Last Friday, the Canberra Declaration (Protecting our Australian Values) launched the October Month of Prayer and Fasting for Family and Nation. The same day, Gladys Berejiklian resigned as NSW Premier. This was not an outcome we had specifically prayed for or foreseen. As far as Australia’s premiers go, we would have said that Berejiklian was one of the better ones.
Nevertheless, Berejiklian chose not to use her voice for the voiceless when it needed most. Almost exactly two years before her resignation, she had waved through horrendous abortion legislation that made abortion-to-birth legal in NSW. As Silvana Nile this week wrote, “It is a sobering reminder that we serve a God of Justice. He hears the cries of our hearts and He hears the cries of the blood on our land.”

On the 2nd of October, our 25-hour prayer event concluded. On the same day, the media began reporting that the most likely successor to Berejiklian would be Dominic Perrottet. Though the corporate press sought to smear him for his Catholic faith and large family, that is not God’s assessment.

Perrottet has an excellent track record on Christian values: he voted against the abortion bill and is a strong opponent of the euthanasia law that members of his party are seeking to push. New South Wales can only benefit from having a man of faith, a loving husband, and a father of six children at the helm.
Over the following two days, the Deputy Premier John Barilaro and senior cabinet minister Andrew Constance also resigned from the NSW parliament. Both of these men had been strong proponents of both abortion and euthanasia. As leader of the NSW Nationals, Barilaro oversaw an egregious erosion of values in what was once a Christian country party. We’re not sure how to summarise these events but to say that God has been cleaning house.
Early this week, Dominic Perrottet won his party’s ballot 39-5 to be confirmed as the 46th Premier of NSW. Normally we don’t comment in such detail on state politics, but it is hard not to see the hand of God as we have fasted and prayed for breakthrough in Australia and for Australia’s families.

Surely, this is enough evidence to encourage all Prayer Groups to persevere in prayer for their nation. I am confident that Kurt and Warwick of Canberra Declaration (www.canberradeclaration.org.au) are, as are their growing number of prayer warriors.