This was the Candidate for Churchlands in the West yesterday:
"You tell me if this makes sense. Two years ago a 14-year-old student set off a lithium bomb in a toilet block at Rossmoyne Senior High School. That action and what the director general of education described as other “unusual behaviour” led the school to refer the young man, known as James, to police. He was placed on a watch list, referred to Australian Federal Police and was enrolled in a national de-radicalisation program. He had been radicalised and was on a pathway to Islamic extremism. Yet despite all of that, the education department allowed a prayer room to be set up and used by the young man at school, during school hours. I’ll say it again, the kid had been radicalised, and he was given access to a prayer room. What was James doing in there and what influence was he having on other students? And how could anyone have thought that was a good idea?"
This was my response to The West Australian. Needless to say they did not run it:
"10/05/2024
The sheer hypocrisy of Mr Zempilas’s comments in relation to the faith prayer rooms and the “radicalised” youth needs to be addressed. First of all, he conflates this particular student’s radicalisation to be in some way representative of a failing of ‘prayer’ rooms.
Yes, Basil, our schools were secular places of education. If students wanted a religiously based education they could access it from a religious school. John Howard changed that with the funded Chaplaincy program as part of the National Students Wellbeing Project. That Chaplaincy was expanded by the Morrison Government with additional funding. Both of these governments were of the same persuasion as the one Mr Zempilas wants to represent in Churchlands. So, if there is blame to be apportioned then Zempilas should address that to his own party forebears.
The “Prayer Room” in this case was simply a corridor that had adult supervision. To suggest that this prayer room was in some way responsible for this student’s radicalisation is a quantum leap of reasoning that does not bear any analysis whatsoever. If Zempilas has some evidence to the contrary then he should be talking to the Federal Police rather than placing it in a column in a daily newspaper.
Suresh Rajan"
BTW the "Lithium Bomb" that Zempilas talks about was a disused Lithium battery that he threw into the toilet and it exploded. It was not a bomb!
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