Premier Roger Cook weighs in on Albany sex ed books debate & urges a ‘commonsense’ approach

Premier Roger Cook has weighed in on this week’s divisive Albany electors meeting at which residents voted to restrict children’s access to sex education books in the library, calling for a “commonsense” approach. When asked about the issue at an Albany press conference on Tuesday, Mr Cook deferred the matter to the local government. “This is essentially a decision for the City of Albany and I can’t tell them what is their priorities, as I’m sure there is a lot of things they need to do in the community,” he said. “Last night’s meeting obviously attracted a lot of attention and a lot of heightened debate and language. “I just urge everyone to take a common sense approach in relation to this. “I don’t think it needs to take an alarming and quite — by the sounds of the reports — quite distressing electors meeting to be able to step through these issues in a careful and common sense manner.” At the meeting, which took place on Monday night at the City of Albany council chambers, more than 400 people debated the pros and cons of restricting access to two sex education books in the Albany Public Library, among other things. Members of Keeping Children Safe Albany spoke about Welcome To Sex by Yumi Stynes and Melissa Kang, and Sex: A Book For Teens by Nikol Hasler, with some speakers labelling the books “smut”, and “filth”, others claiming they encouraged the grooming of children. Also in contest was a “Twerkshop” event run as part of the Albany Pride Festival, that KCSA said was open to children, a fact Albany Pride disputes. Members of Albany Pride turned out in droves to protest at the meeting, partly due to disparaging comments made by KCSA group representative Michelle Kinsella about transgender people at a KCSA meeting in July.