Religious community 'very disappointed' after Wagga City Council replaces prayer with non-religious reflection

They believe removing the prayer does not reflect the desires of the community, while some have accused the council of trying to sneak through the change without people realising.

Wagga City Council voted on Monday to replace the prayer with a reflection that does not mention God or religion.

Councillors who voted in support of the change argued the reflection was "more inclusive" and recognition of the city's surging population of non-religious residents.

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But for Danny Russell, a local Christian, the removal of the prayer is an insult to the significant number of the population who still find religion important.

"It doesn't reflect where the community is at," he said.

"The prayer kicked off with Almighty God ... which is inclusive of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus.

"It was a very disappointing outcome."

This sentiment was shared by local resident Diana Shield, who described prayer as her "bread and butter" while addressing the councillors.

"It's a really lovely prayer in what it is asking of councillors to be and I think it's a shame to see that cancelled for a lot of reasons," she said.

"Even though your prayer seems a little bit remote to you it still matters to the community."

The previous attempt to remove the prayer from meetings in 2019 was ultimately rejected following a flood of opposition from members of the community.

This year's updated code of meeting practice was placed on public exhibition for five weeks but no submissions were received.

Mr Russell accused the council of burying the change in the extensive code of meeting practice document.

"We were only notified 24 hours before the meeting ... and we were able to rally over 100 emails and phone calls to councillors," he said.

"If the majority of people knew that council was removing the prayer there would have been a repeat of 2019 - no doubt."

Wagga mayor Dallas Tout assured residents the information was all publicly available and nothing was being hidden.

"It was out there and it went through all the public channels it should - so we can't do much more than that," he said.

Cr Tout, who voted against the change, stressed that the reflection can still take the form of a prayer if that is what an individual wants.

"For me it still has the ability for people to make a choice, it would just be as part of a reflection and not a worded prayer," he said.

The decision has been celebrated by Meredith Doig, president of the Rationalist Society of Australia, who described it as an important win for the separation of religion from politics.

"The change will modernise the council's meetings and make them much more reflective and more inclusive of all members of the diverse community of Wagga," Dr Doig said.

"The Wagga council provides a good example for our federal MPs and senators to now pursue a similar change in the national parliament, and for state parliaments to do the same.

"There is momentum building across the country for local governments and state and federal parliaments to replace prayer rituals with practices that are more reflective of the community.

"Wagga council is to be congratulated for being part of this movement."

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