Joe Hildebrand: Ugly truth behind Senate President Susan Lines’ push to ditch Lord’s Prayer

In the first sitting week of Parliament, having just been elevated to the highest office, new Senate President Susan Lines chose to whinge about the Lord’s Prayer, writes Joe Hildebrand.

OPINION

There is so much that is so nauseating and wrong about new Senate President Susan Lines’ campaign to ditch the Lord’s Prayer from Parliament that as I write this opening sentence I fear 900 words may not be enough to catalogue it.

But what the hell, let’s give it a go.

Firstly, just imagine that in the first sitting week of Parliament, having just been elevated to the highest parliamentary office, and sitting on a salary of $370,000 plus allowances, staff and a cushy suite of offices, your first major foray was to whinge about having to read out 116 words at the opening of each session because they didn’t quite align with your own (lack of) beliefs.

If a private citizen bemoaned such a fate at any kitchen table in Australia every diner would be left scrambling for a sick bucket but this is someone actually elected to represent the interests of such ordinary Australians. On this measure alone it provokes a violent turning of the national stomach.

Then there is the predictable seam of trace elements that pervade affluent hard-left dogma: An obsession with pointless symbolism, an addiction to fashionable causes and a one-eyed dedication to downplaying unspeakable horrors.

On the first point, it is worth noting that in 2018 Senator Lines actually led an inquiry into removing the Lord’s Prayer from Senate proceedings which found the practice should continue. What a magnificent use of parliamentary time and resources — and yet even after this taxpayer-funded circle jerk her crusade continues.

President of the Senate Sue Lines (right) wants to to ditch the Lord’s Prayer from Parliament. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire.

Speaking of taxpayer funding, it was just last year that Senator Lines paid for a sponsored Facebook post in which she described Australia Day as a date which “celebrates white supremacy” and evokes an era of “genocide”.

For someone so opposed to genocide it is curious that another of her grand political statements was to blame the “Israeli lobby” for infiltrating Labor’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“ (T) he Israeli lobby is so powerful within the party and outside of the party and it really does impact on the sort of movement we’ve been able to make in our policy,” she said.

This seems an odd target for an anti-genocidalist given that the modern state of Israel was founded by the UN in 1947 in the burning embers of the greatest genocide in human history.

Having just travelled to Israel and the West Bank at the behest of a Jewish organisation I can certainly say that the notion they are winning this political PR war is certainly news to them. On the contrary they seem extremely anxious that the international community and the progressive left are all united against them, but I guess centuries of attempted exterminations can make you a little paranoid.

Speaking of which, it would take a pretty whack-job conspiracy theorist to think that criticisms of Islamic State were unfounded but here again the good senator for WA somehow excels herself.

In August 2014 Senator Lines accused the Coalition government’s attempts to build national unity against the growing threat of homegrown terrorism as “a shield to try and deflect from the awful mess they’re in with their budget”. In December that year the fatal Lindt Café siege happened.

To Labor’s great credit, then-leader Bill Shorten “counselled” her and other sensible ALP types like Jim Chalmers and Kate Ellis ran from her comments so far and fast that Usain Bolt was almost put to shame.

Then-leader Bill Shorten “counselled” Senator Lines. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire.

Unfortunately it was all for nought. Susan Lines is now the president of the Senate and her parade of idiocy continues in full sight. She is an embarrassment to her office and the Australian people.

I have had literally nothing bad to say about the Albanese Government until this point. But this latest unwelcome, uninvited and unhinged belch into our national narrative is the perfect example of why the self-important pontificating left has become so odious to the vast majority of Australians and perhaps why the Labor landslide that should have been never quite materialised.

The ALP lost wanky seats to the Greens just like the Libs lost wanky seats to the Teals. The rogue result in WA is nowhere near enough to build a solid foundation for future electoral success. Just as the Emperor Augustus famously cried “Where are my legions?” Prime Minister Albanese might cry “Where are Lindsay and Longman?”

For all Albo’s admirable efforts, the ALP cannot truly be a mainstream party as long as it has numpties like Lines in such high positions of power. No doubt some inscrutable Byzantine factional process ended up elevating her to the job but if that is the best the Labor Left can do they should probably retire to the rock of Masada.

Because there is a far greater spiritual purpose at stake that godless navel gazing fails to perceive: the historic opportunity for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. And the endless proselytising for the abolition of Gods and Queens only fuels suspicion and fear among conservatives and people of faith that this simple and practical step is part of a cultural long march through our institutions. I hear these fears every day and I have no doubt it is the biggest threat to our great national healing.

This is the damage that dumbness brings. Serious causes corrupted by Quixotic crusaders and the genuinely disadvantaged derailed by dilettantes.

In a perfect world people like Senator Lines would not be a part of the government or the great Australian Labor Party. But contrary to Marxist ideologists, perfect worlds do not exist.

And so such people must simply be forever and forensically ignored.

Originally published as Joe Hildebrand: Ugly truth behind Senate President Susan Lines’ push to ditch Lord’s Prayer