By Josiah Trigg – Australian Christian Lobby Western Australia Director
Every sitting day in WA’s Parliament, before the business of the state begins, the Speaker reads the Lord’s Prayer.
It is a short, simple act.
And right now, there is a serious push to end it.
Labor MP Dave Kelly MLA has submitted to the Procedure and Privileges Committee that the prayer is outdated and should be replaced with a moment of silent reflection.
He claims that would make Parliament more “inclusive.”
What he’s actually proposing is that we quietly erase one of the most significant threads running through the foundation of Australian democratic life.
WHERE DID THE PARLIAMENTARY PRAYER TRADITION COME FROM?
Christian prayer has opened parliamentary sittings in the Westminster tradition since 1558.
When Australia’s colonial parliaments were established, most states inherited that practice.
When Federation was built, church groups across every colony petitioned the founding conventions to enshrine parliamentary prayer in the new nation’s standing orders, and they succeeded.
The Federal Parliament has opened with the Lord’s Prayer since 7 June 1901.
In WA, the Legislative Council carried the practice from Federation itself.
The Legislative Assembly followed, adopting the Lord’s Prayer by resolution in 1928, and both chambers have continued that tradition ever since.
“GOOD GOVERNMENT REQUIRES MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY”
This wasn’t accidental.
The men and women who built Australia’s democratic institutions understood something that is easy to forget:
Good government requires moral accountability.
The prayer at the opening of parliament is a daily act of humility, an acknowledgement that those elected to serve are accountable to something greater than electoral politics.
WHY DOES THE LORD’S PRAYER TRADITION STILL MATTER?
Some will ask: Isn’t Australia a secular country?
It is. But secular doesn’t mean stripped of its history, and it doesn’t mean hostile to the faith that shaped its foundations.
Australia’s commitment to human dignity, equality before the law, the protection of the vulnerable, and the accountability of rulers to a higher moral standard are not secular inventions.
“ERASING THE LORD’S PRAYER DOESN’T MAKE PARLIAMENT MORE INCLUSIVE”
They are deeply Christian ideas, woven into our legal and civic traditions over centuries.
The Lord’s Prayer in Parliament is a living reminder of that inheritance.
Removing it doesn’t make our Parliament more inclusive.
It makes it more amnesiac.
DEBUNKING THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE ARGUMENT
Some will invoke the separation of church and state, as though reciting the Lord’s Prayer makes WA’s Parliament a “theocracy.”
But that argument misreads and misunderstands the principle entirely, thereby weaponising it to mean something that it doesn’t.
Separation of church and state means the church doesn’t govern, and the state doesn’t dictate doctrine.
It has never meant that public institutions must pretend the faith that built them, never existed.
A short prayer before parliament sits is not governance.
It is acknowledgement: a moment of humility before the work of serving a free people begins.
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN VICTORIA TRIED TO BANISH THE LORD’S PRAYER
The WA Legislative Assembly’s Procedure and Privileges Committee is currently reviewing standing orders, and the removal of the Lord’s Prayer is on the table.
This is the same path Victoria went down.
When that happened, more than 11,000 Victorians signed a petition to retain the prayer.
100 pastors wrote a joint letter to the Premier and the Labor government backed down.
WEST AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIANS NEED TO PRESSURE THEIR GOVERNMENT
WA Christians can do the same.
In the weeks ahead, we at the ACL will be preparing a formal submission to the committee.
We will be calling on the WA Christian community to make their voices heard and make their own submissions.
The Lord’s Prayer has opened WA’s Parliament for over 125 years.
It deserves more than a quiet removal in a procedural review.
Let’s make sure it gets a proper defence.
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