Chaotic City of Albany electors meeting sees residents vote to restrict access to sex education books

City of Albany councillors will have to vote on a raft of motions involving the “promotion of sexualising children” as the result of a chaotic electors meeting that resulted in accusations of bigotry, child-grooming and comparisons to nazi Germany. Emotions ran high at the electors meeting on Monday night, with more than 400 people spilling out of the council chambers to discuss the future of sexual education books in the local library and workshops in the Town Hall. Called by a 362-strong petition put forward by Keeping Children Safe Albany, the meeting’s agenda asked the city to investigate “the promotion of sexualising children in the City of Albany through unrestricted books in the library and events held during the month of February 2024”. KCSA concerns sit particularly with two sex education books — Welcome To Sex by Yumi Stynes and Mellissa Kang, and Sex: A Book For Teenagers by Nikol Hasler — stocked in the Albany Public Library and a “Twerkshop” event run as part of the Albany Pride Festival. Electors put forward six motions, five of which were carried by the gathered residents. Four of the carried motions were put forth by KCSA members Michelle Kinsella and Tamara Frewen. They involved restricting children’s access to the two books in the library, investigating comic e-book series Sex Criminals and inquiries into the funding and working with children checks of the operators of the Twerkshop event. Ms Kinsella, a former One Nation candidate, said the unrestricted access to the books opened children up to groomers. “We as a community are concerned about normalising the sexualisation of our children,” she said. “It’s not just in our community, the same concerns are held by professionals and parents all over the world. “We know when children are highly sexualised, they are desensitised and when they are exposed to grooming materials they are much more vulnerable to predators.” The fifth carried motion, added at the last minute by Hannah Halls on behalf of Pride Albany, requested the city to verify all local organisations that work with children comply with the recommendations of the 2017 royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse. Ms Halls said it was to ensure there was action that can be “taken seriously”. The last motion, put forward by Heather Marr, asked council to affirm the library’s collections policy that “reflects the diversity of the community and aims to be as inclusive as possible”. Attendees also heard from 27 residents at public question time including teachers, medical practitioners, parents, librarians and members of the LGBTQIA+. Nine of the speakers spoke in favour of the KCSA argument and 18 were against. In his speech urging residents to vote against KCSA, managing director of Catalyst Research Kevin McCreton said he had seen little evidence to support claims that the books encouraged grooming and believed KCSA was a loud but outlying minority. “I believe Keeping Children Safe Albany have good intentions, but I fear they are the squeaky-wheel group,” he said. “My priority is evidence and I haven’t seen much that these books are using for grooming. “It’s not quite the book burning of 1933 Germany, but it is in the thin end of the wedge.” City of Albany mayor Greg Stocks was forced to call the meeting to order several times, asking four different speakers to withdraw comments inferring political agendas of involved parties and requesting members of the gallery to stop interjecting. Members of Albany Pride made their presence known at the meeting, with flags, banners and a stall set up outside the chamber, an act of protest against remarks made by KCSA members at a recent meeting. At KCSA’s July 29 meeting, attended by independent MLC Sophia Moermond and Liberal candidate and Albany councillor Thomas Brough, Ms Kinsella said the group members were not “book burners”, “pride bashing” or against “any particular community,” but were instead concerned by the influence of transgender people on the LGBTQIA+ community. “We feel that the trans community have hijacked an organisation and gone along an agenda of sexualising children and recruiting children,” she said. Welcome To Sex is no stranger to controversy, with Big W pulling the book from its shelves in July last year after it came under fire. The Albany Public Library’s website lists the books as part of the junior non-fiction collection, with a 12-and-up readers’ age recommendation. Member for the Mining and Pastoral region Peter Foster addressed the issue during his member statements at Parliament last week, slamming the “confected moral outrage” against sex education as a veil for what he believes is the group’s true concern — gender and sexual identity. “Thinking kids will be safer if they don’t learn about this stuff is like thinking that they won’t drown if they never learn to swim,” he said. “That is obvious, painfully obvious. “Which begs the question, is that really what they’re worried about?” The council will vote on the five motions at its September meeting.