Health Minister Mark Butler has launched a forceful defence of Australian teachers and respectful relationships education, rejecting claims that schools are pushing an “anti-boy” ideology as a political battle over classrooms, masculinity and harmful online content intensifies.

Appearing on Sunrise on Friday, September 4, Butler pushed back against concerns raised by Nationals leader Matt Canavan and backed in part by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, arguing that schools should not be blamed for the toxic material increasingly reaching young people through social media.

“Teaching respect to girls is not woke, it’s not weak, it’s not socialist,” Butler said. “Frankly, it’s just decency.”

Butler said teachers were doing an increasingly difficult job while families and schools were dealing with the effects of online platforms and recommendation algorithms capable of directing damaging material towards young users.

He argued the bigger threat to boys was not respectful relationships education but what he described as toxic content pushed through social media feeds, particularly towards young males.

The comments came after Canavan escalated criticism of the way consent, gender and relationships are discussed in Australian schools. The Nationals leader said some programs were effectively lecturing boys and promoting what he characterised as an “anti-boy ideology”.

Canavan has argued that approaches which focus on male privilege and gender inequality can leave boys feeling blamed or alienated, potentially making online figures offering a radically different message more attractive to them.

He also suggested the “feminisation” of education and a shortage of male role models in classrooms deserved greater attention, arguing that more male teachers could provide boys with additional guidance and support.

His strongest criticism centred on material associated with respectful relationships education. Canavan referred to wording encouraging boys and men to reflect on their “male privilege and power” as evidence that the approach risked treating boys as a problem rather than engaging them constructively.

However, there is an important distinction between the material cited in the political debate and Australia’s current national framework.

The wording about men and boys reflecting on their personal “male privilege and power” does appear in a respectful relationships education toolkit published by violence-prevention organisation Our Watch. The toolkit recommends that work addressing masculinity should give men and boys opportunities to critically consider gender roles, stereotypes, privilege and power.

The Australian Government’s National Respectful Relationships Education Framework, released in March 2026, does not use that phrase.

The federal framework instead calls for age and developmentally appropriate education about consent, respectful relationships, equality and healthy relationships. It includes guidance intended to help boys and young men explore concepts of masculinity in healthy ways while encouraging students more broadly to understand how identity, experience, power and inequality can affect relationships.

That distinction has become a central point in the argument because criticism of individual resources or teaching practices is not necessarily the same as criticism of the national framework itself.

Taylor entered the debate by arguing that some Australian classrooms were being used to advance political agendas. He said he remained concerned about the politicisation of education and claimed some teachers were pursuing agendas rather than maintaining an appropriate balance.

At the same time, the Liberal leader has made clear that he supports teaching consent in schools.

Asked again about the issue on Friday, Taylor said consent was “enormously important” and should be taught, while maintaining his objection to teachers pushing political viewpoints. He also indicated the Coalition would look more broadly at school curriculum settings.

The distinction has left the Coalition attempting to make two arguments at once: that children should learn about consent and respectful behaviour, but that those lessons should not become vehicles for political or ideological messaging.

Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume took a more qualified position during the Sunrise discussion with Butler.

Hume praised Australian teachers and said respectful relationships education and consent were important. She did not endorse the claim that the program itself was turning boys towards harmful online content, but defended the right of parents to raise concerns if they believed activism was entering classrooms.

“We want our children to go to school to learn how to think, not what to think,” she said.

Butler argued the criticism went too far, saying senior Coalition figures should be supporting teachers rather than adding to attacks on the profession.

The Australian Education Union has also rejected the characterisation of schools as pushing an anti-boy ideology. Federal president Correna Haythorpe accused politicians of undermining trust in teachers and said educators were already working in increasingly challenging environments.

The dispute comes at a particularly sensitive time for Australian schools.

Research released by Monash University in late August found widespread reports of sexism and misogyny among Australian teaching staff. The national survey involved more than 2,600 Australian Education Union members, with 78 per cent saying they had observed or experienced sexism or misogyny at school and one in three saying they encountered it frequently.

Researchers have also been examining the growing influence of the so-called “manosphere” — a loose network of online influencers, communities and content that can include messages hostile to feminism and women, rigid ideas about masculinity and narratives portraying men as victims of social change.

Figures such as controversial influencer Andrew Tate have become a particular concern for educators because their material can reach boys through recommendation systems even when young users have not deliberately searched for extreme content.

That issue has shifted part of the political argument away from what happens in classrooms and towards the design of social media platforms themselves.

Butler said families, teachers and governments were effectively fighting a “rear-guard action” against big technology companies and those exploiting algorithms to place toxic material in front of children.

Education Minister Jason Clare has taken a similar position, arguing that teaching boys to respect girls is basic decency and identifying technology companies and their algorithms as a major source of harmful influence.

Consent campaigner Chanel Contos has also called for Australians to have greater control over recommendation algorithms, including consideration of systems in which algorithmically selected content would require users to opt in rather than being activated automatically.

The federal government has signalled interest in giving Australians greater control over the content recommended to them, although the exact regulatory model remains under debate.

Against that backdrop, the school curriculum dispute has become about much more than a single classroom program.

For Canavan and other critics, the question is whether well-intentioned programs can become counterproductive when boys feel they are being collectively blamed for inequality or violence. They argue that boys need positive male role models and forms of education that engage rather than lecture them.

For Butler, Clare, teachers’ representatives and consent advocates, the response is that removing or weakening respectful relationships education would target the wrong problem at a time when schools are already dealing with the effects of misogynistic online culture.

The government’s existing policy reflects the latter view. Canberra is providing $77.6 million to states, territories and non-government school sectors to support consent and respectful relationships education, with the national framework designed to guide schools towards evidence-based, age-appropriate programs.

The revised Australian Curriculum also includes more explicit education from Foundation to Year 10 on positive and respectful relationships and consent, particularly through Health and Physical Education.

None of that means the way such lessons are delivered is beyond debate. Schools, parents and politicians are likely to continue arguing over the appropriate language, balance and role of gender in classroom discussions.

But the latest dispute has exposed a fundamental disagreement over where responsibility lies when boys are drawn towards hostile or misogynistic material online.

Canavan says the way boys are spoken to at school may be part of the problem. Taylor says consent matters but political agendas should stay out of classrooms. Butler says blaming teachers misses the source of the most dangerous influence.

And with evidence of misogyny confronting both students and teachers, the argument over how Australia educates boys — and who is shaping their attitudes once they leave the classroom — is unlikely to disappear soon.