Peter Dutton has left the door open to slashing the federal education department as part of his pledge to sack 41,000 public servants. As he responded to concerns about a “woke agenda” in curriculums and suggested students were being “indoctrinated” at school, Labor has accused him of pulling “from the Doge playbook’”.
The opposition leader has refused to say exactly where or how he would cut the public service, but on Tuesday he indicated his cuts could fall on “back office operations”, and flagged he could put conditions on federal education funding.
This prompted a stinging response from the education union and the federal education minister, Jason Clare, who accused Dutton of an “extreme” and “dangerous” agenda reminiscent of Donald Trump, who has similarly pledged to cull the US education department.
“That should put the fear of god into any Australian that cares about our kids,” Clare said.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, echoed the view, saying, “Today, [Dutton] threatened cuts to school funding, which was right from the Doge playbook”.
“We also know that he wants to Americanise Medicare as well,” Chalmers told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. “This is Doge-ee Dutton, taking his cues and policies straight from the US.”
Labor sources pointed out Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, under the new Department of Government Efficiency, have pushed for the American federal education department to be dismantled.
In a Sky News forum on Monday night, in his electorate of Dickson, Dutton was asked what the Coalition would to do combat “the woke agenda” in education.
Dutton did not use the word “woke”, as the questioner did, but responded that the federal government could “influence” state governments about what schools taught.
“We do provide funding to the state governments and we can condition that funding,” Dutton said.
“We should be saying to the states … that we want our kids to be taught the curriculum, and we want our kids to be taught what it is they need to take on as they face the challenges of the world, and not be guided into some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities,” he said.
“That’s a debate that we need to hear more from parents on. I think there is a silent majority on this issue right across the community.”
The Greens accused Dutton of seeking to hold education funding to ransom.
Dutton has previously hinted the education department could be reduced if he was elected. He began his answer on Monday night by saying the federal education department employs “thousands and thousands of people” but “doesn’t own or run a school”.
“Which is why people ask: ‘Why is there is a department of thousands and thousands of people in Canberra called the education department if we don’t have a school of employ a teacher?’” he said.
Dutton doubled down on the topic on Tuesday. He did not provide specific examples of lessons or subjects he viewed as “woke” but raised examples of university lecturers joining political protests, and said the Coalition’s curriculum would “reflect community standards”.
He did not deny that he would look to cut the education department when asked, answering: “We have said we want to take waste out of the federal budget and put back into frontline services.”
He said however that the current Labor budget funding to health and education was “our commitment”.
“I want to make sure that we are spending money on frontline services, not back office operations,” Dutton said when asked, separately, if he would pledge not to make cuts to health, education, the ABC or SBS.
“I support young Australians been able to think freely, being able to assess what is before them and not being told and indoctrinated by something that is the agenda of others.”
Clare highlighted that the current curriculum was “the curriculum that the Scott Morrison government put in place”.
“Peter Dutton has no ideas of his own, no plan for Australia, just half-baked ideas imported from the US,” Clare claimed.
In a press conference, he pointed to recent Albanese government funding deals with state governments on education agreements, and said he was focused on more children finishing high school.
“Peter Dutton isn’t focused on the fundamentals, I think, [it] shows that he’s distracted by these culture wars,” Clare said.
The Australian Education Union accused Dutton of copying Trump – a comparison Dutton has previously rejected as a “sledge”.
“Now he is taking a leaf from the Trump playbook by going for the Department of Education by threatening to cut thousands of jobs, control what teachers teach – and pull funding if they don’t comply with his ideology,” said AEU president Correna Haythorpe.
“Peter Dutton’s proposed control of the school curriculum is chilling, when we see what is happening in the US with book banning and the destruction of teacher’s professional autonomy.
Dutton had briefly touched on the topic in his budget reply speech last Thursday, saying the Coalition would “restore a curriculum that teaches the core fundamentals in our classrooms.”