The volunteer allegedly told the primary school age children that what they had been taught about why the children were removed was false.

The real reason the children were removed from their families was because of lazy parenting, he told them.

Four of the six pupils the volunteer was teaching complained about his views.

"The complaint involved stereotyping and the ethics teacher is alleged to have voiced racist opinions," said a spokeswoman for the organisation that runs Special Ethics Education, Primary Ethics.

"We commend these students for speaking up and the principal for proactively addressing the matter," the spokeswoman said.

After getting her mother's permission, an 11-year old complainant spoke to reporters about the incident.

"[The teacher said] we should only listen to him because he was 75 and had lived in Townsville for 10 years."

The 11-year old then said the teacher became increasingly agitated when the students argued back.

Her mother said the incident left her concerned about the regulation and vetting of volunteers who were allowed into the public school system to teach both Special Ethics Education and Special Religious Education.

"I'd always seen ethics as quite a good alternative to scripture," she said.

"But it's almost part of the problem because it's the same issue - these people are unregulated. Imagine if a teacher had responded like that? I would expect them to have pretty serious disciplinary action."

A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said the volunteer's comments "were unacceptable".

An investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Special Ethics Education is due to be trialled in New South Wales' high schools next year.

Source

• Daily Mail
• Stuff
• Image: Daily Mail

Port Pirie diocese's Bishop Greg O'Kelly, SJ, issued a letter in which he stated that same-sex and traditional marriage were like comparing apples and pears.

"The nature of marriage between two same-sex people and the marriage between a man and a woman open to life . . . are two very different things," he wrote.

"A pear is not an apple, no matter what you say, even if you start to redefine that term from its traditional one, it doesn't alter the reality."

Bishop O'Kelly's letter went on to say that children of homosexual couples would feel like a Stolen Generation, because they had been denied a mother and a father.

"I can see a generation in the future describing itself as something like another stolen generation.

"When bitterness occurs, they could say to their same-sex parents that they deliberately intervened in order to exclude what was the right of the child, to a father or mother as a parent.

"The natural process was stolen from them . . . and that was a gross injustice."

Bishop O'Kelly wrote that "a gay couple adopting a child, where otherwise the child would remain an orphan, can be defended, I believe, if that proviso is in place".

"What cannot be defended is the deliberate use of surrogacy or some other intervention in order to prevent the presence of a natural father or mother in the family of the child."

Between 1910 and 1970, many indigenous Aboriginal Australian children were forcibly removed from their families as a result of government policies.

These children became known as the Stolen Generations.

In 2013, then-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a national apology to the Stolen Generations.

Australian Marriage Equality advocate Rodney Croome said Bishop O'Kelly claims are offensive.

Sources

• 9 News
• Diocese of Port Pirie
• Australians Together
• ABC
• Image: Diocese of Port Pirie