelike contraption at the back of my mouth, jutting out to sit outside of my mouth, curving around my face to the back of my head, all strung together with a strap – a nice thick strap, the colour of blue denim.
There would be no first kiss that year. The boys couldn’t have got past the wire even if they’d wanted to. Dad was pleased!
I looked like a Transformer, but there were no superpowers. My chosen sport was swimming, and I did a lot of it, so I was also usually accompanied by the intoxicating whiff of chlorine.
Looking like a character out of a Marvel film, smelling like a swimming pool and being cripplingly shy, with a permanently beetroot face, meant one thing: I was a target for bullies, and school life was difficult.
But despite what was happening to me, there was someone in my year 6 and year 7 classes who had it worse – someone who was a bigger target.
I was so caught up in my own misery I never once spoke up for her. I never said a thing, even though I knew what was going on, even though I knew how terrible it must have been for her.
My lack of courage in not speaking up for her has stayed with me and was one of the inspirations to run for politics, as it taught me that there is always someone who is worse off; someone who needs others to speak up for them.
Now when something is hard or challenging, or is going to take courage, I think of my primary school classmate and her struggles. I eventually found my voice, but what about my classmate’s voice? Did she ever find it?
All children have a voice and the right to use it.
All children deserve an education that is meaningful and allows them to grow and develop free from the crippling mental health impacts of bullying and harassment, so they can become fully functioning adults who have the capacity to meaningfully contribute to the community and to become people who have the capacity to speak up for others.
We know that kids today not only endure bullying in the classroom; they endure it before school, after school and on weekends. The online world has created a platform where torment is public and continuous and cannot be erased. It is there forever; it is a constant reminder.
As well as social media restrictions, we need data driven minimisation strategies for schools, informed by stakeholders with lived experience.
We need more mental health support in schools, to support victims of bullying but also to redirect the mindset and pathways for those who are doing the bullying, so they understand what leads them to do it.
The Albanese Labor government’s championing of social media restrictions and an anti-bullying rapid response review is to be commended; input from a multitude of stakeholders who participate in this review will inform policy decisions and strategies to address this important issue.
We also need to better equip young and mature-aged teacher education students with the knowledge and skills to manage the dangerous and potentially lifelong adverse effects of bullying in the classroom. And we need to do this urgently.
I found my voice, but not everyone does. For some kids and their families, the outcome is catastrophic and irreversible.
For the first 25 years of my life, I was utterly paralysed when it came to speaking up for myself, let alone speaking up for others. I was crippled by shyness and self-doubt, because of significant and sustained bullying and harassment throughout my primary school years.
To the kids out there who are going through something similar, please hear this: I did not speak up for my classmate but I will speak up for you, to ensure that you have the confidence to go to school, that you enjoy going to school and that you develop the capacity and self-assurance to find and use your voice.
This is an extract of Claire Clutterham MP’s maiden speech in the House of Representatives in federal parliament on July 23, 2025.
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Originally published as They called me ‘loser, wuss, square, boring’: Federal MP Claire Clutterham on the school bullying that shaped her life
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