An MP is leading calls for the traditional reading of the Lord’s Prayer to be scrapped in Western Australia’s parliament.
Dave Kelly said Christian prayer is “no longer appropriate” in a legislature and that it has a “triggering effect” for survivors of abuse.
Instead, the former Labor cabinet member is pushing for a moment of silence to be observed at the beginning of each sitting.
A committee considering the rules governing the Legislative Assembly, the lower house, has suggested removing the prayer would raise wider issues about “the balance of tradition and modernisation”, according to ABC News.
Kelly said the chamber should reform to “make parliament more inclusive of everybody” in a multicultural community. He submitted evidence that MPs avoid entering the parliament for the Acknowledgement of Country, paying respects to traditional custodians of the land, as the prayer follows.
“You cannot underestimate the triggering effect on survivors when they come to this place and see that the [Legislative Assembly] starts every day with a Christian prayer”, Kelly wrote in his submission.
“We must do everything reasonable to ensure the parliament demonstrates to survivors that we see them and we stand with them. And that we no longer side with the institutions that are responsible for the abuse”, he added.
Maryka Groenewald, Australian Christians party leader, posted on social media that the proposal is “troubling”.
“We should stand firm — graciously, but clearly — in saying that our Christian heritage is a vital part of the foundations and history that built the free, democratic Australia we love”, the member of the WA Legislative Council, the upper house, said.
Groenewald also objected to the link between saying a prayer and abuse, believing the association “is effectively to say that any reference to Christianity must be read through the worst actions ever committed by people within the church”. The politician added that “Christians have been among the strongest voices calling out abuse and demanding justice and reform.”
Only one of the six state parliaments, the Australian Capital Territory, has stopped the tradition of beginning business with the Lord’s Prayer. It made the change in 1995, replacing it with a secular invitation for members to “pray or reflect” on their responsibilities.