Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The government benches are going to object to this all day because the government has manifestly benefited from having the Exclusive Brethren as a benefactor. That is why it does not want an inquiry. We will see that play itself out later in the day.

It is worth looking at what the Prime Minister of New Zealand said just yesterday, as she moved in a debate to replace secret donations with public funding. She was talking about the National Party—the equivalent of the government here, but they are in opposition in New Zealand. She said that they had received vast amounts of money from the Exclusive Brethren and very large corporates. She was talking about the election last year. It is on the record now that in the last New Zealand election the Exclusive Brethren were working from a template taken from the Tasmanian elections in a campaign to bring down the Labour government, and against the Greens nationally, without telling anybody that they were there. It was discovered that the leader of the National Party had had talks with the Exclusive Brethren. He at first denied this but was forced to acknowledge it in the run-up to the election. That was a key factor in the National Party losing the election in New Zealand, because people do not like to be lied to. They do not like to be deceived and they do not like financiers moving in on elections without declaring who they are.

In Australia the Exclusive Brethren have been active for quite a long time. It was interesting to read in the Sunday Tasmanian of 13 August—last Sunday—under the heading ‘Ex-Brethren back probe’, that former members back this motion before the Senate today. The article says:

A former high-ranking member of the Exclusive Brethren is urging all Australians to support Greens senator Bob Brown’s move for an inquiry into the sect.

The article refers to a Mr Mark Humber, who was an ex-Brethren preacher. It says:

Mr Humber, now of Launceston, said the inquiry was needed to investigate the Brethren’s tax breaks for places of public assembly even though the meeting rooms are closed to outsiders and the sect’s growing involvement in politics.

Australians should be very concerned about the influence the Exclusive Brethren now has on politics, Mr Humber said.

The Brethren are a minority with only about 15,000 members in Australia, but they are learning the political game and they have the money.

Australians need to be aware that when they see Exclusive Brethren political advertising they are advertisements which are being run by a small group whose values they may not share.

I interpolate there to say that the Exclusive Brethren membership—and this includes all women, who have no say in this process—is a male hierarchical group. They make decisions—Senator Milne will have a little more to say about this in a moment—which are not representative, not canvassed and not politically discussed or voted upon within the Exclusive Brethren itself. I go back to the article.

Mr Humber said the Brethren started becoming politically active as far back as 1993 .

They have been behind the scenes for a long time, but until the 1990s lobbying was the group’s main source of political clout—

I note this—

and they were very active in getting laws passed or stopped.

Mr Humber said the lobbying turned into direct support during John Hewson’s 1993 GST campaign. The Brethren put a lot of money, possibly millions, into pro-GST ads because they thought Hewson wasn’t selling it well enough.

Who knew about that in this country? But here is a man from inside the sect who has come to the outside, at great personal cost, enormous personal cost, which no human being in a democracy should have to do, to reveal what has been going on for more than a decade.

He said he knew of Tasmanian Brethren who paid for full-page advertisements.

Yet afterwards everyone involved had to publicly confess to wickedness for doing it, even though the money was requested from up the Brethren chain.

Another former Tasmanian member of the Brethren, Peter Edwards, said he too remembered the campaign.

There was a stage about 10 years ago where people were putting ads in newspapers supporting the Liberal Party during an election campaign and then had to turn up in church and confess to doing the wrong thing ...

In the Launceston congregation we thought they were getting direction from the top and they thought so too. I don’t know why they are getting involved in politics but I know they are dead against unions and love the new workplace law reforms.

And, so it goes on.