We must educate our children to evaluate concepts such as ‘values’ and ‘pride’, rather than teach them to hoist a flag
News Source
•Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:00:04 GMT
📰 What Happened
Writer and professor Tony Birch has criticised a Coalition plan for Indigenous education. Shadow education minister Julian Leeser wants Indigenous topics taught as separate subjects, not across every class. Leeser spoke at a major education conference.
Birch chairs Australian literature at Melbourne University. He says students already know too little Indigenous history. He wants schools to teach the Aborigines Protection Act 1886, a Victorian law few Australians have heard of.
🔍 The Backstory
That 1886 law split Aboriginal families using racist blood categories. People were forced onto reserves and missions, and cut off from land and family. Birch wrote that it also shaped the 1901 constitution and the White Australia policy.
Next year is the 30th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report on the Stolen Generations. Birch's opinion piece ran on 23 Sep 2026. He argues history should teach children to think, not to wave a flag.
🎯 Why It Matters
What schools teach shapes what kids think is normal. Leaving this history out keeps a harmful law that changed thousands of lives unknown.
Writer and professor Tony Birch has criticised a Coalition plan for Indigenous education. Shadow education minister Julian Leeser wants Indigenous topics taught as separate subjects, not across every class. Leeser spoke at a major education conference.
Birch chairs Australian literature at Melbourne University. He says students already know too little Indigenous history. He wants schools to teach the Aborigines Protection Act 1886, a Victorian law few Australians have heard of.
That 1886 law split Aboriginal families using racist blood categories. People were forced onto reserves and missions, and cut off from land and family. Birch wrote that it also shaped the 1901 constitution and the White Australia policy.
Next year is the 30th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report on the Stolen Generations. Birch's opinion piece ran on 23 Sep 2026. He argues history should teach children to think, not to wave a flag.
What schools teach shapes what kids think is normal. Leaving this history out keeps a harmful law that changed thousands of lives unknown.