Peter Dutton has left the door open to slashing the federal education department as part of his pledge to sack 41,000 public servants. Responding to questions about a “woke agenda” in curriculums, the opposition leader suggested students were being “indoctrinated” at school – a move Labor has described as being pulled “from the Doge playbook”.
The opposition leader has refused to say exactly where or how he would cut the public service, but on Tuesday indicated cuts could fall on “back-office operations”, and that he could put conditions on federal education funding.
This prompted a stinging response from the education union and the federal education minister. Jason Clare accused Dutton of an “extreme” and “dangerous” agenda reminiscent of Donald Trump, who signed an executive order last month ordering the US education department be dismantled.
“That should put the fear of God into any Australian that cares about our kids,” Clare said.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, echoed him, saying Dutton “threatened cuts to school funding, which was right from the Doge [Elon Musk’s so-called department of government efficiency] playbook”.
“We also know that he wants to Americanise Medicare as well,” Chalmers told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.
“This is Doge-y Dutton, taking his cues and policies straight from the US.”
On ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Labor MP Josh Burns agreed that Dutton sounded like “our friends in America” and accused him of “playing … culture wars”.
At a Sky News forum on Monday night in his electorate of Dickson, Dutton was asked what the Coalition would do to combat “the woke agenda” in education.
The Liberal party leader did not use the word “woke”, as the questioner did, but responded that the federal government could “influence” state governments about what schools taught.
“We do provide funding to the state governments and we can condition that funding,” Dutton said.
“We should be saying to the states … that we want our kids to be taught the curriculum … not be guided into some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities,” he said.
“That’s a debate that we need to hear more from parents on. I think there is a silent majority on this issue right across the community.”
The Greens accused Dutton – who has previously hinted the education department could be reduced if he was elected – of seeking to hold education funding to ransom.
Dutton began his answer on Monday night by saying the federal education department employs “thousands and thousands of people” but “doesn’t own or run a school”.
“Which is why people ask: ‘Why is there is a department of thousands and thousands of people in Canberra called the education department if we don’t have a school or employ a teacher?’” he said.
Dutton doubled down on the topic on Tuesday. He did not provide specific examples of lessons or subjects he viewed as “woke”, but raised examples of university lecturers joining political protests and said the Coalition’s curriculum would “reflect community standards”.
He did not deny that he would look to cut the education department when asked, answering: “We have said we want to take waste out of the federal budget and put back into frontline services.”
He said, however, that the current Labor budget funding to health and education was “our commitment”.
“I want to make sure that we are spending money on frontline services, not back-office operations,” Dutton said when asked, separately, if he would pledge not to make cuts to health, education, ABC or SBS.
“I support young Australians being able to think freely, being able to assess what is before them, and not being told and indoctrinated by something that is the agenda of others.”
Asked on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing on Tuesday if he thought children were being “indoctrinated” in schools, Liberal MP Keith Wolahan said it was “loaded language”. But he argued teachers should not bring “radical politics” into the classroom.
“If you are telling your students there is only one particular view or only one is acceptable, that’s not fair on the students and it’s not fair on the parents paying taxes for that to be put into schools,” he said.
Clare highlighted that the current curriculum was “the curriculum that the Scott Morrison government put in place”.
“Peter Dutton has no ideas of his own, no plan for Australia, just half-baked ideas imported from the US,” the education minister claimed.
In a press conference, he pointed to recent Albanese government funding deals with states on education agreements and said he was focused on more children finishing high school.
“Peter Dutton isn’t focused on the fundamentals. I think [it] shows that he’s distracted by these culture wars,” Clare said.
The Australian Education Union president, Correna Haythorpe, accused Dutton of copying Trump – a comparison Dutton has previously rejected as a “sledge”.
“Now he is taking a leaf from the Trump playbook by going for the Department of Education by threatening to cut thousands of jobs, control what teachers teach – and pull funding if they don’t comply with his ideology,” Haythorpe said.
“Peter Dutton’s proposed control of the school curriculum is chilling, when we see what is happening in the US with book banning and the destruction of teachers’ professional autonomy.”
Dutton had briefly touched on the topic in his budget reply speech last Thursday, saying the Coalition would “restore a curriculum that teaches the core fundamentals in our classrooms”.
