The Church of Scientology has sent a M-rated DVD to primary schools warning of the dangers of psychiatrists and antidepressants.

The Victorian Government has advised principals to ignore the DVDs and pamphlets, which were also sent to schools in New South Wales.

Victorian Education Minister James Merlino said the material should be thrown out.

“Our teachers and principals receive information sent to them from a wide variety of groups and organisations,” he said.

“Principals are education professionals. We trust that they are able to choose correctly what information is useful for their school and I am confident this would be thrown in the bin.

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes also said schools should bin the material.

“We live in a free society and people are entitled to their views but schools are not an appropriate battleground for these sorts of issues,” he told the ABC.

“We want to protect children, we want schools to be a sanctuary for kids and it is difficult enough to have children facing a range of challenges without trying to question the work of medical professionals.”

The material was reportedly packaged to obscure it origins, labelled as being sent by the ‘Citizens Committee on Human Rights Inc’, with fine print saying that group was “established 1969 by the Church of Scientology to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights”.

The material, including a DVD titled ‘Psychiatry: Friend or Foe?’, disputes the existence of ADHD or any other childhood learning or mental health disorders, and claims to expose abuse committed under the guise of mental health.