Email from senator’s office to Melbourne woman about LGBT anti-bullying program has been criticised by the federal education minister

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The federal education minister, Simon Birmingham, has criticised an email to a voter reportedly written by Cory Bernardi which linked the Safe Schools program to bondage clubs and adult sex toys.

Melbourne mother of two, Pia Cerveri, on Monday night received a reply to an email she sent to Bernardi voicing her displeasure at his stance on the anti-bullying program.

“You clearly haven’t got any idea what is in the program,” the email to Cerveri started. “If you did then you would be worried about your children being exposed to unhealthy ideas from such an early age.”

The email then goes on to say Safe Schools links to websites about “bondage clubs and adult sex toys”.

Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) The email Cory Bernardi reportedly sent to a mother, linking #SafeSchools to "bondage clubs" https://t.co/yfTUB3WEes pic.twitter.com/viXoddDf29

“If you think this is ok I worry for your children,” it said. “Inform yourself properly and then get back to me. Your opinion will carry more weight then.”

Bernardi was travelling overseas on Tuesday and his office said it could not confirm with Guardian Australia that the email’s origin until they had spoken to him directly.

Birmingham, who oversaw the government’s response to a review into Safe Schools, was unimpressed with the content of the email.

“There is certainly language I wouldn’t use and that is not an accurate reflection of what is in the Safe Schools program,” he told Channel Ten’s The Project. “There are genuine concerns contained in that about the type of websites that you can link from in relation to some of the recommended sites of the Safe School program. That is where we have taken action, but other areas of that, frankly, are not an accurate reflection and not terribly helpful.”

Cerveri is in a lesbian relationship and was moved to write to the senator, a vocal opponent of the program, over his stance on Safe Schools.

The email she wrote him was “pretty respectful”, she told Guardian Australia.

“It wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t offensive ... or untoward,” she said.

The response to the email, sent from bernardi.office@aph.gov.au, was unexpected.

“I was shocked and surprised, because it came almost immediately – maybe half an hour – after I sent it,” Cerveri said.

Bernardi’s office confirmed that the email address is one of the senator’s official ones.

Cerveri said she would be happy to have Bernardi meet herself and her kids “to see how wonderful they are”.

Malcolm Turnbull last month initiated a review into the anti-bullying program following concerns from his party’s backbench.

On Friday, the government responded to review by recommending wide-ranging changes to the program, including limiting it to secondary schools, removing links to external websites and giving parent groups the chance to veto the program’s implementation in their schools.

Labor is committed to the program until July 2017, when funding is due to run out, but has not committed to extending the program’s funding beyond that.