By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
THE existence of religious sects – that is groups of people who strongly identify with a particular belief and build a closed community around that – are a good indicator of how free and truly tolerant a society is.
The Australian Labor Party, its Far Left factions such as the Victorian Socialist Left and their media sympathisers, have shown somewhat totalitarian tendencies in their attacks on the “Exclusive Brethren” church, otherwise known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church (PBCC), headed by Australian accountant and businessman Bruce Hales, who directs the church from its headquarters in suburban Sydney.
The same political forces have targeted various Christian and non-Christian sects in Victoria, as we recently reported.
As explained by church spokesman Lloyd Grimshaw, members of the PBCC are frequent and effective volunteers in various community causes like drought aid, but also including politics. “When one volunteers others join in – they don’t do things by halves,” he said.
This was the case when some church members decided to get involved in the 2025 federal election and to fund activists to openly confront Anthony Albanese on the election trail. The Age newspaper called this “a scandal”.
“Four sources independently referred to a ‘duffel bag of cash’ provided by senior Brethren members to a key right-wing figure who flew around the country helping coordinate the ‘influence campaign’,” the Age breathlessly reported. We might add they weren’t the only political operatives to be handed bags of cash in this nation.
“The motley crew of agitators enlisted for stunts include [Laurence] McIntyre, who has links to neo-Nazis, as well as fringe politicians and pro-Putin conspiracists … senior Brethren elders used flight tracking apps to follow Albanese’s plane as it moved from city to city during the campaign, according to four sources who spoke anonymously due to safety concerns.
“At times, Brethren gophers lay in wait with far-right influencers to follow the prime minister’s car to hotels and events and even joined in the heckling of politicians.”
The ABC was also part of the media witch-hunt against the PBCC, with a Four Corners investigation noting its “labyrinthine corporate structure of more than 3000 companies in countries across the world, with a powerful company, Universal Business Team (UBT) at the centre.”
Four Corners also interviewed former members who criticised the male-only, top-down authoritarian leadership structure, which is certainly not unknown in various other minor church denominations.
They also interviewed a Melbourne man Mick Dover who accused three church members of abusing him from the age of five. Dover was offered a million-dollar settlement with non-disclosure, but chose to speak out instead.
Cairns News certainly does not endorse abuse of any minor and those allegations are a matter for police, the court system and the alleged abusers to work out. PBCC is not the only church or institution to have to deal with such matters.
As for PBCC’s multi-billion-dollar business interests, globally, churches of all creeds can and do build extensive and profitable business operations given that donations to churches are generally seen as for charitable institutions and are therefore tax exempt. Strong and tight-knit communities also tend to foster successful businesses because of cross-membership support.
Churches, by their multinational nature, also provide international business networks in addition to acquiring extensive property holdings. This is certainly the case with all mainstream churches whose history spans some 19 centuries.
And then there was the Australian Taxation Office that in 2024 conducted unannounced raids on the PBCC global business network offices at Olympic Park, Sydney, which resulted in a multi-million-dollar voluntary repayment to the ATO and the closure of a linked major accounting firm, and an ongoing broader investigation.
The Australian division of the Brethren-controlled accounting firm Universal Business Team (UBTA) announced it would shut down and cease offering tax compliance services while network entities tied to the UBT—the corporate and administrative arm linked to the church—made a voluntary disclosure and repaid several million dollars to the ATO to resolve Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) and salary-splitting issues.
In the US, a historic Supreme Court ruling found that taxing churches would require the government to audit their financial books, appraise their property, and evaluate their religious activities and found that granting a tax exemption creates a “benevolent neutrality” that minimizes government entanglement in religious affairs far better than taxation would.
State involvement in churches already happens to some extent through the legal requirements of the charitable organisation status of most churches.
In the British historical context, where the church formed part of the state structure, non-taxation of religion can also be traced to the maxim in law that states “The highest reason (or best rule) is that which acts in favour of religion” (Summa ratio est quae pro religione facit).
From Cairns News’ perspective, the political campaigning of PBCC members is not much different to the militant influencing campaign run by Victorian Trades Hall Council, which this month co-opted thousands of high school and university students on to the streets of Australian capital cities to shout noisy and sometimes violent slogans against Pauline Hanson.
Trade unions, incidentally, have their own dark corners to deal with, and can also be accused of influence peddling in the political realm with millions of dollars.
Mr Grimshaw noted in his submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Inquiry into the 2025 Election that 32 of the 80 submissions to the inquiry were anonymous, 16 came from Labor, union or independent affiliates, 10 supported the right of church members to participate in the election and four were from well-known anti-church activists.
He said only five of the submissions met a test of evidence that would point to both the involvement of a church member along with allegations of anti-social behaviour, while “the rest made unsubstantiated claims based on assumptions that people were church members based on how they dressed or who they mixed with”.
As for Anthony Albanese’s and former members’ accusation that the PBCC is a cult, that is very subjective matter. The PBCC denies it, although former members said their separation from the church resulted in painful separation from families who stayed on.
A sect, as opposed to a major religious mainstream Protestant or Catholic denomination, whose gathering places are in the town squares and open to the public, typically has closed doors and a heirarchy of leaders who impose strict behavioural rules over congregants and a particular theological empahsis. Sects also occur in Islam, Judaism, Hindusim and Buddhism.
YouTuber “iswearenglish”, who runs a fairly popular channel for learning English, explains that the term “sectarian” from which “sect” is derived, can be applied across all religious and political conflict.
The historical Exclusive Brethren and Open Brethren sects have their origins in the Plymouth Brethren which began around 1825–1831 in Dublin, Ireland, and Plymouth, England, around the teachings of former Anglican John Nelson Darby, the author of dispensationalist teachings that took root in the American evangelical churches and developed into today’s Christian Zionism.
The Plymouth Brethren advocated informal worship without a traditional clerical class or formal denominational structure and rejected the established state church authority that existed in England’s constitutional monarchy, which headed the Church of England.
In 1848 in Plymouth, Darby was at the centre of a schism caused by theological and disciplinary disputes from which emerged the Exclusive Brethren, who demanded rigorous membership standards and strict boundaries around fellowship and the Open Brethren who maintained more flexible, independent local assemblies.
The PBCC seems to maintain a more Open Brethren approach these days, claiming just over 55,000 members. “We live in regular homes on ordinary streets, in towns and cities across Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North and South America, the Caribbean and the United Kingdom,” the church says on its website.
“Our members operate their own businesses, buy houses, shop locally, volunteer and do charitable work, pay taxes and employ many people from both within our Community and outside.”
