BCE (Before Common Era), BP (Before Present) and CE (Common Era) are the terms the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority has earmarked to replace the historical terms BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini).
The actual point in time dates are calculated from will not change.
"This is a ludicrous attack on modern values, traditions and history by attempting to rewrite the history books. The centuries old practice of numbering our calendar BC and AD is integral to much the world's history," Dr Flegg said.
Dr Flegg said irrespective of beliefs, replacing the calendar dates will be an expensive drain on taxpayer funds as just many curriculum resources would be automatically outdated.
"Our teachers already give so much of their own time and resources to help educate our kids, so why make their job harder?
"Many schools rely on parent fundraising to just get enough texts for their libraries and this change will make so many of those texts redundant."
Australia does not need to rewrite the history books just to show it is a tolerant society.
"We live in a peaceful society which respects many traditions and I am sure Jewish, Muslim and Sikh Australians have no problem understanding this is part of our history, our traditions.
"It's absolutely absurd to just change the way we reference history. There is no sense to it as it's not changing the date, it's merely renaming it.
"If this move goes ahead, it will go down in the history books as an easy way to waste millions of dollars on updating curriculum resources."
