Who is in control of the Victorian (neoliberal) opposition?

Recently, the biggest opposition party (the neoliberal party) in my home state announced that, as part of their education policy for the coming election, they wanted to make some changes – specifically, they want to allow LGBTIQ kids to be bullied, and they want to instil their version of “Australian values”.

Of course, they didn’t phrase it that way – they referred to “a broader anti-bullying programme”, for instance.

Well, bullying based on sexuality and gender identity is a part of that broader view of bullying (and there are other targets), and the evidence  shows that Safe  Schools was what was needed to manage that sub-set of bullying. Cutting that back will, in addition to harming its targets, limit the ability of parents to do their job of raising LGBTIQ children (from a party which, as I understand it, thinks parents should have more say?), directly contradict the principle within the “Four Freedoms” set out by the USA’s 32^nd President, Franklin D Roosevelt of “Freedom from Fear”, as well as contravening the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 1, 2, 3, 16, 25 and especially 26, which guarantees the right to education that bullying of LGBTIQ children restricts), and will harm the economy (from a party which claims to be good at economic management) by denying young LGBTIQ people the opportunity to develop and contribute their full skills to the economy – but I suppose that doesn’t stack up against the emotional discomfort of a few conservatives in the neoliberal party who are unable to cope with the fact of gender identity covering more than the old, thoroughly discredited two polarities view.

This policy can – ad is, by me – viewed as getting cheap votes from the fearful, the uninformed (or misinformed), and the hateful - at the expense of belittling and attacking a relatively small minority of human beings, and those who care about them (including parents and other family, friends, students, peers, and teachers).

It is ironic that this is happening in the party that decriminalised homosexuality in Victoria in the 1980s, and which was supportive (with a modicum of education, which was offered to all sides) of reforms of Victoria’s human rights laws in 2000 to support gender diverse people – which, of course, was before John Howard tore any connection to Menzies out from the heart and soul of that party.

The descent of the neoliberal party since then has been shown by the malicious , damaging and harmful  lies at a Federal level during the recent postal survey on Equal  Marriage.

However, there were also those in the neoliberal party (and churches) who, during that debate, showed that there is still some of Menzies’ “small l” liberalism left– for example, the originator of the Bill which was ultimately passed.

So the question needs to be asked: who is behind this move at a state level? Perhaps that question can be more broadly phrased, “who is in charge of the Victorian neoliberal party?” – which is a topic that I recently examined at a Commonwealth level.

In this state level instance, has this decision been taken by (amoral?) political advisors, the aforementioned conservatives, the neoliberal party more generally, or the neoliberal party leadership?

In any event, the policy shows exactly the same short-sightedness of attacking the South Sudanese community over alleged youth gang violence, which pushed Victoria backwards into racism, and the now several decades long, racist xenophobia against asylum seekers at a Federal level (I do not and never have believed that it is about maritime safety – Italy’s response to recent, similar events shows how a safety-focused response truly looks) which accelerated the politics of fear in this nation: this current neoliberal party policy proposal would push Victoria backwards into homophobia and transphobia – it would divide and harm our society. To be clear: the harm is not only to LGBTIQ people and those who care about them, it is also to the society that is actively choosing to manifest that hate.

Choosing actively, but, thanks to what I consider to be political and media manipulation, not deliberately (perhaps a better word is deliberatively) choosing …

So … finally, in view of all that: what is their version of Australian values?