Maeve

Our sweet princess is too frightened to leave her room.

No, they're not.

So I am one of the parents of children, young children of a two year old and an eight month old.

And so I'll be navigating this in a few years time.

And I just want to say, I mean, I echo full heartedly everything that Gabrielle just said right now.

And I'm really dreading this.

You know, I'm really dreading having to navigate this, especially if we end up having to go to a Catholic school, which will be in our locality.

And just the thought of my two small children now really being discriminated against at the back of a classroom, my partner and I having to navigate and doing gymnastics of when to collect them and this constant communication with teachers is really, you know, it's very upsetting.

And especially, I just moved back from the States last summer.

I was there for 10 years, so I really was accustomed to a pluralist.

education system, which is something that's a hallmark and a foundation of the US, you know, for all of its flaws now, but it's something that's still, even if, you know, there's an attack on that at the moment and people are really coming out in force against that.

But as you said, what, you know, previously,

if you suggested what we have now at the start of the state, you'd be laughed at out of the room, but it's what we have and it's what we've grown accustomed to.

comparable to other countries.

Yeah, well, just, I mean, just to, before I answer, but just to state that 40% of people, I mean, something that I'm particularly concerned about is the fact that it wasn't 40% of parents.

It was 40% of parents whose children are already in denominational schools.

So my voice, you know, me filling out that survey, which I did and took time to do, was not at all captured by this release, this partial release of the data from the Department of Education, which I just find such an insult to parents like me.

And even, you know, parents of kids already in most denominational schools.

So it's

it's not capturing the full scope here.