Barnaby Joyce compares nationwide student walkout against One Nation to North Korea
Thousands of students in eight cities left class on Thursday to protest against One Nation, whose own education policy promises mandatory patriotism in the curriculum.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has compared thousands of Australian students walking out of class to protest against his party to North Korea, saying the day of action left him with "a sense of indoctrination".
High school and university students walked out around lunchtime on Thursday in eight cities — Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Wollongong and Newcastle — for the "Students Say No to Hanson" national day of action organised by the National Union of Students.
Joyce, the member for New England, said he did not believe the students had organised it themselves.
"I’m absolutely certain that they’ve been inspired and organised. It’s not organic, it would be ... there’ll be teachers behind it," he said.
He said the students should be focused on their education and on a workforce increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and overseas competition.
"There is a time for politics. It’s after you leave school and when you’re about to vote, and I can understand it, but I do get a sense of indoctrination," he said.
"I do get a little bit of a sense of North Korea with this type of approach, and I don’t think it’s a good thing."
He accused the organisers of "using children as a prop".
Pauline Hanson posted on Facebook that schools should teach young Australians "how to think, not what to think".
"If you want to protest something, protest why your parents’ wages are going backwards and the cost of everything is going up," she wrote.
One Nation’s Victorian education policy commits the party to reintroducing mandatory Australian history studies that "support and champion our British settler history, Australian military campaigns, Australian patriotism, and pride".
The same policy states: "We oppose students being indoctrinated with political views."
The federal party posted in late July that under a One Nation government "our schools will promote patriotism and encourage young Aussies to love their country, its history and its heritage", and that welcome to country ceremonies would be removed from classrooms.
Canberra organiser Yerin Park, 23, walked out of school in June 2020 to march on Parliament House for Black Lives Matter.
One Nation’s primary vote was about 4 per cent then, according to AAP.
It is now 26 per cent — ahead of Labor on 25.5 and the Coalition on 22 — according to the Roy Morgan poll taken from 3 to 9 August.
"I’m hoping this will be the start of a real kind of movement," Park said.
Monash University senior politics lecturer Benjamin Moffitt said walking out was one of the most effective ways for students, including those too young to vote, to register dissent.
Nobody walks out in Pyongyang.