Every sitting day in the Western Australian Legislative Council begins with the same small act.<\/p>\n
Before the debates, the interjections, and the political point-scoring, the chamber falls silent.<\/p>\n
The President reads the Council prayer and the Lord\u2019s Prayer.<\/p>\n
The whole thing takes less than a minute.<\/p>\n
Across the corridor, the WA Legislative Assembly\u2019s Procedure and Privileges Committee is considering whether the Lord\u2019s Prayer should remain part of that House\u2019s proceedings or be replaced by a period of silent reflection.<\/p>\n
The Assembly will, no doubt, determine its own procedures.<\/p>\n
As a member of the Legislative Council, I do not consider it my place to instruct another House.<\/p>\n
Though the question it finds itself considering at present does raise a broader issue: what are parliamentary rituals even for in the first place, and what do we stand to lose if we discard them?<\/p>\n
To say the least, I should be plain about where I stand.<\/p>\n
For full disclosure, I do identify as Christian.<\/p>\n
When the Lord\u2019s Prayer is read, I hear it as prayer and not merely as a cultural performance or historical curiosity.<\/p>\n
That said, the public case for retaining it is not merely confined to Christians.<\/p>\n
My generation understands ritual better than we sometimes admit.<\/p>\n
Vinyl records are back.<\/p>\n
Film cameras have returned.<\/p>\n
People keep handwritten journals in an age when every thought could be stored in the cloud.<\/p>\n
We do not choose these things because they are more efficient.<\/p>\n
We choose them because a ritual slows us down, gives shape to a moment and connects us with people who performed the same act before us.<\/p>\n
The Lord\u2019s Prayer in Parliament is that kind of inheritance, but it is more than that, because its words still have something to say.<\/p>\n
It asks for what is needed rather than what is desired.<\/p>\n
It speaks of forgiveness given as well as forgiveness sought.<\/p>\n
It recognises temptation, wrongdoing and the need for deliverance.<\/p>\n
It places human beings, including legislators, under a moral authority greater than their own ambitions.<\/p>\n
In a chamber built for assertion, it begins the day by diminishing the ego.<\/p>\n
And that matters.<\/p>\n
Politics in 2026 runs at the speed of a phone notification.<\/p>\n
Everything becomes content, every disagreement becomes a clip, and every clip is designed to provoke a reaction before reflection has had a chance.<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop, asking members to stop briefly before the noise begins is not an obsolete habit.<\/p>\n
It is a small act of institutional discipline.<\/p>\n
More importantly, it reminds every member that we are temporary custodians of something larger than ourselves.<\/p>\n
Guess what, we may only hold office for a time. The institution existed before us and, if we serve it properly, will endure long after our names have been forgotten.<\/p>\n
So, I say, a little institutional humility is not something modern politics has in abundance.<\/p>\n
There is, of course, a serious argument on the other side. Western Australia is religiously and culturally diverse.<\/p>\n
Parliament belongs equally to Christians, adherents of other faiths, and those who profess no faith.<\/p>\n
No member should be regarded as less entitled to belong because he or she does not join in a Christian prayer.<\/p>\n
Those concerns deserve to be treated seriously.<\/p>\n
But pluralism need not require our institutions to begin from a cultural blank slate.<\/p>\n
A society can retain an inherited Christian practice without making Christian belief a condition of public service.<\/p>\n
Respecting a tradition is not the same as compelling assent to it.<\/p>\n
A member who remains silent has not failed a test of faith.<\/p>\n
There should be no such test. Freedom of religion necessarily includes freedom not to participate.<\/p>\n
Some propose replacing the Lord\u2019s Prayer with silent reflection.<\/p>\n
That would preserve the pause, and I understand its attraction.<\/p>\n
But it would not preserve everything.<\/p>\n
Silence can calm us.<\/p>\n
An inherited prayer also connects us to generations past and gives moral content to the moment.<\/p>\n
A generic pause asks each person to think whatever he or she wishes.<\/p>\n
The Lord\u2019s Prayer asks something more demanding: that we consider forgiveness, temptation, obligation, and our dependence upon something beyond ourselves.<\/p>\n
Not every tradition deserves to survive merely because it is old.<\/p>\n
Some traditions do become walls and should be removed.<\/p>\n
But age is not, by itself, an argument for abolition either.<\/p>\n
Before discarding an inherited practice, we should ask what work it performs.<\/p>\n
This one asks powerful people to pause, to recognise their limitations and to remember whom they serve.<\/p>\n
That purpose has not expired.<\/p>\n
In an age of hot takes, permanent outrage and political self-importance, it may be more necessary than ever.<\/p>\n
Each House must reach its own decision, with respect for both tradition and individual conscience.<\/p>\n
My own view is crystal clear.<\/p>\n
I for one hope that the prayer is retained.<\/p>\n
I hope the freedom not to join in it is equally respected.<\/p>\n
And I hope Parliament keeps that brief moment in which its members are reminded that political power is temporary and moral responsibility is not.<\/p>\n
The argument is not that nothing should ever change.<\/p>\n
It is that we should not confuse removal with progress.<\/p>\n
A prayer and a moment of stillness before the shouting starts are not relics.<\/p>\n
They may be among the most modern things Parliament does.<\/p>\n
The Hon Anthony Spagnolo MLC is a Liberal Member of the Western Australian Legislative Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every sitting day in the Western Australian Legislative Council begins with the same small act. Before the debates,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,9616,44],"class_list":["post-867892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-flat-white","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}