Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Vanstone has hit the nail absolutely on the head. The way the electoral laws are written allows it to happen and the Australian people have no idea that a religious sect is funding advertisements to support the Liberal Party or any other party for that matter. They deserve to know that it is happening and they deserve to know why. In a newspaper article about why, one of the Exclusive Brethren elders—I welcome them to the gallery today—said, in talking about these ads:

We do it as individuals. ... It’s got no church involvement. It’s got no school involvement. You’ve got to allow for spontaneity.

But it is quite clear that the principal reason they are engaged in politics in Australia is that they are antihomosexual. The real attack on minorities in this country is coming from this organisation, secretly funding political parties that oppose tolerance to homosexuality. That is the fact of the matter. That is where it is coming from. In this newspaper article, Mr Hales insists the brethren are not endorsing people or parties and says:

We don’t support the political party per se. We support a principle. If somebody is promoting the right principle—that homosexuality is a sin—we’ll support that person.

If you look at the Exclusive Brethren involvement in the US campaign, in the Canadian election, in the New Zealand election, in the Tasmanian election and in the federal election, you find that the absolute basis of it is an attack on tolerance of homosexuality. That is where all this is coming from. The real attack on minorities here is on those people who do not even see where the attack is coming from because the people mounting the attack are so cowardly that they hide. They are not prepared to be upfront about who they are. A statement made to the Standing Committee of Privileges and signed in part by Phillip McNaughton says:

The Exclusive Brethren Church has never at any time or for any reason involved itself in any political activity whatsoever, either by means of advertisements, media releases, leaflets, publications or any other propaganda.

Is that a fact? So you go to a company registered in the UK called Ratby Distribution Ltd and who are its three executives? Phillip Bruce McNaughton, the very same person, and two people from Surrey and Leicester in England. What is the purpose of this Exclusive Brethren company? It is ‘to make grants and loans to any person, association, company, local authority, administrative or government agency or public body, as may be thought fit, or towards charitable or other purposes in any way connected with or calculated to further the objects of the company; to make donations to any political party; to take and defend legal actions’. And there is more. What is the involvement of Australian Bruce Hales in this company? This company gives ‘the Minister of the Lord in the Recovery’—that is, Bruce Hales—‘absolute power of veto in all matters’.

Mr Hales has the capability of receiving automatic admission to the board should the existing board members become unavailable—and this is the head of the church in Australia. What we are seeing is that Mr Hales already seems to have ultimate authority in possibly hundreds, and maybe even thousands, of Exclusive Brethren companies, charities, trusts and enterprises on a worldwide basis. We now see a new initiative called National Office Assist, which seems to be a global fiscal structure that controls the finances of all Exclusive Brethren businesses.

I note the amusement of the Exclusive Brethren members in the gallery. I welcome that, because I think we should have an inquiry and see what the tax arrangements are and find out exactly what is going on with this funding that is distributed around the world. It went in to the US campaign and contravened US electoral law. It went in to New Zealand and was exposed at the last minute, but not fully, and we still have not got to the bottom of the connection between the Liberal Party and the Exclusive Brethren and their advertising during the last federal election. And we never will, because of the new disclosure laws regarding donations of $10,000 or more, and we will never know about in-kind support—the printing businesses that are involved in printing this material.

As I said during the debate on electoral donations—and it is why I opposed the change—it is my view that the Liberal Party writes the ads, places the ads, and that they are paid for by the Exclusive Brethren.