Dr HAINES (Indi) (13:42): On Saturday, I gathered with about 100 people at St Paul's Anglican Church in Milawa in my Indi electorate to celebrate a service of morning prayer. We gathered in celebration of the marriage of two dear friends, who had wed in a civil service four days earlier. 'Nothing remarkable about that,' you may say. But there was something remarkable about this particular wedding and this particular morning prayer. The newlyweds are retired Anglican priests Father John Davis and Father Rob Whalley. They've been a couple for 20 years. Their story was told on last week's 7.30on the ABC. In the fortnight preceding John and Rob's civil wedding, the Wangaratta diocesan synod of the Anglican Church, led by Bishop John Parkes AM, voted 67 to 18 to adopt a regulation enabling a couple in a marriage made by the law of the land to be blessed in the church—couples like John and Rob. This was a historic and courageous decision by representatives of 63 rural communities, most of them in Indi. John and Rob planned to be the first couple to receive such a blessing. As it turned out, the church blessing was not to be. The synod's decision was referred to the Appellate Tribunal, the highest ecclesiastical court of Australia's Anglican Church. John and Rob were instead blessed in the presence of the bishop by their friends and the people of their congregation and the community who love them. Congratulations, John and Rob. Your love, courage and faith is an inspiration to LGBTQI people everywhere. Patience— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): I thank the member and I call the member for Grey.