RSA welcomes change as Tassie upper house drops the Lord’s Prayer

Si Gladman / 19 August 2025

The Rationalist Society of Australia welcomes the decision of the Tasmanian Parliament’s upper house to remove the Lord’s Prayer from its formal proceedings, but is calling for further secular reform.

On the opening day of the new parliamentary term, the President of the Legislative Council, Craig Farrell, today announced that he would no longer include the Lord’s Prayer at the opening of each day.

In a statement on the matter, he said the decision had been reached “after much discussion over a long period of time”.

This makes the Tasmanian Legislative Council the first chamber of an Australia state parliament to remove the Lord’s Prayer.

However, President Farrell said the Legislative Council’s Standing Orders still required “some form of prayer” to be observed.

“Standing Order 28 requires that on each sitting day the President will take the chair and read prayers at the time appointed on every day fixed for the meeting of the Council,” he told the chamber.

“The precise words of the prayers are not set out in the Standing Order but have been in place by a mix of the President’s authority and sessional orders agreed at the commencement of each session of parliament. Members may recall that sessional orders in the last parliament set out the words of the Lord’s Prayer for all members to say alongside the President. 

“To remove the prayers altogether requires a change to the Standing Orders. Therefore, it remains a requirement for the President to read some form of prayer at the commencement of each sitting day.”

President Farrell said he would invite members of the Legislative Council to reflect in their own way on their role as a member of the parliament and their responsibilities to the people of Tasmania, and would then read the following prayer:

Almighty God, we humbly beseech thee to vouchsafe thy blessing upon this Parliament. Direct and prosper our deliberations to the advancement of Thy glory and the true welfare of the people of Tasmania.

Speaking today, RSA Executive Director Si Gladman said the removal of the Lord’s Prayer was a step in the right direction but added that it was now important for the Legislative Council to go  further and fully secularise the Standing Orders.

“This is a positive step for the Tasmanian Parliament, edging the institution some way towards becoming a place where all members of parliament, staff and other people in attendance can feel welcome and respected,” he said.

“We hope that both houses of the parliament will now pursue full secular reform of their procedures so that they better reflect the Tasmanian population.

“Imposing acts of religious worship in our public institutions alienates many people and is inconsistent with Australia’s international human rights commitments to respecting the right to freedom of thought, and conscience, and to treating religion and belief equally.”

In July, the RSA raised the imposition of prayers in parliaments and governments in a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review into Australia’s human rights. The submission – supported by another eight non-religious, ex-religious and pro-secular organisations – highlighted the issue as one of many examples of discriminatory and unfair treatment of non-religious people on the basis of religion and belief in government institutions and programs.

According to the 2021 national Census, Tasmania has the largest non-religious population at 50 per cent. However, the real figure would likely have been higher given the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ use of a biased Census question – ‘What is the person’s religion?’ – that assumed every respondent had a religion.

In 2023, Independent member Mike Gaffney pushed for the Tasmanian Legislative Council to remove prayers, but narrowly fell short.

Momentum for change is growing in parliaments and in local governments across the country. In local councils, many elected representatives have successfully removed prayers from meetings in recent years. In state and federal parliaments, many parliamentarians protest by standing outside the chambers while Christian worship takes place inside. In Victoria, the Labor government pledged to replace prayers 1477 days ago, but has so far failed to deliver on the promise.

The Rationalist Society of Australia is actively advocating for prayer rituals to be replaced with more appropriate practices in councils and parliaments. See the latest updates here.

Si Gladman is Executive Director of the Rationalist Society of Australia. He also hosts ‘The Secular Agenda’ podcast.

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