In one of his first interviews as Liberal leader, Peter Dutton said he's got his eyes on the "extremism of teachers" (Image: Sky News Australia)

New Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton has signalled he wants to take on teacher “extremism” in the debate over the development of Australia’s new national school curriculum, hinting at a United States-style education culture war.

On a Tuesday broadcast of Sky News’ Bolt Report, the freshly elected opposition leader signposted the party’s intention to make what’s being taught in Australia’s schools a hotly contested political issue. 

“If [the teaching was] limited to just environmental issues or just to climate change, it would be bad enough. But the extremism of some of the teachers and the language that they use, the approach that they take, it’s across a broad range of policy areas,” he said.

Dutton foreshadowed reigniting a fight with the Labor Party over the draft national curriculum: “I think the national curriculum, the values argument, is going to be one of the big debates over this Parliament. I think you will see a big difference between the policies that we take to the next election compared with what Labor will.”

Last year, then education minister Alan Tudge led a campaign against the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority’s draft curriculum that would be taught to students from preschool to Year 10 nationally. 

Before being sidelined over his affair and alleged abusive relationship with a former staffer, which he denies, Tudge took issue with how the document depicted Australia’s racial and religious history. He even went as far as claiming that it would teach students to hate Australia and not want to defend it in war.

The campaign of Tudge and other conservative groups against the draft curriculum coincided with the “critical race theory” backlash in American schools, led by Republicans. Since then, this scrutiny has only intensified (and morphed), and offers insight into why Peter Dutton is so eager to make this into an issue.

There’s a long history of fighting over what is taught in schools in the US, from anti-evolution laws in the 1920s to today’s battles. Since Trump’s loss in 2020, the Republican Party has found success in appealing to parents over how matters of race, sex and gender are being taught — confecting moral panic around being indoctrinated or even “groomed” by teachers. 

The recent come-from-behind victory of Republican Glenn Youngkin in last November’s Virginia governor’s race laid out a new blueprint for conservatives winning in liberal-leaning areas. In a state that voted 54-44 for Joe Biden a year before, Youngkin was able to straddle being pro-Trump while also attracting back some voters repelled by Trump by making local education a key issue in the campaign.

Youngkin specifically argued against critical race theory being taught in schools while also appealing against COVID-19 restrictions that kept children at home or wearing masks in the classroom. This, combined with Joe Biden’s dropping popularity, contributed to Youngkin’s campaign picking up enough voters from the suburbs to win. 

Going into 2022, state Republicans have doubled down on the critical race theory strategy while also incorporating anti-LGBTIQA+ elements. Florida’s governor and 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner Ron DeSantis proudly passed “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, which prohibits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in state classrooms. 

There are reasons to believe a renewed focus on classroom culture wars using the national curriculum as a trojan horse could be a smart strategy for the Liberal Party. Education remains an important issue for voters: an ANU-run poll found more than half of voters said improving the education system was a top priority ahead of the 2022 election, beating out issues like reducing crime or dealing with the pandemic. It’s also a traditional Labor strong suit. The party has an 8% lead in which of the two major parties is trusted more to handle the issue. 

If the US is anything to go by, embracing this fight could be a way for a Dutton-led opposition to neutralise or even gain ground on an issue that’s been a weakness for them. Dutton started off his term by promising to pay attention to the “forgotten Australians” in the suburbs — the same people who Youngkin picked up. The scare campaign against the Safe Schools Coalition program from 2016-2018 shows there’s fertile political ground for this kind of issue. (Dutton has form on this). 

As we saw from Katherine Deves’ kamikaze campaign, international culture wars can’t be directly imported, they need to be translated. One difference is that education policy in the US is mediated through locally elected school boards that develop the curriculum. Australia’s curriculum is national and education policy is state-based — and it’s this difference that could make Australia ripe for a national education culture war. 

At least, that’s what Peter Dutton has hinted he is hoping for: “I intend to take this challenge to the Labor Party … and not just at a federal level but also at a state level. I think there’s a lot of work to do there, and it will be a main area of focus.”