Greens Education (Primary and Secondary) spokesperson Senator Penny Allman-Payne, a 30-year public school teacher, today wrote to Education Minister Jason Clare asking him to retract his comments opposing the School Strike for Palestine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As reported in The Age on Tuesday, Minister Clare said<\/a> \u201cschool students should be at school during school hours\u201d, comments which were this morning echoed by the Victorian deputy Premier Ben Carroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Greens have called on Labor to support students\u2019 democratic right to protest as school children prepare to walk out of classrooms on Friday for the National Climate Strike, and Thursday next week in support of Palestine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Greens spokesperson on Education (Primary and Secondary) Senator Penny Allman-Payne said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis morning I\u2019ve written to the federal Education Minister urging him to retract his comments that kids should \u2018stay in school\u2019 instead of striking for climate and peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese are not the comments of a Minister who is dedicated to students\u2019 democratic right to freedom of speech and expression and right to protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese are patronising comments from a Minister who is out of touch with how switched on, informed and powerful students movements can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI urge students and families to ignore the Minister\u2019s condescension and act on your democratic right to protest for a safe climate future and for peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe right to protest is an essential part of living in a democracy. We should find it heartening that this generation of schoolkids is prepared to join millions around the world in exercising that right over such fundamentally important issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear that Australian school students have seen through the platitudes. They know that it is morally indefensible to refuse to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd they know that as long as we continue to dig up and burn coal and gas, reigning in climate change is impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo often during debates in the senate chamber, government Members refer to themselves as \u2018the adults in the room\u2019, but when it comes to acting in our best interests \u2013 whether it\u2019s action on climate or opposing the invasion of Gaza \u2013 the so-called adults are failing our kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s why they\u2019re taking to the streets. Not because they want to skip school, but because they are being forced to by a cowardly and captured government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the government wants kids to stay in the classroom, the solution is simple: do your job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greens Education (Primary and Secondary) spokesperson Senator Penny Allman-Payne, a 30-year public school teacher, today wrote to Education Minister Jason Clare asking him to retract his comments opposing the School Strike for Palestine. As reported in The Age on Tuesday, Minister Clare said \u201cschool students should be at school during school hours\u201d, comments which were this morning … Continue reading “GREENS WRITE TO EDUCATION MINISTER URGING HIM TO RETRACT COMMENTS ON SCHOOL STRIKES”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24008,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24007\/revisions\/24008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}