Council
28 August, 2025
Push to retain prayer fails
A BID to rescind last month’s decision to remove prayer from the agenda of Moyne Shire Council meetings has failed after being slammed as a waste of ratepayer resources.
At this week’s Ordinary Meeting of Council, councillor Jim Doukas lodged a motion to rescind the decision at the July council meeting to remove prayer from the beginning of council meetings.
Last month’s motion, which was successful 4-3, would see prayer replaced with a secular statement of values designed to “affirm council’s commitment to democratic governance, inclusion, integrity and service to all members of Moyne Shire – regardless of their religion or beliefs”.
In his notes supporting this week’s motion to rescind the decision, Cr Doukas said no community consultation had been carried out prior to the vote.
While Cr Doukas was absent from this week’s meeting, councillor Susan Taylor opted to move the motion.
She questioned if ratepayers could “fully grasp the consequences of removing prayer from our meetings”.
“For almost 200 years, Karl Marx, his followers and his heirs have worked to transform western civilisation,” Cr Taylor said.
“Why? Because Marx hated God. That hatred is inseparable from the ideology he created.
“As Marx evolved through the Frankfurt School into a post-modern neo Marxist, the spirit remained the same – a war on transcendence, on truth, on natural law, on family responsibility and meaning rooted outside the self.
“When family breaks down, individuals are easier to control. When shared truth collapses, law and morality lose their foundation. When religion is delegitimised, the state and ideology step in as the new gods.
“Soft totalitarianism, re-education, cancel culture and job loss punishes centrists – I know because I’ve experienced all three of these myself.”
Councillor Lloyd Ross, as seconder, said he could not see the harm in rescinding before taking the removal of prayer to the public for feedback.
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask to take it out to the wider community for some of their input,” he said.
“It’s not going to hurt us to support this motion and take it to the community and come back at a later date with the community’s feelings.”
Councillor Jordan Lockett spoke against the motion, saying the motion had not been appropriate as a rescind motion is used when new information invalidated a previous decision – which had not been the case with this motion.
“We’ve spoken about this in terms of wasting council time and resources – the view of consulting the community was brought up in the previous motion,” he said.
“I’ve personally consulted about this for eight and a half years or more – I’ve had so many people bring this up, I didn’t bring it up because of my own ideology, but because I’ve had people who are Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and various other religions who don’t feel included in our council meetings.
“We spoke about the Census figures – 52 per cent of Australians identify as having no religion, so it’s about being inclusive – not about being anti-religion.
“Yes, Karl Marx used to say religion was the opium of the masses but we’re not talking about Karl Marx – we’re taking about being an inclusive shire.”
Councillor Myra Murrihy also spoke against the motion, saying she had engaged with members of the community on both sides of the argument and felt the support for the removal of prayer had been clear.
“My basis for removing the prayer from council meetings was one of inclusivity,” she said.
“No one that is supportive of keeping the prayer has been able to give me a single reason as to how keeping the prayer does not exclude other people.
“That’s all we’re talking about here – this isn’t anti-religion and this isn’t any sort of ideological anything.
“We’ve got to become inclusive.”
The motion was defeated 4-2.