Curriculum, contestation and care: why removing cross curriculum priorities is a step backwards

The recent report that the Coalition would seek to remove the cross‑curriculum priorities from the Australian Curriculum — accompanied by Minister Leeser’s claim that these priorities "almost by definition [mean] they're not being taught by people with subject matter expertise" and did both the topics and teachers a disservice — reveals a deeper anxiety about what counts as the national story. More than a bureaucratic tweak, this position speaks to the continued precarity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures within Australian education. It also exposes a limited and misleading view of how curricula teach values and identity.

"Almost by definition [mean] they're not being taught by people with subject matter expertise" — Minister Leeser (as reported)

That quote encapsulates two assumptions that deserve interrogation. The first is that only narrowly defined subject specialists can legitimately teach particular knowledge. The second is that Indigenous knowledges are optional extras rather than constitutive elements of the national narrative. Both assumptions risk further marginalising First Nations perspectives and reinforcing the long‑standing tendency to treat Indigenous histories as in addition to, rather than foundations of, Australian schooling.

Cross‑curriculum priorities were not meant to be peripheral; they were designed to ensure that certain perspectives — including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures — are woven through multiple learning areas. This is precisely because Indigenous knowledges are not confined to a neat disciplinary box. They inform land science and ecology, shape histories and legal traditions, enrich literature and the arts, and offer different ways of understanding mathematics, time, and relationships. To suggest that a lack of single‑subject specialists invalidates this approach misunderstands how interdisciplinary teaching works and undervalues the capacity of teachers whose expertise lies in pedagogy and in building connections across domains.

Worse, proposals to prioritise teaching students about "national pride" and "Western values" as if these are self‑evident and uncontested foundations of Australian identity fail to recognise the very function of including Indigenous perspectives: to complete, complicate and humanise the national story. Indigenous knowledges do not compete with Western values; they challenge a monolithic telling of the nation by revealing the limits and contradictions of those values when applied historically and in the present.

Consider core elements often cited as Western values — democracy, the rule of law, and the idea of a "fair go". These are powerful ideals. Yet, when examined through Indigenous histories and contemporary realities, they raise uncomfortable questions. The legal and political systems instituted after 1788 operated alongside dispossession, frontier violence and exclusionary policies that denied Indigenous peoples meaningful participation in democratic processes for generations. The rule of law, when applied inconsistently or when laws explicitly dispossessed and controlled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, reveals a gap between ideal and practice. The "fair go" rhetoric sits uneasily alongside persistent socioeconomic disparities and systemic injustices that continue to affect First Nations communities.

Teaching Indigenous perspectives invites students to grapple with complexity: to learn that ideals can be aspirational but not always realised, and that national identity involves confronting historical wrongs and ongoing inequities. This kind of critical civic education strengthens democracy rather than weakening it; it helps students understand how institutions can be improved and made more inclusive.

Removing cross‑curriculum priorities risks reverting to a default curriculum that neutralises or erases Indigenous presence. It places the burden back on already overstretched teachers to insert Indigenous content in an ad hoc way — if at all — or to leave it to tokenistic units that afflict many school programs. It also sidelines the important work of Indigenous educators, Elders and communities who have been advocating for substantive, respectful inclusion and co‑design of educational materials.

If the concern is genuinely about how Indigenous content is taught, the solution is not removal but investment. A thoughtful response would include:

• Maintaining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as an explicit cross‑curriculum priority.

• Substantial professional learning for teachers that is long‑term, relationship‑based and co‑designed with Indigenous educators and communities.

• Strengthening the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teacher workforce through recruitment, scholarships and career pathways.

• Ensuring curriculum resources are developed with First Nations leadership and that assessment recognises interdisciplinary learning.

• Building local partnerships so that teaching is grounded in place and in the perspectives of the Traditional Owners of the land.

These steps acknowledge that expertise is not only technical subject knowledge but also pedagogical skill, cultural competence and lived experience. They recognise that teaching about Indigenous histories and cultures demands both respect and rigour.

To frame Indigenous inclusion as a threat to "national pride" is to misunderstand pride itself. Genuine pride in a nation should be robust enough to hold uncomfortable truths, to listen, to learn and to act. A curriculum that integrates First Nations knowledges does not diminish Australia; it deepens our collective understanding and supports a more honest, inclusive and resilient civic life.

The debate should not be about excising complexity for the sake of a simplified comfort. It should be about how education can equip young Australians to understand their country — its achievements and its failings — and to participate in its ongoing story with knowledge, empathy and accountability. Preserving and strengthening the cross‑curriculum priorities is a practical and moral step towards that aim.