HAYLEY SORENSEN

the arvo and walk around an oval to raise money for some far off country or for a conservation program for an endangered frog. Usually, those activities were mandatory, unlike the entirely voluntary protests on Friday.

But there was no doubting many of the rallying kids cared a lot more about climate change than I did those frogs. If they were there just to get a few hours off school, they were doing a good job of pretending to care.

No one gave a toss when my school invited peace activist Ciaron O’Reilly to talk about his experiences trespassing onto Irish and American air bases to disarm bombers which would have been used in missions in the Middle East.

He’s a bloke who spent more than a year in jail for smashing up a B52 with a sledgehammer and then spraying it with a bottle of his own blood.

Today, inviting a man like O’Reilly to speak to a bunch of 16-year-olds would be considered dangerously subversive.

Then, it was just part of our civic education.

We were trusted that we were smart enough to form our own opinions. We were.

Not one of us has gone on to smash up a plane. Some of us are doctors, others are dole bludgers and some are Defence personnel because kids aren’t idiots who can be brain-

“Our Prime Minister should make a visit – he might learn something”

washed into one way of thinking through one afternoon of hearing alternative ideas.

Just up the road from where Scott Morrison stood and told kids it wasn’t their place to protest an issue that will affect them more than anyone before them is the Old Parliament House. In its new life, it’s the Museum of Australian Democracy.

Thousands of Aussie students have passed through on school excursions and learnt about the foundations on which our country is built.

You can find plenty of information there about the many times Australians students, farmers, men and women young and old from all walks of life – have exercised their right to peaceful protest.

Our Prime Minister should make a visit – he might learn something.

Hayley Sorensen is a regular columnist for the