It’s always important to remember that what the government funds and doesn’t fund is a conscious choice, and one which reflects the priorities of the government.
So: in the 2018-19 budget then-treasurer Scott Morrison allocated $240 million putting Christian chaplains in our public schools, making it a permanent budget fixture. Earlier this year it was renewed for four years with a budget line of $247 million.
Coincidentally, Morrison has just announced funding to address the current crisis of mental health via not for profit group batyr, who have been given $2.8 million to “to offer more online services and support a program of school visits promoting youth mental health and suicide prevention.”
Now, don’t get us wrong: we’re delighted that something – anything! – is being done to address mental health in schools. And also we acknowledge that this is one strategy – although the only strategy actually announced so far – of the government’s $500 million plan for mental health for young people.
But we have reason to be dubious.
After all, last time there was an attempt to do something about mental health among Australia’s schoolkids – specifically, about providing information to teachers to help recognise bullying of queer and trans kids, who have a higher rate of self-harm and suicide in part as a result of said bullying – the nation (and members of the Coalition) went nuts with entirely made-up stories of how Safe Schools supposedly would indoctrinate children into gayness via hardcore sex classes and SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
And Morrison himself has played into that exact misrepresentation:
So there’s a fair bit of ground to make up, is what we’re saying,
The Big Smoke has covered this issue too, including how educators feel about this allocation of resources (spoiler: not fans).
You might remember the chaplains programme being very controversial (not least because the groups being funded to do so often ended up being fundamentalist evangelicals with a less than entirely accepting attitude to LGBTIQ kids, among other issues), or even asked no-one in particular a question like “say, why are public schools having religious people in them? If parents were hellbent on getting Christianity to their children there’s no shortage of religious schools out there – and what if they kids are Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu, or any other religion?”
Anyway: a very particular type of god in schools is almost ten times more valuable than providing students with actual mental health programmes, according to your federal government.
That’s priorities, right there.