"To take that case in point, it is defined to mean 'an extreme or irrational fear of homosexuality'. This is therefore a much-used word to stomp on any form of commentary on issues such as this, but it is also wrongly used. Liberal MP Luke Simpkins. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "I have never met anyone that displays an extreme or irrational fear of homosexuality. "I have an army background and a sporting background and never have I met anyone who has such fears." Mr Simpkins is the latest backbencher to rise in Parliament to voice concerns over the Safe Schools program.

A Coalition party room meeting was dominated by the issue on Tuesday. It led Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to ask Education Minister Simon Birmingham for an independent review to ensure the $8 million opt-in program - currently used in about 500 schools - is age appropriate. The Safe Schools Coalition has welcomed "all opportunities to demonstrate the positive impact" of the program and "provide the facts and evidence behind it". National program director Sally Richardson has previously stressed there is no content which teaches sexual techniques or things like chest binding. Ms Richardson said critics had wrongly accused Safe Schools of including content which was not part of the program but on websites that the program had links to. On Wednesday afternoon, Tasmanian Liberal MP Brett Whiteley claimed Safe Schools is an "extraordinarily dangerous program" that doesn't make schools safer but rather seeks to "stamp out gender entirely, to create confusion and doubt in children's minds about their gender".

I have an army background and a sporting background and never have I met anyone who has such fears "We all want safer schools. Yet the incongruence between the title and objectives of the Safe Schools Coalition program and what is actually taught and, importantly, how it is taught is remarkable and confronting," he said. "This is state sanctioned and state funded social engineering at its worst." Around the same time, Queensland Liberal Nationals senator Barry O'Sullivan told Parliament that while he wanted to see bullying stamped out, the program set out to "deconstruct general norms that reflect society". "It was directed particularly at the unique cohort of people who are said to be suffering - and I accept they are - with respect to sexual confusion," he said.

"Mind you, I think every young person at some stage - and it was my own experience- has difficulty during that puberty. There is confusion and misunderstanding. They are scared." He criticised encouraging young people to view sexuality as fluid and said heterosexuality was not offered as an option. The newly elected member for Canning, Andrew Hastie, told the House of Representatives on Tuesday that the initiative was "more about advancing ideology than equipping children with techniques to deal with bullying". Loading "The program decries bullying yet pushes its own form of bullying by pressuring young children to conform to a particular view of sexuality," he said.