Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

but—before you get too far into this, Senator Abetz; you have made a fool of yourself already—bans those children from getting a tertiary education? I submit this, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate: every child in this nation not only has a right but must be facilitated to go on to a tertiary education in this modern society. To not do so is to cut down that child’s life and strip away from that child a fundamental right in a modern Western democracy. And yet the Exclusive Brethren do that to every one of their children. Are we not to investigate that? Should we not investigate a system where, with political patrimony, the government of the day pours millions of dollars of funding into an Exclusive Brethren sect which alone—nobody else does it—says that its children cannot go on to our universities or any university? They may not have a tertiary education. I ask you, Acting Deputy President: is that something we should turn the light out on? Is that not something we should be investigating? What is it about this chamber that it will fail those children, thousands of them, year after year? I will tell you: the Greens will not. We will stand by their right to be heard and to not have that awful situation, which should be tolerated in no democracy, exist in this country. They are only one section of kids in this country—that is, the Exclusive Brethren kids.

What is more, I had a teacher come to me in this parliament and say: ‘I was brought in as a teacher for the kids at an Exclusive Brethren school funded by taxpayers. I was appalled that those kids took home homework but did not have time to do it because every night and on weekends, including all day Sunday, they go to a religious meeting.’ That is the right of parents, if they wish. I am not talking here about kids who have other outlets. They cannot watch TV, they cannot have mobile phones, they cannot watch DVDs and they cannot listen to radio. The Elect Vessel can, but the kids cannot. That is the difference.

Do we in our society fund that? I said to them: ‘You support policies which have children psychologically damaged for life behind razor wire.’ That is a government policy; people can vote on that, but who knows, when the Exclusive Brethren put hundreds of thousands of dollars into election campaigns in this country, that there are kids in our midst who are denied basic communication with wider society and the learning facilities that are part and parcel of a modern, advanced community?

Should we not look at that? Well, no. The blinkers are on. The government says: ‘Close it down. Don’t look.’ The Labor Party says, ‘Oh, we’re a bit worried about this,’ but will not look. The Democrats say, ‘We won’t look either.’ The Greens will look because we believe in the rights of children and we believe that none of them should be abandoned to a situation where ultimately they cannot even go to a university—and do you know why they cannot? Because people—