Originally the prayer was a Jewish prayer happened to be taught by Jesus to his followers and recorded in the gospels. It should place our minds in the service of a higher power than ourselves. The conflict comes when it calls us to forgive those that have wronged us as the present politicians believe we must get even, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth which most of the atheistic world believes is justice. Forgiveness works as it is based in mercy and is the basis of Western Christianity.
E.g. Abdallah family.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-09/drunk-driver-samuel-davidson-jailed-for-oatlands-crash/100057958

Those assessing laws, and drafting new laws, should remain entirely neutral.
Having preconceived ideas will influence how they vote.
They need to keep an open mind, and evaluate each new law on its merit.
So ideas which are not universal must be kept away from law-making.
Which means the many shades of religion must be kept separate from the 'state'.
To have religious text spoken before meetings, or parliamentary sessions, is absolutely absurd.
As is the idea that there are two australian nations with separate flags.
I seriously wonder what our leaders are thinking.
I worry that they are not thinking at all.
They should be thinking everything through carefully?
Are they really doing that?

Yuyutsu,

<<It reminds people of God, some people at least, which implies that what they do in council/parliament is for a higher purpose, not for their personal benefit.>>

Well, I don't see that working well if we have a whole heap of people elected to parliament who tow the party line. Is there some difference when someone chooses to cross the floor and go against the party line and vote differently?

Ttbn,

<<The Lord's Prayer is not out of date...>>

If that was the case, I think you'd find a lot of people reciting it on a daily basis and I don't know how many do that anymore. We also face politicians in Victoria wanting it removed from parliament. I don't know how many young people recite the Lord's Prayer anymore either in 2023.

Armchair Critic,

Can we find a non-religious version of this? Possibly yes, but as Yuyutsu points out the 'is for a higher purpose, not for their personal benefit' and this has to be taken into account. So, we may need better people who care, not just a prayer or reading at the start of parliament or council meeting.

Josephus,

<<The conflict comes when it calls us to forgive those that have wronged us as the present politicians believe we must get even, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth which most of the atheistic world believes is justice.>>

There have been plenty of religious people over the years wanting 'an eye for an eye', it can filter into anyone's system sadly at any time.

Nathan,

The reading of the Lord's prayer is as irrelevant as the phoney welcoming of the attendees to their own country.

Do not pray in parliament. And we won't think in your churches.
We the people pay these people to do what we elected them to do.
Praying has been proved over and over again to be a waste of time.
If it important to any particular representative, then they can say or pray whatever they like before or after the session has ended but not while in session when we are paying their wages.

Nathan

No, the Lord's Prayer is not out of date. About half of Australians still identify as Christians. And, the fact that some other Australians have rejected Christianity does not mean that the faith or the prayers are "out of date"; they just don't mean anything to those people. Fair enough. Christianity is not compulsory.

In the meantime, there are no plans to drop the Lord's Prayer in Parliament. The last whinge about it was made about 25 years ago by Bob Brown. Nothing happened. Now, another Leftist atheist has had another go. She was slapped down by the Labor government.

The whole thing seems to be a fixation of the Greens and other extreme Leftists.

I think that the country would need to go down the toilet much further than it is now to see the Lord's Prayer discontinued, and then it really wouldn't matter because there wouldn't be a democratic parliament.