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

by leave—I move the motion as amended:

That the following matters be referred to the Community Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 8 November 2006:

The role of the Exclusive Brethren in:

(a)

family breakdown and psychological and emotional effects related to the practice of excommunication or other practices;

(b)

Australian politics and political activities, including donations to political parties or other political entities and funding specific advertising campaigns;

(c)

the receipt of funding from the Federal Government or other political entities;

(d)

taxation and other special arrangements or exemptions from Australian law that relate to Exclusive Brethren businesses;

(e)

special arrangements and exemptions from Australian law that relate to Exclusive Brethren schools, military service and voting; and

(f)

any related matters.

The Exclusive Brethren is an extreme religious sect which has now existed for almost 200 years and has some 40,000 members around the world, slightly fewer than 15,000 of whom are in Australia. Its founding principle was to remove itself from the world because the world was essentially evil and beyond redemption. Everybody else in the world, described as ‘worldlies’, was to be kept at a distance. In the evolution of time since the 1820s, the Exclusive Brethren has eschewed politics and prohibited its members from voting and from military service. It has been quite rigorous about this. It saw politics as the domain of God, as a place for ‘worldly’ people and as something it ought to keep out of. But in the 1990s events changed. Under a series of world leaders of the Exclusive Brethren, the sect has decided to become involved in politics. It will of course say that its members have become involved, not itself, but the two are indistinguishable.

I have called for a Senate inquiry to look into the Exclusive Brethren because, as a consequence of that intrusion into political affairs—which happens to be global—a great deal of suffering amongst people who are at the interface between the Exclusive Brethren and the rest of the world has been drawn to my attention. There is extraordinary suffering amongst those people who are involved, and I think it is a matter that of itself warrants looking at. This is not, by far, the first time attention has been drawn to the Exclusive Brethren in parliament. In summary, the brethren’s current head, a claimed descendant of St Paul called the ‘Elect Vessel’, is a secretive man named Bruce Hales who lives in Sydney, in the seat of Bennelong. Mr Hales took over as the Elect Vessel of the Exclusive Brethren after the death of his father, John Hales, who preceded him in that office.

The fact is that as the sect has become wealthy it has determined that it should get involved in politics. Marion Maddox, a professor at a New Zealand university who is an expert in the relationship between religion and politics, points to an apparent change within the Exclusive Brethren from being totally divorced from public affairs to becoming involved on the basis of extreme right Christian fundamentalism in the United States, which says that Christianity must take over the governance of the world before the return of Christ. That means, of course, a theocracy.

The logic is that there will be an increasing intervention by the Exclusive Brethren, which former prominent British parliamentarian Tony Benn described as ‘an exclusive priestly caste claiming a monopoly right to speak on behalf of the Almighty’. The move is for this priestly caste—and the members are all men, because women are seen as second-rate in this sect—to have an increasing influence in politics. One cannot mind that so much by itself because we are a democracy and we welcome the involvement of everybody. But it is the secretiveness, the clandestine way in which the Exclusive Brethren has involved itself in global politics—not least in our own country—that warrants looking at it, because transparency is absolutely essential to the health of a democracy. It is essential for people to know what is going on and who is influencing the decision-making process in our democracy.

A person speaking on behalf of the Exclusive Brethren in the United States, where they moved to support the campaign of the current President, George W Bush, said that they like to fly beneath the radar—that is, they like to become involved in political affairs but not to be discovered to be doing so. The military analogy can be followed to the conclusion that they like to be able to support or damage components of a political contest in a democracy without being seen to do so. That is inimical to the health of any democracy. This inquiry is—