Faaimata (Mata) Havea Hiliau | |
---|---|
Moderator of the Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of New South Wales and the ACT | |
Assumed office 14 September 2023 | |
Preceded by | Simon Hansford |
Personal details | |
Nationality | Australian |
Occupation | Minister |
Rev. Faaimata (Mata) Havea Hiliau is an Australian religious leader. She currently serves as the moderator of the NSW/ACT Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia. [1] Rev Hiliau is the first Tongan-Australian to fill the role. [1] [2] [3]
At the time of her election,Hiliau said she wanted to focus on vaccine hesitancy in Pacific Islander communities and climate change in her tenure as moderator. [4] She was featured on ABC TV's Compass in an episode examining change at the Uniting Church,watched by 166,000 viewers on 24 August 2023. [5] [6]
In October 2023,Hiliau spoke at a gathering of Pasifika leaders,Uniting Church members and others at Sydney Olympic Park to raise awareness for the disproportionate impact of climate change on Pasifika,First Nations,and Western Sydney communities. [7] In November 2023,she joined other religious leaders representing the Christian,Muslim and Buddhist faiths in visiting government ministers and MPs in Canberra to call for an end fossil fuel projects in Australia. [8]
The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977,when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia,about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union of Australia united under the Basis of Union. According to the church,it had 243,000 members in 2018. In the 2016 census,870,183 Australians identified with the church,but that figure fell to 673,260 in the 2021 census. In the 2011 census,that figure was 1,065,796. The UCA is Australia's third-largest Christian denomination,behind the Catholic and the Anglican Churches. There are around 2,000 UCA congregations,and 2001 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) research indicated that average weekly attendance was about 10 per cent of census figures. The UCA is one of Australia's largest non-government providers of community and health services. Its service network consists of over 400 agencies,institutions,and parish missions,with its areas of service including aged care,hospitals,children,youth and family,disability,employment,emergency relief,drug and alcohol abuse,youth homelessness and suicide. Affiliated agencies include UCA's community and health-service provider network,affiliated schools,the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress,Frontier Services and UnitingWorld.
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