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Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott says left-wing teachers have brought Australian schools ‘back to the Middle Ages’ as dogmas replace learning and hunt down ‘heretics’.
The radicalization of education by the left has been so “ubiquitous” and “destructive” that the damage done would take generations to repair, the flared conservative said.
And he warned that conservatives were not without fault in the rise of left-wing ideology — he said they were often too polite to exclaim activists’ “palpable nonsense.”
Abbott made the comments onstage with fellow staunch Conservative, former Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker, at the right-wing CPAC convention in Sydney.
He said that nowhere “the left’s long march through our institutions … was more pervasive and destructive than in our educational system.”
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has accused schools of indoctrinating students into leftist dogmas, as may be seen here during a student climate protest in Sydney in May 2022
“It’s almost as if we’ve gone back to the Middle Ages where there is dogma – only it’s not Christian dogma, it’s anything but Christian dogma – with modern inquisitions hunting modern heretics (and) if they’re not on the are burned at the stake,” Mr Abbott told the Oct. 1 conference.
Abbott admitted that he was not in line with the core beliefs of leftist dogma.
‘I don’t like the climate cult, I don’t like the virus hysteria. I can’t understand the gender fluidity pressure,” he said.
He warned that restoring the state of schools would be a multi-generational task that would require a cultural shift.
“It has taken us a long time to get into this deplorable position and I fear it will be a long time before we get back to where we should be,” Abbott said.
Mr Abbott called for greater parental involvement in schools, more efforts to attract the ‘best and brightest’ people to teaching and ‘above all, greater academic rigor’.
He believed that education should be about the ‘disinterested pursuit of the truth’.
‘There must be an insatiable curiosity, what else can we know? The better we can be,’ he said.
Mr Abbott told the CPAC event in Sydney that repairing the damage done to schools by leftists would be a multi-generational task.
Abbott said he believed activists had taken advantage of the “good manners” of people who knew their left-wing beliefs were “palpable nonsense” but were too polite to say so.
“One of the things I often say is that the majority who remain silent will not remain the majority for long,” he said.
“Good people have been too polite in the face of things that defy common sense.
We cannot let politeness stop us from expressing ourselves and contradicting things that are palpable nonsense in a polite and respectful way.
“We’ve been too reverent at times. We’ve been remarkably shy about being the adults we should be.’
Teaching must return to nurturing ‘insatiable curiosity’ and applying academic rigor, says Mr Abbott
The former prime minister, who won office in 2013 but was ousted by Malcolm Turnbull in 2015 after a series of bad polls, also strongly opposed the proposed Indigenous vote to parliament, calling it “discrimination”.
“Just because there has been institutionalized discrimination in the past is no reason to institutionalize discrimination now and in the future,” Abbott said to the applause of the CPAC crowd in Sydney’s Darling Harbor.
The Albanian government has promised to hold a referendum on the constitutional amendment to create the special ‘Voice’ body, which will advise the federal parliament on matters important to Indigenous Australians.
Mr Abbott claimed that the Voice to Parliament was pushed with bullying tactics.
Mr Abbott accused those campaigning for the Indigenous vote to parliament of attempting to morally bully people (picture a scene from an ad promoting a yes vote for the upcoming referendum)
“We should never be morally intimidated into changing what works, and if something doesn’t work, let’s fix it,” Abbott said.
“What we must not do is abandon the important principles that have made our country special and precious in an attempt to apologize for bad behavior in the past.”
He said that if indigenous people are not sufficiently represented in parliament, they should be elected ‘in the normal way’.
However, according to Abbott, it was not all doom and gloom for the conservative side of politics.
“Sooner or later, reality will always trump ideology,” he said.
‘The (Covid) virus hysteria has finally disappeared. The desire to live normally eventually overcame the neurotic fear of death.
Abbott threatened to ‘shirt front’ Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia-backed separatists who shot down Malaysian Airlines passenger flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014
Likewise, the obsession with emissions will eventually end when weather-dependent power can’t keep the lights on.
And the cultural self-loathing stops when people have to choose between liberal democracy and its alternatives.
“That’s our job, to fight the good fight, stay on course and keep the faith.”
Mr Abbott made his comments while on stage with former Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker (pictured left) at the CPAC conference in Sydney’s Darling Harbor
One person, Mr Abbott, was happy to remind the public who he had not been too polite to, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Abbott threatened to ‘shirt’ Putin at a 2014 G20 meeting of world leaders over the downing of Malaysian Airlines passenger flight MH17 by Russian-backed separatists over eastern Ukraine in June 2014.
“Shirtfronting” is something more commonly seen in a pub or on a football pitch where opponents rush together and end up standing toe-to-toe with puffed chests yelling in each other’s faces.
As he spoke of his proudest achievements in office, Mr Abbott enjoyed reminding the public that he once threatened this brawl in the bar.
“Vladimir Putin was at least dressed, although unfortunately not deposed,” he said.