Why is the Lord's Prayer read at the beginning of each day in the House of Representatives and Senate if Australia is a secular nation?
Standing orders of the Senate and the House of Representatives
Parliamentary Education Office (peo.gov.au)
Standing orders of the Senate and the House of Representatives
Parliamentary Education Office (peo.gov.au)
Description
This image shows the front covers of the Standing Orders of the Senate and the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives. Standing orders are the rules about how the Senate and House run their meetings.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
You are free to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work.
Attribution – you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Non-commercial – you may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No derivative works – you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Waiver – any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
At the beginning of each sitting day in the Senate and House of Representatives prayers are read because it is included in the standing orders – the rules of the Senate and House. Prayers are not read at the start of a sitting day in the Federation Chamber, the second meeting room of the House. Senators and members of the House of Representatives are not required to be present or participate in the prayers.
There have been several attempts by senators and members of the House of Representatives to change the standing orders to replace the prayers with an opportunity for personal prayer or reflection. In voting against this change, some senators and members have argued the prayers at the beginning of each sitting day are a long standing and non-partisan tradition which re-affirms their commitment to the common good of Australia.
In 2010, both the Senate and House introduced an Acknowledgement of Country before the reading of prayers at the start of each sitting day.