Recently a petition was distributed, signed and tabled on behalf of various Asian community groups in NSW. According to media reports it was coordinated by the Chinese Australian community. The petition was urging the NSW State Government to scrap a program called the “Safe Schools Program”, which aims to support schools who, in community consultation, choose to make their school a safer, more inclusive space for all students. It teaches values that are core to all cultures, like respect and acceptance for all students, including LGBTIQ students.
This is an anti-bullying program that skills teachers to help students to understand what it feels like to be in another person’s shoes, experiencing discrimination. This program teaches techniques to minimise discrimination, improve students’ resilience and learn respect for each other. Currently the Safe Schools Program has been welcomed in over 500 schools all across Australia. The results from teachers, school psychologists and mental health professionals have provided solid evidence that this program produces healthy, positive results for the wellbeing of all students. In many cases, this program has been life-saving, especially in suicide prevention. While continuous, regular reviewing of all school programs is welcomed, no professional research has ever stated that the program be stopped or be defunded.
It’s odd that there are Asian Australian communities so hell bent against this anti-bullying program considering it is our moral imperative to ensure a more just Australia that celebrates differences and promotes a culture of diversity and inclusivity.
The Safe Schools Program is there to support all Australian students no matter what backgrounds they may come from or any other aspects of their identity. Homophobia and transphobia is as damaging as any other prejudicial attacks. When fear of difference is allowed to continue, all forms of phobia flourish, including racism and xenophobia. This is not what the Asian Australian community who has worked so hard to fight against injustice and discrimination wants. Racism, bullying, transphobia, are all based on the same ignorant attitudes and prejudices as each other.
Unchecked racism affects all Australians regardless of background, just as unchecked homophobic bullying affects all Australians. Many Australians have keenly experienced incidences of discrimination based on race. This discrimination shares the same roots of cultural misunderstanding, pressures to conform to institutional violence, ignorance and intolerance. Discrimination in any form leads to poor health outcomes, low productivity and social disenfranchisement.
The scare-campaign petition being tabled in the NSW Parliament in the name of the entire Chinese Australian community is outrageously presumptuous and does not represent the broader Asian community. Recent reports have unfortunately mislabelled the entire Chinese Australian community as being opposed to the Safe Schools Program. This reporting is inaccurate and false propaganda by individuals whose only wish is to incite fear and tear communities apart.
Erin Chew is Convener of the Asian Australian Alliance, and Asian Australian Alliance Women’s Forum.
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