Education experts have condemned the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, for suggesting children with autism should be removed from mainstream classrooms so other students aren’t held back.



The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young also rebuked Hanson for the remarks.

But the former prime minister Tony Abbott refused to join the criticism, saying it was not his practice to offer a running commentary on “every single member of the Senate”.

Hanson made her comments during debate on the Turnbull government’s proposed school funding overhaul in the Senate on Wednesday.

She insisted parents and teachers had raised the matter with her, saying teachers were devoting too much time to children with disabilities, to the detriment of other students in the classroom.

Children with special needs should be taught in dedicated classrooms where they could be looked after and given special attention, she said.

“I hear so many times from parents and teachers whose time is taken up with children in the classroom where they have a disability, or where they are autistic, that it is taking up the teacher’s time,” Hanson said.



“These kids have a right to an education by all means, but if there is a number of them these children should actually go into a special classroom, looked after and given that special attention.

“Most of the time the teacher spends so much time on them they forget about the child who … wants to go ahead in leaps and bounds in their education, but are held back by those because the teachers spend time with them.

“I’m not denying them. If it was one of my children I’d love all the time given to them, to give them those opportunities. But it is about the loss [for] our other kids.

“I think that we have more autistic children and yet we are not providing the special classrooms or the schools for these autistic children, and if there are, they’re at huge expense to parents.

It’s no good saying ‘We’ve got to allow these kids to feel good about themselves and we don’t want to upset them and make them feel hurt’, and I understand that.

“But we have to be realistic at times and consider the impact that is having on other children in that classroom.”

She said Australia could not afford to hold students back as students in other countries overtook them in educational rankings.

Education experts from Melbourne University said since the mid-1990s the philosophy of inclusion had been influential in changing Australian education for the better.

“All children, with and without disabilities, have a legislated right to be educated in their local neighbourhood school, and Senator Hanson’s comments show a disregard for Australia’s legislative provisions and international human rights obligations,” said a joint statement from Prof Lorraine Graham, senior lecturers Shiralee Poed and Lisa Mckay-Brown, and lecturers Sharon Klieve and Kate Leigh, from the Melbourne graduate school of education.

David Roy, from the University of Newcastle’s school of education, told Fairfax Media Hanson’s comments were not borne out by evidence.

“Children with a disability may have a deficit in one area, but will often and regularly have an asset in the other so they can support other children in the classroom who aren’t good with language or literacy, who aren’t good with maths … and see an alternative way of doing something.”

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said it was “heartbreaking and upsetting” for parents of children with autism to hear Hanson’s comments.

He read to parliament an email from a parent he had received in response to Hanson’s comments



“What the senator is saying is that our clever, funny, naughty, spunky kid doesn’t deserve a good education,” the letter said.



“That she doesn’t deserve the same opportunities as other kids. That she is lesser. Not worthy. Not really one of us.”

Hanson-Young condemned the One Nation leader’s comments. “It’s disgusting that Pauline Hanson thinks kids with autism should not be in our classrooms … what sort of woman is Pauline Hanson, what sort of mother? It is disgusting.”

Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie said she wanted children with disabilities in mainstream classrooms because it was great for all students, including those without disabilities.

“They learn compassion. They learn how to deal with these matters. It gives them coping mechanisms for the rest of their lives. Everybody wins out with this,” she told parliament.

Autism Awareness Australia said Hanson’s comments were “appalling, archaic and cruel”.

Its chief executive, Nicole Rogerson, described Senator Hanson as a “truly deplorable woman”.

“@PaulineHansonOz is a disgrace. Dangerous, hurtful and archaic thinking,” she tweeted. “This is one of the most disgusting things a member of parliament could say.”

With Australian Associated Press