Victory in Australia: Senate President Will Continue Reciting Lord's Prayer Every Day

Andrew Smith : Feb 14, 2014
LifeSiteNews.com

"Two-thirds of Australians identify as Christian and the vast bulk of the other one-third accept our heritage and practices without the divisiveness injected by this latest Greens' outburst." -Sen. Eric Abetz

(Canberra, Australia)-In only 24 seconds the latest effort to have the Lord's Prayer removed from the start of the Australian Senate's day was defeated, with senators from both the coalition government and the opposition Labor Party voting against it.

Under the Senate's standing order, the president of the Senate is required to read the parliamentary prayer upon taking his chair at the start of the day, regardless of adjournment or suspension from the day before.

Sen. Eric Abetz, leader of the government in the Senate, strongly supports the saying of the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of each parliamentary sitting day. Abetz commented, "The latest Green attack is part of their ongoing attempt to rewrite our history and deny our heritage."

In Australia, settled in 1788, it was only at the time of federation (and the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia) in 1901 that the Presbyterian Church of Australia sent a petition calling for Senate proceedings to be opened with a daily prayer. The prayer had not been included in the temporary orders for the running of Parliament. With the support of other organizations, who sent communications endorsing the idea, the Senate adopted the petition with a standing order drafted in 1901. It was formally adopted with all other standing orders in 1903.