Sex ed rewrite pledge draws ire in New Zealand

The sex ed scrap is just one of many areas which the new right-leaning government has signalled a "war on woke".

Trans participation in sports, gun laws, constitutional rights enjoyed by Maori and the use of the Maori language are all in the crosshairs of Chris Luxon's National-led government.

New Zealand's new government - a coalition between centre-right National, libertarians ACT and populists NZ First - has already made global headlines for abandoning world-leading smokefree laws.

That pledge is one of hundreds of policies included in coalition deals which lay out the government's policy agenda for the next three years.

Many are mundane or uncontroversial - such as growing economic prosperity, lowering inflation, or increasing infrastructure spending.

Others have provoked outrage, suggesting three years of debate and protest ahead.

The pledge to "refocus the curriculum on academic achievement and not ideology, including the removal and replacement of the gender, sexuality, and relationship-based education guidelines" is one that has drawn particular outrage.

"My initial reaction was dismay," education union NZEI president Mark Potter, a Wellington-based primary school teacher, told AAP.

"The one thing our children don't need is less education in the area of relationships and health."

The inclusion of the clause to scrap gender and sexuality education, called RSE, in the coalition deals caught the eye because the issue did not feature in the election campaign.

Unlike the main centre-right parties in the US, UK and Australia, which have taken on gender issues as a focus, New Zealand's National and ACT parties instead focused campaign efforts on economic and crime issues.

The clause has been inserted at the behest of NZ First, which scraped into parliament with 6.1 per cent of the vote as leader Winston Peters campaigned against "woke extremism".

"Woke means ... you woke up yesterday thinking that more than the rest of us and you've got a better sense of conscience about issues ... that's what woke means to me," Mr Peters said this week.

The pledges have been celebrated by anti-trans lobby groups Resist Gender Education (RGE) and Speak Up For Women, which also want the removal of unisex bathrooms in schools.

"There is a great deal to be done to de-program New Zealand's education system from gender ideology, and replacing the current RSE Guide is the first positive step," RGE spokeswoman Marg Curnow said.

Ironically, NZ First is hoping to scrap a policy the party implemented during its last term in government, when NZ First MP Tracey Martin was given responsibility for the RSE program.

The current RSE guidelines require schools to consult with parents on what and how they teach, and give parents the chance to withdraw their kids from the classes.

Tabby Besley, managing director at rainbow charity InsideOUT, told AAP it was the only part of the curriculum structured in that way.

Ms Besley said schools had a responsibility under legislation to provide a physically and emotionally safe environment which was free from discrimination, and RSE played a major role in that.

"If young people aren't getting that in schools, they're gonna be getting it from their peers and from the internet where parents don't have control of what they engage with," she said.

"Schools are literally the safest way for a lot of young people to access education.

"Children and young people are going to be encountering queer and trans people in their lives - within their families and classmates - and so to not teach anything about that is only furthering discrimination and isolation."

Mr Potter and Ms Besley believe the changes have come from pressure from far-right groups.

"It appears to be coming from some very conservative people who believe schools are doing things they just aren't doing ... saying principals are trying to turn kids gay," Mr Potter said.

"There are very strong movements from overseas that are transphobic, pitting schools against communities with all sorts of gob-smacking claims. There's a concerted effort out there."

On Friday, Prime Minister Chris Luxon said a role for parents and schools in sex ed would continue.

"All that has been raised with us over the course of the last year has been by parents about some of the sexuality training," he told journalists in Auckland.

The National party did make education a key part of their election pitch; pledging to ban mobile phones in classrooms and to ensure all schools taught an hour of reading, writing and maths a day in an old-school promise.

Mr Luxon said he wanted a "a well-defined (sex ed) curriculum, agreed to by experts, that actually makes sure that the content is age-appropriate, that parents have been consulted and importantly that parents also have an ability to withdraw".

Mr Potter insisted the curriculum already was age-appropriate.

"You're not going to talk about things that alarm people at a young age," he said.

"The biggest thing for us is, politicians should not be deciding the curriculum. It should be experts in health and experts in education and politicians are neither of those."

Australian Associated Press