Tuesday, 17 June 2025

Lord’s Prayer

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (18:15): (1702) My adjournment is to the Leader of the Government in this place, and it relates to the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer every day. The action I seek from the minister, almost a year after I stood here and gave voice to nearly 11,000 Victorians who signed a petition in support of the prayer, is to confirm that Labor will stand united with the opposition in rejecting renewed calls by some crossbench parties to remove the Lord’s Prayer from this place. We know that before our historic petition, which forced the government backdown, it was a formal Labor Party election policy and commitment to remove the representation of faith from this place. In July last year I had the honour and privilege of being a voice for all Victorians of faith, not just Christians, in saying that this proposal to strip faith from our Parliament was an insult. I say not only Christians because we saw an extraordinary show of unity in a joint statement issued by the Board of Imams Victoria, the Hindu Council of Australia, the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, joining with the Catholic and Anglican churches on this matter. The Leader of the Government said I was whipping up something that is nothing and said no-one was attempting to remove the prayer, but it was Labor’s stated election commitment and in fact she had mentioned it publicly on at least four occasions. We recently saw Ms Purcell and the Leader of the Greens call on the government to honour their commitment to remove the prayer.

It is incumbent on the government to stand up for people of faith and stand up for multicultural communities. The crossbench and the Greens would be interested to know about something that I found pretty laughable but I thought I should mention. According to a speech by Labor member for Northern Metropolitan the government minister Enver Erdogan to the Assyrian community in the north, it was actually he and the Labor members in the northern suburbs that were able to save the Lord’s Prayer and not actually the opposition. I think, make no mistake, this is still Labor policy. They are just sorry there was a backlash.

My action for the Leader of the Government is for an unequivocal statement confirming that Labor fully supports the Lord’s Prayer, fully stands with our multifaith communities now and into the future and rejects crossbench attempts to remove the prayer, which is an acknowledgement of responsible service. It is a tradition that is 168 years old and acknowledges a higher power than the Parliament, so it is important for many of our multifaith communities across Victoria, and they can rest assured knowing that the Liberals will back them 100 per cent.