George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the 135th report of the Committee of Privileges entitled Persons referred to in the Senate: certain persons on behalf of the Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the report be adopted.

This report is the 52nd in a series of reports recommending that a right of reply be accorded to persons who claim to have been adversely affected by being referred to, either by name or in such a way as to be readily identified, in the Senate.

On 16 September 2008 the President received a submission from Mr Doug Burgess, Mr Daniel Hales, Mr Bruce Pridham and Mr David Stewart on the behalf of the Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship related to remarks made in the Senate on 26, 27 and 28 August by Senator Bob Brown and Senator Christine Milne. The President referred their submission to the Committee of Privileges under resolution 5. The committee considered the submission on 18 September 2008 and recommends that the proposed response by Mr Burgess, Mr Hales, Mr Pridham and Mr Stewart on behalf of the Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship, as agreed by the committee, be incorporated in Hansard.

The committee takes this opportunity to remind the Senate that in matters of this nature it does not judge the truth or otherwise of statements made by honourable senators or statements made by the persons referred to. Rather, it ensures that these persons’ submissions and, ultimately, the responses it recommends be published in accord with the criteria set out in privilege resolution 5. On this occasion, the Privileges Committee has so resolved. I commend the motion to the Senate.

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

I thank the Senate Standing Committee of Privileges for bringing this report down. I will be supporting the suggested incorporation into Hansard of the submission from the four elders of the Exclusive Brethren sect. I have not had an opportunity to read what they have had to say, so I and my colleague Senator Milne will take that opportunity and we will no doubt have a contribution to make about the matters canvassed by the Exclusive Brethren in that report.

At this juncture, I wish to seek leave to table the book Behind the Exclusive Brethren by Michael Bachelard. It has just been released and is now available. It has on the front cover an attribution from David Marr which states:

Shocking and compelling ... an eye-opening account of power and cruelty in a tiny Christian sect that enjoys a privileged existence in Australia.

I seek leave to table the book.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are talking about the full book, Senator Brown?

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

Yes. It is publicly available and has been widely canvassed.

The Acting Deputy President:

Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, normally when leave is sought to table we are given an opportunity to have a look at the document sought to be tabled. We have not had an opportunity to have a look at the book. It might be publicly available, but perhaps we could have a chance to have a look at the book first.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, to contribute to the discussion, given that the purpose of this report is to enable members of the Exclusive Brethren who were mentioned by Senator Milne and Senator Bob Brown to put their rejoinder on the public record, it occurs to me that it perhaps is not very helpful, by the tabling of a book about the Exclusive Brethren which is evidently very critical of them, to continue to escalate the charge and countercharge about this particular sect or organisation through the process of documents tabled in the Senate. I wonder if I might, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, suggest to Senator Brown that he consider the position that he withdraw his request to table this manuscript. He has indicated that he is going to contribute to debate on the report at some time in the future after he has had an opportunity to read it. In the meantime, he might enable other senators to have a look at this book he wants to table and might also reconsider his position.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator Brandis, the leave has been granted. It is up to Senator Brown if he wishes to withdraw that application for leave to be granted.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

No-one said it was not granted.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said, ‘No, I deny leave’.

The Acting President:

Leave is not granted, Senator Brown. I might say, Senator Ellison, that you were not in your seat when this was being discussed. Go on, Senator Brown.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order. I was in my seat when I—

The Acting Deputy President:

When you got up you were in your seat, Senator Ellison, but when leave was being sought, you were not.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

Okay. Senator Brown.

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

I will again seek leave to have the book tabled. It is, after all, available in all good Australian bookshops at the moment and had some extensive extracts from it and commentary on it in the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald last weekend. This situation is similar to having a request to table the book by the honourable former Treasurer, if there were one, being denied. I think it is a mistake to deny the tabling of a book under these circumstances.

In their submission to the Senate—and I now have a copy of the submission—Messrs Burgess, Hales, Pridham and Stewart said, amongst other things:

Senators Bob Brown and Milne are relying solely on misinformation about the Brethren gathered from disaffected, bitter ex-brethren who have had no direct contact with the church for up to forty years. This is confirmed by Senator Milne in her Senate speech on 27 August 2008 quoting from someone who left the church about 20 years ago. Senator Bob Brown is very ill-informed about the Brethren, and has not replied to a written offer of 8 March 2007 to meet the Brethren and have discussions relating to his proposed Senate enquiry.

