Teachers slam 'woke' school claims + Is Hughesy a political genius?

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:07)
Hello, happy Friday, and welcome to The Briefing. Sacha Barbour Gatt with Hugh. There's a lot of frustration in Australian politics right now, and one of the loudest voices that's been tapping into it is comedian Dave Hughes. Our guest today sat Hughesy down and pushed back hard. And despite the accusations online, he doesn't think Hughesy's a right-wing grifter, or doing it for selfish reasons.

**Alex Dyson** (0:29)
People are angry, you know? They're disappointed. They don't have enough money. They're struggling to put food on the table. They're losing jobs. Things are expensive. And they see someone who is passionately sharing how they're feeling.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:43)
That chat with three-time federal political candidate and listener host Alex Dyson is coming up in the second half of this episode. First, it's time for the headlines with Chris Spyrou on Friday, the 4th of September.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:56)
Morning, Sach, Aussie teachers have hit back after the coalition accused them of pushing their agendas and teaching anti-boy ideology in classrooms. Now, this all started earlier in the week when Nationals leader Matt Canavan argued the current curriculum was to blame for pushing boys towards toxic online spaces.

**Matt Canavan** (1:14)
We're a failure of four boys. Look, I think we've got to have a deep hard look of why young boys are attracted to this stuff online. It is terrible. It is toxic. But the reason, a big reason for that, in my view, is they're sick and tired of getting lectures about how bad men are at school. They're sick and tired of the feminisation of our curriculum and the lack of direction and leadership that they're given. Maybe we should look at getting more male teachers.

**Chris Spyrou** (1:37)
That's him on the Today Show there. He also took aim at a state-funded respectful relationship program this week, saying while well-intentioned, it could be having an adverse effect.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:48)
He says the program calls on young boys to reflect on their male privilege and power describing it as the type of anti-boy ideology that has no place in our schools. Now, just a quick note on that. What he's referring to there is actually from an organization called Our Watch. And it's created this education toolkit that isn't actually formally part of the respectful relationships curriculum. So just wanted to make that important caveat there.
Look, these comments quite understandably got a run in the media yesterday. And when asked about the comments, Liberal leader Angus Taylor had this to say on the ABC.

**Angus Taylor** (2:21)
Consent is important, of course it's important. But I've got to say that the idea that we have a balanced curriculum at the moment, that there's not a gene is being run by some teachers, I think is wrong.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (2:34)
Now, the teachers union also weighed in yesterday, as we heard at the top. They've called the coalition's criticisms fundamentally incorrect and either a malevolent mischaracterization of Australia's education system for political gain or a display of complete ignorance of how the teaching profession operates. Now, the statement from the Australian Education Union went on to say Canavan, Taylors and previous comments from Pauline Hanson about how schools are brainwashing kids further fuels the aggression and disrespect teachers already cop, which is getting worse.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:05)
We also heard from Education Minister Jason Clare, who said the focus needs to shift off our teachers and onto the big tech companies poisoning our kids. And while he agrees that more male teachers would benefit Aussie kids, he said the conversation does need to center on respect, saying, quote, teaching boys to respect girls isn't woke, it's common decency.
It's an interesting conversation that's bubbled up this week and not one that's surprising in the slightest. Matt Canavan usually does reference his kids and his young boys when talking about these things and how boys are feeling at the moment. We were talking about this upstairs as we were writing this headline, and I haven't sat down in the classroom in 10 years. You haven't sat down in the classroom in much longer.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:48)
Much longer.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:49)
Not that much longer.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:49)
Not much longer, but 16 years this year.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:52)
I can't speak to the curriculum, how the curriculum is taught. But what I will say is that different teachers deliver everything differently. Teachers do bring their bias to the classroom. I'm not going to say that there's not a certain feminisation of topics being brought to classrooms, but to the extent that it's pushing kids to the manna sphere, I don't know, I can't speak to it.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (4:11)