John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the brief time left to me this evening to express my grave concern about the bash that the government are holding this evening in this place. We start each morning in this place with a prayer, and we often hear preached the need for tolerance and respect for different faiths and different religions. But today happens to be a very important day in Christianity. Today happens to be Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday marks, for Christians, the beginning of 40 days of Lent.

Lent is a period of fasting, prayer, alms-giving, reflection and humility. It is a very important period for members of the Christian faith. Importantly, today is recognised in some of those Christian faiths—in particular the Catholic Church, of which I am a member—as being a day of fast and abstinence. It is a very solemn day indeed. So I find it unfathomable that here tonight—in this very building where we have celebrated prayer this morning, asked for God’s guidance over what we do in this parliament—we have the government celebrating with hubris, rump, chardonnay and champagne, something which people who hold their faith very seriously may well find offensive. One would have thought that if the government can celebrate the hubris and share the rump and the champagne that they need to, they could do so at their bash in Sydney this coming weekend, or in Melbourne or some other place. Or they could have picked some other time. One would have thought they would have shown greater sensitivity in the selection of their day, and one hopes that they might do so in the future, looking at other faiths too.