If members of the Brethren are listening—and I know that radios are not permitted in this sect so, if they are not listening, I will write to them—I say that I would be very pleased to have discussions about the proposal for a Senate inquiry. However, I guess that proposal has passed by because the matter was voted down in the Senate after that date.

They go on to say:

The gratuitous and hostile attacks by Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne go further than just the Brethren. In maligning Brethren schools, they also denigrate the more than 350 non Brethren teachers and staff employed across Australia who are personally committed to providing a high standard of education for these students.

Et cetera. On those points, let me say this: I am not relying on misinformation about the Brethren at all; I am relying on, and have relied on, and have been very touched by, the submissions of an appreciable number of honourable citizens of this country who remained Christians but who have left the Brethren because they could not tolerate the overbearing and restrictive nature of the sect and its leadership under the Elect Vessel Mr Bruce Hales, who lives in Sydney. There are some 15,000 Brethren in Australia and 43,000 worldwide, and they live under extraordinarily repressive conditions.

The book by Michael Bachelard to which I referred, Behind the Exclusive Brethren, which has been published by Scribe Press, outlines many of the harrowing cases that are now part of the sad folklore of the way in which the Brethren treat those who would dare to question the doctrine of the head of the sect, who claims to be a spiritual descendant of St Paul. The book is committed, and I quote this because it is in a way a summary of the reason that we believe the spotlight should be kept on those leaders.

The book is dedicated to those people both within and outside the Exclusive Brethren who have suffered and who suffer now under their doctrine of separation.

It is that doctrine of separation which ultimately is the thing that causes such heartache for the mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers who for 20 or 40 years have been separated from their children or their brothers and sisters or their friends. Once they have decided—and it takes a very courageous person—to leave the sect they are sent into Coventry. They are effectively excommunicated. That means they cannot have any conversation with, or any knowledge of, their loved ones who remain within the sect. The heartache that comes from that is terrible, and it is unnecessary.

Who are these elders that now address the Senate and want justice? And they will get it. Their side is being put into the Senate record now. But, consider this: the stories of the ex-Brethren get no such hearing from these elders. Once a person is excommunicated, that is it. There is no appeal court. There is no way of publishing their side of what they think is an action which wrongs them. They get none of the justice that these four elders are getting here in the Senate this afternoon. They are outside—they are cut off. I have spoken to fathers and mothers of children who remain in the sect when they have left and they cannot communicate with their children. This is not just something that passes in the night. This is day after day, year after year, decade after decade. Who are these men that say, in the doctrine of separation, it is evil—they teach children that it is evil—to communicate with their parents because the parents have had the wit, wisdom and courage to decide they did not want to stay within the sect, they wanted to move outside. And these gentlemen say, ‘You should not speak to your parents because they have become evil’ because they have separated.

The time is not with me to take this further, and this parliament has many things to do. But my spirit cannot rest where we have a sect within our midst which does that to families, which denies all their children the right of access to a university because they believe that their children’s heads will be turned if they go to university. In this day and age their children are banned from that, women from having a place of authority over men in the workplace, workplaces where unions are banned and so on and on. It is wrong and one of these days it will be righted. But it will not be righted by the submission from these gentlemen here this afternoon.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to make it clear, Senator Brown, you sought leave to table that book.

Leave not granted.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I apologise earlier that we gave leave. I was following what I understood the precedent to be that documents to be incorporated needed to be seen by the whips of each party. I am now advised that we need to see, as Senator Ellison rightly pointed out, documents that are going to be tabled also. For that reason of consistency we cannot give leave, Senator Brown.

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

by leave—I will, in the next 24 hours, purchase five copies of the book and distribute them and seek leave before we rise tomorrow for the book to be tabled.

Question agreed to.

The response read as follows—

Appendix One

Response by Mr Doug Burgess, Mr Daniel Hales, Mr Bruce Pridham and Mr David Stewart on behalf of the

Exclusive Brethren Christian Fellowship

Pursuant to Resolution 5(7)(b) of the Senate of 25 February 1988

We make this submission to you as members of the Christian church known as the Exclusive Brethren [the “Brethren”] and on its behalf, using the opportunity afforded under Parliamentary Privileges Resolutions agreed to by the Senate on 25 February 1988 which provide for a right of reply when persons have been adversely mentioned in the Senate in such a way to be readily identified.

