"Cory Bernardi to the Principal's office, please."

‘Good afternoon, students. This is your principal speaking. Could Cory Bernardi please report to my office immediately?’

‘Hello, Cory. Take a seat, please. I need to talk to you about some comments you’ve been making in the playground. These comments are of a very serious nature and have the potential to cause great distress to a number of our students.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Cory, is it or is it not true that you have been claiming the Safe Schools Coalition is a form of bullying against heterosexual students?’

‘Yeah, nah, yeah. Yeah.’

‘Cory, can you explain to me how promoting tolerance of gay and transgender students equates to bullying?’

‘’Cos it’s, er, telling the students who aren’t gay that they should be gay.’

‘Cory, promoting tolerance does not mean we are trying to teach students to be gay. We teach you how to dissect frogs in science class, but I haven’t noticed a great uptake in the number of students dissecting frogs in their downtime.’

‘Well, I reckon you are trying to tell kids that they should be gay.’

‘Cory, aside from the fact that it is patently ridiculous to assume that teaching children about respecting diversity will MAKE THEM GAY, would it be so awful if some students felt safe and supported enough to admit they are gay? You do realise, Cory, that you cannot MAKE SOMEONE GAY?’

‘Oh, yeah, nah, you can, you can bully kids into being gay.’

‘Says who, Cory?’

‘Studies.’

‘Which studies in particular are you referring to?’

‘Just studies.’

‘So you cannot name the studies?’

‘No, but they’re there. I saw them on the internet.’

‘I see. Cory, I’m told that you also have a petition to remove all funding for the Safe Schools Coalition. Is this true?’

‘Yeah. It’s just common sense. Common sense lives here.’

‘So common sense tells you that teaching tolerance of diversity is a form of radical social engineering?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Cory, do you know what social engineering means?’

‘Trying to make people gay.’

‘No, Cory. Social engineering is what Hitler used to keep the German people in line while pursuing an agenda of hate and genocide. Really, Cory, you’ve taken up some lunatic causes before, but you’ve knocked it out of the park with this one. And I hear you’ve been in the School Captain’s ear. Cory, you know Malcolm is in a very precarious position with his new leadership role. He’ll do whatever’s necessary to hold on to it, even if it means going along with your feather-brained schemes. Frankly, I’m appalled you would exploit his weakness in such a way. I happen to know Malcolm very well, and I don’t believe his views are aligned with yours in any way.’

‘Well, he’s listening isn’t he?’

‘Yes, yes it seems he is. Cory, do you appreciate that in the overall scheme of government expenditure, eight million dollars is a very small amount of money to spend on a nationwide anti-bullying program? The government spends $245 million per year on the school chaplaincy scheme.’

‘But I like THAT scheme.’

WATCH a clip from last night's Q&A discussing the Safe Schools policy. Post continues after video...

‘Cory, one day you might have children of your own. One of your children might be gay. Would you like to see them maligned and alienated from mainstream society because they love someone of the same gender? Would you like to see them spiral into a suicidal depression because they’re being teased at school? Or would you hope that our schools have programs that promote inclusiveness, diversity, and judging people not by their sexual preference but by their worth as a human being?’

‘Probably the first one, Miss.’

‘Cory, I’m not sure what to do with you. To my eternal dismay, the other children seem to listen to you. I do wish you could use your influence to champion some more forward-thinking causes. You may leave. Please ask Malcolm to come and see me in my office when he’s finished with the SRC meeting.’

‘Yes, Miss.'