The Liberal Party, the Exclusive Brethren, its “Man of God” Bruce Hales, and various tub-thumping evangelists like Turning Point USA and Freedom for Faith want to suggest that seeking information about the Brethren’s electoral activism in 2025 is a threat to religious freedom in Australia.
Even they can’t possibly believe this.
A reminder: thousands of Brethren members wearing blue Liberal T-shirts paired with shorts or netball skirts fresh out of the packet campaigned for the Liberal and National parties last year. The only reasonable conclusion is that this was a highly co-ordinated effort by both the Brethren and the Coalition to sway an election.
As former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds wrote in this masthead, even if local Liberal campaigns didn’t want these campaigners, they got a bunch anyway, thanks to orders from her party’s head office and organisation by Brethren elders.
Brethren members who knew nothing about politics were rostered at polling booths, flown around the country so nobody recognised them locally, put up in hotel rooms en masse and schooled to describe themselves simply as “concerned business people” – all in the service of a Peter Dutton victory.
Even more secretively, far-right figures, including those with neo-Nazi links, met Brethren businessmen, carrying around a duffel bag full of Brethren cash, and stalking and heckling left-leaning politicians with lines some of which were supplied by Brethren elders.
These plots were hatched by those elders and discussed on encrypted chat groups, screenshots of which have been obtained and published by this masthead. Elders even sometimes acted as drivers.
Anyone who knows anything about this church – which has been described by two Australian prime ministers as a “cult” – would strongly suspect such co-ordination could only ever be approved from the top, by Hales.
There is no suggestion or evidence that Hales himself was involved in the detailed plotting or campaigning. What has been reported, and was the subject of extensive questioning by the parliamentary committee on Friday, was Hales’ alleged role in setting the ball rolling for the public campaign with a comment in a religious meeting three weeks before polling day – a suggestion he denied repeatedly.
And the cost of all this? Like everything the Brethren does, money was no object. By the look of the comprehensive, national campaign, they would have thrown millions of dollars, perhaps tens of millions, at it.
Another reminder: the threshold to be declared a significant third-party campaigner in Australia is $250,000. As the Liberals, Brethren, et al, bleat about religious freedom, it’s worth noting that the Australian Christian Lobby is registered as a significant third party. Nobody raises an eyebrow.
So are multiple unions, and even individuals. One of the far-right figures involved in the Brethren campaign, Morgan C. Jonas, for example, is a significant third party all by himself (he received and spent $1.8 million). So is Kim 4 Canberra, Dick Smith and Animals Australia.
Why does this provision exist in the Electoral Act? Well, Australians need to know who is trying to help buy the entry of which politicians to parliament.
Guess who is not registered? PBCC Ltd, the Exclusive Brethren’s “secretariat entity” is not. Nor is the church’s $252 million, tax-free charity, Vision Foundation, any of its other dozen or so charities, its taxpayer-funded schools, or any members’ businesses. And not any member of the Hales family.
If they did register, some Brethren entities might stand to lose their charitable status because charities are not legally permitted to engage in partisan politics. And that could cost the church millions in tax concessions.
Both Bruce Hales and his son, Gareth – who came across in the hearing as arrogant and dismissive where his father was calm and assured – insisted all these thousands of Brethren campaigned on their own time. It was of their own volition, they said, not organised or paid by anyone and particularly not by church elders. They were just “concerned business groups” and “private citizens”.
Gareth even questioned whether those who did campaign were members of his church at all.
Their denials have nothing to do with religious freedom, they are about plausible deniability – a patina to protect the church’s financial interests, and its ability to try to influence an election without telling the rest of us what it was up to.
In the end, the Hales’ evidence was gaslighting on a biblical scale.
The Haleses’ evidence was gaslighting on a biblical scale, ably assisted by the Liberal Party members of the committee, particularly Western Australian MP Ben Small.
Small was a direct beneficiary of an energetic Brethren campaign in his seat of Forrest – and so animated was he in their defence that he was accused by a fellow committee member of “running a protection racket” for them – a comment later withdrawn.
For all the gaslight expended, little real light was shed. The evidence was barely credible. Independent MP Andrew Gee put it most succinctly, telling Hales Jnr, “I, for one, am not buying what you are selling”.
The people I felt most sorry for were the thousands of the Hales’s co-religionists who were likely listening in.
This political campaign has brought them into the spotlight for the first time in a generation. It can’t be a comfortable place for them to be.
They are subject to the iron rule and the constant demand for donations to keep the Brethren money machine running, so all this denial of the obvious must’ve been puzzling, even offensive.
They were the ones doing the electoral grunt work; they were following the orders and paying their staff.
They know what happened. It would be nice if the Haleses, and the Liberal Party, would let the rest of us in on the secret.
Explore our investigation
- ‘Tail, film, heckle’: Inside the Exclusive Brethren’s secret election influence plot with far-right
- ‘More power to redheads’: Brethren leader backs Hanson, nuclear bombs
- Controlling sect, not a religion: Brethren members have their say
- Secrecy, loyalty, discipline: Videos blow lid on Brethren election conduct
- God, Christ, man, woman: The ‘divine order’ that defines life for Brethren women
- Uncovered: Brethren secretly paid neo-Nazi associates to harass PM
- ‘Game On’: The message that unleashed the Brethren’s election machine
- Investigation: Brethren don’t vote but are secretly campaigning for Coalition
- Inside the ‘ecosystem’: The Brethren businesses in sights of the tax office
- Revealed: How much money the Exclusive Brethren really makes
- Decapitated doll: The many threats of the Exclusive Brethren
Michael Bachelardis a senior writer and former deputy editor and investigations editor of The Age. He has worked in Canberra, Melbourne and Jakarta, has written two books and won multiple awards for journalism, including the Gold Walkley.Connect viaemail.