On 15 May 2008, Senator Bob Brown gave notice of his intention to move a motion on 26 August 2008 that matters relating to the Exclusive Brethren be referred to the Community Affairs Committee. Twice previously, on 9 May 2006 and 7 February 2007, Senator Bob Brown gave notice of similar motions. The allegations in the motion on 9 May 2006 were answered in the Committee of Privileges’ 127th Report. In this submission we respond to the false and ill-informed hostile assertions made by Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne in their Senate speeches on 26, 27 and 28 August 2008 concerning the Brethren.

Contrary to the false and erroneous and ill-informed statements made by the Senators, the truth is as follows:

Marriage is not arranged in the Brethren. Marriage is only entered into by couples of their own free will and choice without any third party interference or direction. Married women can and do work, as they determine, in support of their family. Their skills and expertise are highly valued both inside and outside their families. Wives are often active and paid partners, directors and secretaries in business enterprises with their families and other business people.

Persons that leave the church are not abandoned. Leaving is regarded as a tragedy, and to the extent that these former members will allow, are sympathetically followed up by church elders, relatives and friends and supported wherever possible. Parents and others are encouraged to contact their children and vice versa, to provide mutual, physical, spiritual, financial and pastoral care and support.

Brethren have never interfered in proceedings before the Family Court and have not approached presiding judges at any time. Submissions to the Chief Justice of the Family Court were made on two occasions in 1991. These submissions did not relate to specific or current proceedings before the Family Court.

Schools and businesses established by members of the Brethren source their computers direct from commercial suppliers. Mr Bruce Hales has not had any part or involvement in these transactions whatsoever. Further, he has no direct or indirect financial involvement in any business or organization in the IT field. Brethren schools provide IT access to their students to enable them to study the Board of Studies curriculum, as do all non-government schools. Students are not prevented from going on to further education. Manual Arts subjects are available to and studied by girls and boys alike. All Brethren schools, including Glenvale, use government funding to pay teachers salaries. No government funds have been channeled from Glenvale school to ProVision, nor has ProVision at any time benefited financially from Glenvale school.

Wilmac has never made any donation to the Liberal Party whatsoever. Wilmac lodged a return to the AEC as required and no further action has been initiated by any other party.

The “Peebs net” website has been set up by dissidents who have left the church and is designed to influence the general public against the church and bring it into disrepute. Many of the contributors to this website are included amongst those who as stated below, have had no contact with the church for up to forty years and some have never been members of the Brethren fellowship. Brethren, and those who have left the church, have always since birth interacted with society, including education, employment and many other commercial and financial transactions. Social fellowship is voluntarily limited to involvement with participants of the Lords Supper (Holy Communion) amongst Brethren.

Though always tragic, suicide is a very rare occurrence amongst Brethren and those who have left the church, and is statistically well below national age group figures. The sanctity of life is taught from infancy, and to cast all our cares on the Lord Jesus Christ and have faith in God.

Senators Bob Brown and Milne are relying solely on misinformation about the Brethren gathered from disaffected, bitter ex-brethren who have had no direct contact with the church for up to forty years. This is confirmed by Senator Milne in her Senate speech on 27 August 2008 quoting from someone who left the church about 20 years ago. Senator Bob Brown is very ill-informed about the Brethren, and has not replied to a written offer of 8 March 2007 to meet the Brethren and have discussions relating to his proposed Senate enquiry.

The gratuitous and hostile attacks by Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne go further than just the Brethren. In maligning Brethren schools, they also denigrate the more than 350 non Brethren teachers and staff employed across Australia who are personally committed to providing a high standard of education for these students. Such accusations directly impinge on the professionalism of these dedicated people who are part of our Australian community. These staff ensure that the State’s curriculum is taught in accordance with all the educational standards and requirements.

Additionally, the state regulatory authorities are maligned. Without exception each State education authority has registered Brethren schools in their State, have carried out regular inspections, and have maintained their accreditation.

In conclusion, the speeches by Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne contain many more inaccurate, misleading and false allegations concerning the Brethren church, schools and members which could be contested, however what has been outlined above is sufficient to substantiate that this is an extraordinarily erroneous, ill-informed and unwarranted attack on the Brethren, their church, members and families without due cause or just reason.

We humbly request that you consider the above with a view to incorporating our response in Hansard in order to preserve the integrity and respect of some 15,000 citizens of this country who have been grossly denigrated and misrepresented in the Australian Senate by the hostile statements made by both Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne.

(Signed)

Doug Burgess; Daniel Hales; Bruce Pridham; David Stewart