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Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has described revelations that a secretive Christian sect had paid far-right agitators to disrupt the 2025 election campaign as “a fundamental change to our democracy”.
But the sect behind the campaign, the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, stonewalled queries about the intervention when questioned before a parliamentary committee investigating the election.
Church spokesman Lloyd Grimshaw said it was “bizarre” that they had been called to give evidence, and criticised the story in this masthead that exposed the revelations, which detail a secret “influence operation” to disrupt Labor, Greens and teal candidates at the last election.
“We’re put in an extraordinary position, and no church would do that in this country, and we’ve been forced to do it because of all this media reporting,” he said.
Burke, who has the Australian Federal Police in his ministerial portfolio, said the report in this masthead “deals with the concept of people being paid to engage in physical intimidation”, adding, “Australia hasn’t had that before, and we shouldn’t.”
Asked if he wanted to see a police investigation, the minister said he first wanted “to watch what comes out in this parliamentary inquiry” now being conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.
When pressed by MPs on the committee about Brethren members turning up en masse to campaign for the Liberals during the election, Grimshaw insisted that his church had no involvement in any aspect of the campaign. Any such activities were simply the “private affairs of its members”, not the church, he said.
He denied being personally part of chat groups between Brethren elders and right-wing figures to organise up to a dozen stunts where agitators, including affiliates of neo-Nazis, ambushed politicians, including the prime minister, at campaign events.
“I’m not aware of being on any chats,” Grimshaw said.
The church had not issued any sanctions to its members over these things, he said, because “the church wasn’t involved in it”. He attacked the reporting, saying, “it references no church member specifically at all” and did not publish in full the evidence referenced.
The investigation, published on Friday, cited a trove of leaked communications showing how Brethren elders had organised the stunts with far-right figures, at times tracking candidates, and the prime minister’s plane, around the country. This masthead has also seen evidence of payments behind many of these stunts, and spoken to those with knowledge of the operation to verify the rest, but it had chosen not to name the church figures involved to protect those sources.
In the context of ASIO and the AFP’s increasing concern about right-wing activities, committee chairman Jerome Laxale asked Grimshaw about “this type of escalation in the political process”.
Grimshaw again denied any contribution by the church, saying: “There’s a big distinction between what the church is involved in and what citizens are involved in.”
Asked if he objected to church members disrupting the electoral process using right-wing and neo-Nazi aligned agitators, Grimshaw said, “that’s an allegation, and it’s an untested one”.
One of those involved in the co-ordinated stunt campaign, as reported by this masthead, is far-right vlogger Chris de Bruyne, who goes by “Chriscoveries” online.
In lieu of a response to questions from this masthead, de Bruyne published a fake news article on Friday spoofing The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that congratulated de Bruyne and his political lobbying firm, Australian Firebrand, for helping amplify “the operation with links to powerful, conservative Christian groups”.
“Faster than pizza delivery”, and on a budget of “less than $15,000”, the article said, the team had disseminated footage of the stunts across the internet to catch national attention.
During the hearing on Friday, Liberal MPs and Nationals leader Matt Canavan sympathised with the Brethrens’ view that the questions they were being asked about the group’s role in the election were examples of religious discrimination against them. Later, they published a dissenting response, accusing the Labor-helmed committee of running a “witch-hunt against people of faith and people who just happen to have the temerity to
oppose Labor’s agenda”.
The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church deployed thousands of people to man polling booths during the campaign for the Liberal and National Parties, along with a small turnout for One Nation.
Burke insisted the Coalition should explain why the church’s links with far-right radicals formed part of a broader campaign to elect the Coalition in 2025, and “whether they [the Liberal Party] are now welcoming these same individuals”.
Asked about the revelations on ABC radio, Nationals leader Michael McCormack said “they should be investigated”. But he added that “they were probably just using the same playbook intimidation” that unions had for years.
But Canavan defended the church.
“What I saw this morning at this committee is an attempt to apply collective guilt to people of a certain religious faith, and the Labor Party here seems to be launching a war on those of religious faith that seek to involve themselves in politics,” he said.
“I find these attacks on people of faith in our country completely unbecoming of an Australian government in our democracy.”
Much of the questioning of the Brethren spokesman was directed towards the church’s role in organising the thousands-strong pro-Coalition campaign. Grimshaw denied it had any, saying the church was a dispersed “family”, which was non-hierarchical. The church, he claimed, had nothing to do with flying people around the country and accommodating them in cities well out of their regions to participate in the campaign.
“I think it is a difficult pill for us to swallow, unfortunately, Mr Grimshaw,” said Labor senator Corinne Mulholland, “and it flies in the face of evidence the committee has heard”.
Grimshaw blamed the media for the large numbers participating, saying the reporting in this masthead meant “that some members got fired up and got involved”.
Under electoral law, groups that spend more than $250,000 are required to declare themselves a significant third party in the campaign. Such a declaration would mean the church would lose its lucrative charity status.
In the hearing, Grimshaw also launched an attack on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who described the church during the 2025 campaign as a cult.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate at all,” Grimshaw said. “To use the words that he used to describe the church is offensive, and it’s hurtful, and it’s untrue, and you know it has an impact.”
Greens senator Steph Hodgins-May suggested the church leader, “the Minister of the Lord in the Recovery,” Bruce Hales himself, should be called to give evidence. She asked that it “speak directly to the veracity and the intent behind those comments that he’s made, because I don’t know if I’m going to get much further with Mr Grimshaw on that”.
The committee agreed to discuss that at their next meeting.
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Michael Bachelard is a senior writer and former deputy editor and investigations editor of The Age. He has worked in Canberra, Melbourne and Jakarta, has written two books and won multiple awards for journalism, including the Gold Walkley.Connect via X or email.
Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
Sherryn Groch is a journalist at The Age covering crime. Email her at s.groch@nine.com.au or contact her securely on Signal @SherrynG.70Connect via X or email.From our partners
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