Page 4498 - Week 12 - Thursday, 26 October 2017
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gender-equitable future. This could link into respectful relationships, consent, debunking gender stereotypes and teaching every child that they are just as capable and entitled to reach their dreams as everyone else.
Over the next year Bronte will be talking with relevant stakeholders about the feasibility of this fourth priority. She will be creating resources and implementing a gender priority into the curriculum of preschools, primary schools and high schools in the ACT that are willing to participate. An independent agency will then be employed to determine whether these changes have had a positive impact. If there is a positive impact, as we expect there will be, Bronte will look for our support in pushing to make gender a nationally implemented cross-curriculum priority.
I do not think there is anyone here today who would not want girls and boys to feel they have been treated equally and to be treated equally well. Making gender a cross-curriculum priority will ensure that each subject, each class, each cohort and each school is influenced by gender positive messages. If we want every young girl to feel she can reach her dreams and then actually reach them, we need learning environments which are equally accessible for all.
I intend to stay in touch with Bronte and support her in any way I can. I wholeheartedly support her proposal of introducing gender as a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian curriculum. I hope that when the time comes we can all come together again, as we did on 11 October, and stand behind a proposal that would foster a more gender equitable Australia.
Same-sex marriage postal survey
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee) (4.50): It is with pride that I rise to speak for the final time before the marriage equality postal survey closes. We are fortunate to live in an inclusive city. I am incredibly proud of the positive stance that our government has taken in supporting inclusion and marriage equality.
Since my election to the Assembly last year, I have stood alongside our government to foster inclusion in our LGBTI-friendly city. During this campaign I have been vigorously campaigning to ensure that people post their surveys and encourage everyone to support marriage equality. I have been to many shopping centre stalls, and made countless calls with hundreds of volunteers from all walks of life who have been involved in this positive equality campaign.
Twice Michael Pettersson and I braved the cold weather and took to Canberra’s thriving nightlife in Civic to help enrol some of the almost 6,000 young Canberrans who have enrolled for the first time to vote and to remind them to return their postal survey before tomorrow.
No matter where I have been on this campaign, I have been met with overwhelming support for marriage equality. But now the time is almost up for all Canberrans to have their own say on making Canberra more inclusive. Surveys must be submitted by tomorrow, 27 October.
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