All Australians should feel welcome to attend Anzac Day Dawn Services at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Yet, many people – including veterans and current serving personnel – feel alienated by the imposition of Christianity in the Dawn Service. My organisation, the Rationalist Society of Australia, has heard this from numerous people.

The Dawn Service is held on the grounds of the War Memorial and is televised live on national TV and streamed online for Australians around the world. But the War Memorial says it is not responsible for the content of the service, choosing to outsource the hosting of the event to the local ACT RSL branch.

As a result, the order of service for the Dawn Service at the War Memorial is dominated by Christian acts of worship – including Christian prayers, hymns, and benedictions. And these are all presided over by a Christian chaplain.

As I discovered last year – having made a discrimination complaint about this issue to the ACT Human Rights Commission – the ACT RSL branch appears to have no interest in making the Dawn Service more welcoming for all Australians and reflective of our community.

Australia is a country rich in religious and non-religious diversity. It’s simply not good enough for the War Memorial to stand by and allow the Dawn Service to be dominated by one religious tradition.

Anzac Day is important to all Australians. There should be no barriers to anyone wanting to attend our nation’s most important day of commemoration at our nation’s most important site of remembrance. 

This is even more important now given that the majority of our Defence Force personnel are not religious and Australians, more broadly, are increasingly identifying as not religious.

Our taxpayer-funded War Memorial should take full responsibility for the conduct of the national Dawn Service, including the order of service, and ensure that it meets public expectations.

Instead of observing Christian acts of worship, the Dawn Service could be far more meaningful to the whole community by incorporating storytelling, the reading of the letters from diggers, or through poetry and music. The Australian War Memorial only needs to look to Melbourne’s secular Dawn Service – hosted by the Victorian RSL – at the Shrine of Remembrance as a good example to follow.

So it’s up to Australians to make their voices heard on this issue. I urge you to support this petition calling on the Australian War Memorial to stop allowing the imposition of Christianity at the Anzac Day Dawn Service.