Peter Abetz, elder brother of Abbott minister Eric, is also reported to have said that most LGBTI teenagers ‘grow out of it’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

An anti-bullying program aimed at informing teachers about prejudice toward LGBTI students is “little more than a gay, lesbian, transgender lifestyle promotion program,” conservative Western Australian government backbencher Peter Abetz is reported to have said.

The West Australian reports that Abetz, elder brother to Abbott government minister Eric Abetz and a former pastor in the Christian Reformed Church, gave a private briefing to his Liberal party colleagues in the WA parliament to speak against the Safe Schools program which will become available to WA schools later this year.

Abetz reportedly said he believed that most LGBTI teenagers grew out of it, and highlighted anti-bullying programs he thought would be more appropriate.

“The militant gay lesbian lobby is trying to get this into our schools to ‘normalise’ what they consider the LGBTI agenda,” the West Australian reports him as saying.

“I think in Australia most people are quite tolerant. Most people know someone among their relatives or workmates who is a lesbian or gay or whatever, and they don’t bat an eyelid – they just accept them as human beings with inherent value and you treat them with dignity and respect.”

Gay rights campaigner Rodney Croome told Guardian Australia that Abetz’s reported comments displayed exactly the kind of stigma that the program was designed to counteract.

“The idea that homosexuality is a ‘phase’ belongs in the 1950s, where most people left it,” he said. “About 10% of students in Western Australia are gay or transgender, and about 10% of the adult population is too.”

Croome said that homophobic bullying had been linked to higher rates of suicide, self-harm, drug and alcohol abuse and poor performance at school.

A survey of same-sex attracted and gender questioning teenagers conducted by La Trobe University 2010 found that 60% had experienced homophobic verbal abuse and 18% had experienced physical abuse. It found that respondents were twice as likely to self-harm or have suicidal thoughts if they had been verbally abused, and three times as likely if they had been physically abused.

Eighty per cent of that abuse occurred in schools.

“The safe schools program is giving teachers the skills and information they need to effectively combat LGBTI bullying in the classroom,” Croome said. “He can call that propaganda if he wants. I call it saving lives.”

The federally-funded Safe Schools Coalition program began in Victoria and is already used in 243 schools in Victoria, New South Wales, the ACT and South Australia. Schools can decided whether to opt in.

Opposition education spokesman Stephen Dawson said the suggestion that being same-sex attracted or transgender could be transmitted via pamphlet was “outrageous and outdated”.

“I didn’t choose to be gay, I didn’t read something that suddenly turned me gay,” Dawson said. “It’s because of people like [Abetz] that we are seeing young LGBTQI kids get bashed, get spat on, in schools.”

The WA education minister Peter Collier said “children are bullied for a multitude of reasons” and the Safe Schools Coalition program was “but one resource schools can access.”

Guardian Australia has contacted Peter Abetz for comment.