Colleen Harkin on The Rita Panahi Show Sky News Australia – 18 June 2025

In this interview, Colleen Harkin appeared on The Rita Panahi Show – Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research into the National Curriculum.

All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.

Below is a transcript of the interview.

Rita Panahi:

The queer Palestinian activist embroiled in an obscene video scandal at Trinity Grammar has declined to answer questions when approached by a reporter from the Australian newspaper.

Reporter:

Do you have any statement about the incident at Trinity?

Do you feel like you were let down by the school or by the vice-principal?

Do you think it might have been an overreaction?

Rita Panahi:

That’s Basem Kerbage, the founder of activist group Queer Arab Australia. He has issued a statement apologising for the incident. He said, I would like to extend my deepest, heartfelt apologies to everyone impacted by any of the content found on my personal social media.

Joining me now for more on this is a research fellow and director of the Institute of Public Affairs Schools Programme, Colleen Harkin.

Colleen, not every day we have headlines about gay Arab activists saying, sorry for Elite School dildo scandal. This is not a headline I was expecting in 2025, but here we are.

Colleen Harkin:

No, and unfortunately, it’s a part of a pattern of radical ideology that’s been presented in schools, that parents don’t know anything about. They rightly send their children off to school expecting that age appropriate material will be presented to them during the day, and then they find out later, after the damage has already been done, that their children have been exposed to informational content that’s extremely inappropriate.

Rita Panahi:

Absolutely. Now, Trinity Boys Grammar School has explained that the speaker was recommended by the taxpayer funded Victorian Pride Centre. Why is this sort of activism in the schools in the first place? Why do we have these taxpayer funded bodies pushing this sort of agenda to learning institutions? What’s this got to do with schooling?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, it’s also a doubling of deprivation of duty by both organisations. So the Pride Centre, as you said, it’s a tax funded organisation, and it says that it vets its speakers, which clearly it didn’t. It takes two seconds to do a social media check on the speaker and his digital footprint. The school have outsourced their responsibility to the Pride Centre. So in both cases, it’s completely inappropriate and it has no place in the school agenda. This business about…

Rita Panahi:

It’s so isolated, is it?

Colleen Harkin:

No.

Rita Panahi:

Because my son just finished high school last year, and these days were so frequent. It wasn’t just one day. You might have one day where they talk about Anzac Day or Australia Day, but these LGBTQ days, there’s multiple.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, they’re a week, right?

Rita Panahi:

But they’ve got to wear it purple. There’s this, there’s that. There’s trans day visibility.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. They’re using schools as a pipeline for activism, and it’s completely inappropriate. The speaker also wore a keffiyeh.

Rita Panahi:

Of course.

Colleen Harkin:

So that sort of says it’s politically bipartisan or whatever Pride said, but it’s divisive in the school environment. These sort of scenarios where they’re treating schools as places to promote activism and identity politics is unfortunately very common in the school place.

Rita Panahi:

I wonder if that activist wearing a keffiyeh talked at all about the treatment of gay men in places like Gaza or other parts of the Middle East, where there is actual real oppression of the LGBT community. And we’ve got a note here. This is an elite boys school, an elite Anglican school. Does that play no part because there’s a lot of parents who send their kids along to Christian schools or Catholic schools expecting them to be protected from this sort of activism, but some of the Anglican schools are the worst offenders.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, unfortunately, it’s in all schools because this issue of inclusiveness and sustainability is in the national curriculum. You would think that parents sending their children to a school, an Anglican school, have a right to not be exposed to this material. But I would argue that no school, no school children ought to be exposed to this. It is an agenda that’s inappropriate in the schools, and schools need to be focused on core academic achievement, not introducing children into all of this ideology that has no place. They’re too young, it’s inappropriate, and it’s not the school’s job to do this.

Rita Panahi:

And they will say, this is all in the name of tolerance and inclusion, but really this is political. It’s deeply political, and this movement is deeply political.

Colleen Harkin:

It’s also divisive because the parents who are sending their children to this Anglican school clearly have made decisions about their family’s values and their values are being ignored.

Rita Panahi:

Absolutely. Colleen Harkin, thank you so much for your time tonight.

This transcript of Colleen Harkin talking on The Rita Panahi Show – Sky News Australia from 18 June 2025 has been edited for clarity.