I have always found the Christian prayers before a sitting of a house of parliament to be a curious event. After all, section 116 of the Australian Constitution precludes the legislature from ‘imposing any religious observance’. Having grown up in a liturgical Christian congregation, and having learnt the Lord’s Prayer as a child, I can’t claim that I was ever jarred by it, as Greens Senator Richard Di Natale claims he was, but I certainly found it odd.