Federal MP criticised as he doubles down ‘anti-boy’ agenda in schools

National Party Leader Matt Canavan has doubled down on what he said was an “anti-boy ideology” in schools that was pushing young boys into toxic online spaces.

While the nation debated the links between the manosphere and sexual violence following a recent spate of high-profile incidents allegedly involving young boys, Canavan said the issue lied with the lack of male teachers in schools.

“They’re sick and tired of getting lectures about how bad men are at school, and so they go to other places,” he told Today on Wednesday.

“They’re sick and tired of the feminisation of our curriculum and the lack of direction and leadership that they’re given.”

Speaking at an emergency sexual violence roundtable in Sydney, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said it was extraordinary and unbelievable that Canavan had blamed teachers over online platforms and toxic content.

“I would have thought that teaching young men and women about consent and respectful relationships is something that is beyond politics that any leader could get behind,” she said on Friday.

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Plibersek noted reports that young boys were using misogynistic language and sexual aggression towards their female peers and teachers.

“We know that the influence of the online world is bleeding into the real world, and that’s having some really bad effects on young people,” she said.

“That is the influence of the manosphere on our boys.”

Canavan has repeatedly doubled down on his remarks, saying he was speaking from his personal experience when he said consent education was pushing an “anti-boy ideology”.

On Friday, he said young boys are being attracted to toxic voices because “we’re not treating boys with respect in the classroom”.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has backed his junior Coalition leader and agreed that some teachers are running agendas in classrooms.

The Coalition’s most senior woman, Deputy Leader Jane Hume, tried to downplay the remarks and disagreed that the education curriculum was pushing young boys towards toxic online spaces.

But she said Canavan was speaking from his own experience as a parent to boys.

“If there is activism that’s creeping into our classrooms or our curriculum, why not speak up about it?” she told Sunrise on Friday.

The education sector has pushed back on the assertions that there is an agenda in classrooms.

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Australian Education Union President Correna Haythorpe said the remarks from Canavan and Taylor were either a “malevolent mischaracterisation of Australia’s education system for political gain, or a display of complete ignorance of how the teaching profession operates”.

“These kinds of divisive attacks weaken trust in teaching, make it harder to recruit and retain teachers, and undermine our education system as a whole,” she said.

“Teachers don’t need lectures from politicians about how to do their jobs.”

Education Minister Jason Clare said teaching boys to respect girls is not woke.

“It’s just common decency,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“The bad guys here are the big tech companies. They’re the ones poisoning our kids with algorithms that are just shovelling s---into their heads.”

The federal government is working with stakeholders to find ways to clean up social media algorithms to respond to the toxic content being fed to young boys with draft legislation to be released later this month.

A 2024 study that found it takes just 23 minutes for a social media account mimicking a 16- to 18-year-old boy to be fed misogynistic content, regardless of the account’s viewing preferences.