Colleen Harkin on Drive ABC Radio Melbourne – 24 February 2026

Ali Moore:

And then on our question about teaching Australian values, I’ve got this, Australian values are diversity and inclusion. These are our values. So can you teach them? And what exactly are they, do you think? I’m asking, because the Australian Curriculum Authority hasn’t until the end of the year to come up with improvements to the curriculum, to be teaching values. Essentially, I guess, it boils down to teaching patriotism. So how exactly do you do that? And do schools need to do a better job of doing that? Colleen Harkin is the Director of the School’s Programme at the Institute of Public Affairs. You know her well because she’s with Raf Epstein doing the rap on every second or so Friday. Colleen, hello.

Colleen Harkin:

Hello. How are you?

Ali Moore:

I’m good. So in your view, can schools do a better job when it comes to teaching Australian values?

Colleen Harkin:

Yes, definitely. Look, I listened to what you just said a moment ago, and a number of schools do teach the Australian national anthem, but not all that often and not with any sort of level of commitment to it. If you think about it, the national anthem in two very short verses, sort of teaches kids about the history, the sacrifice, freedom, our shared destiny. It sort of initiates them into citizenship. So it is a great practise for schools to do as a unifying event.

Ali Moore:

So that’s one thing. And I guess, I mean, what else do you put into the Australian value category? Because if you look at things around our system of democracy, around the rule of law, they are … Well, I mean, they’re sort of things that are set in stone, aren’t they? They’re not the value, which is the not so tangible.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, no, I disagree with respect. Those Australian values that we sort of talk about that are intangible, the fair go, equality of men and women, they’re not set in stone. So just saying very quickly-

Ali Moore:

No, that’s my point. What I’m saying is democracy is set in stone. We have a constitution, we know the rules. If you can talk about our system, our political system, our legal system is set in statute, so we know what it is, whereas those other things are less tangible as you’re saying.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, yeah, and they are very open to change over a period of time. The issue here is how much do our students understand about what Australia offers? How is it that we’re different and what is it that they have every right to feel proud of?

A lot of people would be familiar with a thing called the NAPLAN results, which is the assessment of language and numeracy, but there’s also an assessment done for civics and citizenship, and the most recent results of that show that only 28% of year 10s understand our Australian democracy, our role of Parliament, the role of citizens, our rights and responsibilities. It’s pretty low figure, and it has decreased year-on-year every time they’ve tested it for the last 20 years.

So the previous results before the last were 38%, and so we’ve gone down another 10% in the last couple of years. So if you’ve got students that are coming out of school who don’t really understand the value of freedom of speech, you don’t really understand the rule of law, freedom of association, all of those core principles that are part of our nationhood, it’s very problematic to expect them then to have some sort of investment in the country and in their future.

Ali Moore:

So they’re really interesting statistics. I mean, does that mean that we need to improve the curriculum, or does it mean that we actually just have to teach the curriculum? Because surely, some of those things around role of citizen and how democracy works is in the curriculum somewhere.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, look, I mean, if anyone was to have a look at the national curriculum, it would blow their mind about how big and unwieldy it is. So some of these things get mentioned, but they’re not highlighted, and it’s entirely up to different schools and states about how they interpret how to do that. And I’ll give you an example. There are free resources that are provided by third-party education providers that have exercises where they suggest that the children sit for the national anthem as a form of protest. Now, I resent those materials. I think it’s been completely unhelpful to be teaching kids to be ashamed of their country. And so for example, they would justify the use of that because it does mention talking about the national anthem, but how you interpret that can be very open-ended.

Ali Moore:

You’re listening to Colleen Harkin from the Institute of Public Affairs, and we’re talking about moves to strengthen the teaching of Australian values in Australian schools. Colleen Harkin, just on that national anthem, and I mean, we looked at what’s happening in the Northern Territory, the fact that it’s mandatory to sing both verses of the anthem. If you look up in Victoria, the rules on the Victorian government website under flags and patriotic ceremonies, it does say that schools must not compel students to recite a pledge or declaration or take part in a patriotic ceremony. If a student or parents or carers object based on religious, cultural, philosophical, or other beliefs, how does that fit in to-

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I would say respectfully, it doesn’t, and this is part of how we are unravelling our social cohesion as a country, because we do have a culture. We do have an Australian culture. We do have values that are really important that everybody recognises them. Where your family heritage comes from, of course, is important to your family. But the cohesion of our nationhood is of the utmost importance, because otherwise, what happens is we do end up with things like Bondi. We do break the social thread between us. So we do have a right, if I can call it that as a citizen of the country to expect that our nationhood, our rule of law, our democracy, our freedom of speech, all of those things are of the utmost importance. And if you can’t subscribe to that, then we are the wrong country for you.

Ali Moore:

So Colleen Harkin, if you were in charge of the curriculum for a day and you could change it, what would you put in it? What would you change?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, they actually remove things. There’s a thing called the cross-curriculum priorities where everything is taught through the prism of sustainability and a conversation needs to be unpacked. I’m not sure I’ll do it justice in this couple of minutes, but it does teach the kids that they are intergenerational oppressors, that our symbols are oppressive, that we don’t have a history to be really proud of.

Now, our history is problematic. There is no doubt, there is no nation on the world that doesn’t have times in their history that are really bad, and that we have reason to reflect on those and to say that was terrible time. But for the most part, we have a terrific history. We have an extraordinary level of achievement. People from all over the world literally have fought to get here, but we have a lot to be grateful for. And that’s the message that should be taught to kids, not that they should feel bad about what has happened in the past.

Ali Moore:

I’ve got a text here from Lisa who says our national anthem celebrates white Australian history, not our indigenous past that won’t teach equality.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I don’t think that’s true, because-

Ali Moore:

Risk the young and free, isn’t there?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. And even that, I mean, to expect that all Aboriginals think and feel the same way is incorrect as well. So we are all part of the one nation, and that’s what’s been missing for the last recent times in education. I’ll say pluck it, say 10 or 20 years, where we’ve sort of moved away from this unifying theme that joins us together and we’ve created these pockets of adversity against each other, and it’s incredibly unhelpful to us as a nation to be able to enjoy and celebrate who we are and recognise our fellow neighbour and respect them and their individual beliefs and the rights of an individual because that’s what our democracy provides, and we are different to almost every other country in the world. I’ll give you an example, something like the Kable case, which was the first legal case in Australia. It set the rule of law that everyone was equal under law. And I’ll guarantee you, very few people know anything about it. And at the time, it was an extraordinary progressive thing to do.

Ali Moore:

Well, I mean, in fact, you could only have to look at … I think it was Raf who was talking this morning about secret voting. When I say secret voting, the whole idea of the-

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, secret ballot voting. Yeah.

Ali Moore:

… secret ballot voting was an invention in Australia. Colleen Harkin, it’s a really interesting conversation, and I’m guessing it’s one that does not get finished here on ABC Radio’s Drive programme. Thanks so much for talking to us.

Colleen Harkin:

Anytime. Thanks.

Ali Moore:

Colleen Harkin there. She’s the Director of the School’s Programme at the Institute of Public Affairs and a regular on Raf’s rap conversation on a Friday. Tell me what you think. 1-300-222-774. The Curriculum Authority has got until the end of the year to identify improvements to the curriculum. They want to strengthen the teaching of Australian values. So how do you think that should be done?

This transcript of Colleen Harkin on ABC Radio Melbourne from 24 February 2026 has been edited for clarity.