An Exclusive Brethren school proposed for Barnsley near Newcastle has been unanimously refused by Lake Macquarie Council.

Another Brethren school has been in operation at Cardiff South since 2001, and the Barnsley proposal was aimed at catering for a growing number of students.

But Councillor Barry Johnston says the bulk and scale of the proposal was a clear over-development of the site.

"What they were proposing there was just too big for the environment that it was in," he said.

"It was very much an urban-type development, but it's a semi-rural type setting out there in Barnsley.

"The area is not in a transition stage, it's going to be staying something like it is into the forseeable future, so really it was out of context."

The Land and Environment Court will hear an appeal from the Exclusive Brethren on Monday.

But Mr Johnston says he hopes the court takes note of council's concerns.

"The Land and Environment Court, they're a funny breed, they can make decisions which most people can not work out," he said.

"But if they follow the council report, and go on the council support and the submissions that have been put in by the community, I would be disappointed but not overly surprised if the land and environment court actually did pass it."

Extract:

In his bio, 32-year-old firefighter, David, claims the Exclusive Brethren "denied him the real world" until he fled the sect at the age of 19.

Until then, he had never eaten at a restaurant and never kissed a girl.

He has joined the police force and fire service since his "escape".

A Barnsley resident says if a proposed private school to be run by the Exclusive Brethren is approved, neighbouring residents could be forced to get rid of their animals.

The plans for the primary and secondary school, which would cater for more than 120 students, will go before Lake Macquarie council tonight.

Council officers have recommended the development be refused and the Exclusive Brethren have already lodged an appeal in the Land and Environment Court.

Resident Gary Callinan says the school does not fit in with the semi-rural area.

"Even though it might be zoned that they could put the school in there, in our part of Barnsley we all have our animals," he said.

"So far, if the school goes ahead, the Brethrens are quite within their rights under the legislation [to say] that we can't have our animals, because animals are not allowed to be within 12 metres of the boundary of the school yard.

"That will totally change our lifestyle."

Extracts:

Last weekend, the Exclusive Brethren announced that they didn't intend to campaign against the Clark administration this year, given that most opinion polls suggest its defeat.

According to the Ruth Laugesen SST article that broke the news, most of their current political objectives are absolutely absurd. The Civil Unions Act and Prostitution Law Reform Act are fait accompli's, and cannot be repealed, and even Leader of the Opposition John Key has ruled out such options. However, the extremist sect is on surer ground when it comes to greater funding for private religious schools, still a National Party education policy platform.

...

However, this assumes National will win the next election. Some opinion polls report a surge in Green Party support, which may be related to current concerns over climate change, drought and whaling. It might be possible that the Greens will expand their voter share significantly, saving the centre-left from the Opposition benches, as happened under Germany's version of MMP earlier this decade.

So, what about the Exclusive Brethren's claims of non-interference? I'd note that this is linked to National's current (overinflated?) polling, which may be beginning to finally subside. They would be foolhardy to try to subvert the current Electoral Finance Act, especially as the National Party was wrong about alleged "hackers" providing Nicky Hager with information that was published in The Hollow Men (2006). His source may provide a tripwire if any National caucus member tries to resurrect the ungainly relationship between their party and that sect. As matters stand, their antics last year may have contributed to an anti-Liberal electorate backlash that hampered the centre-right's chances during Australia's federal elections.

But what if it's not the Exclusive Brethren this time? Back in February, Dierdre Mussen provided a useful profile of the current lead Christian Right pressure group, Family First. Mussen noted that Family First had three major business backers- Integrity Trade Services (Christchurch- fridges, air conditioning and electrical goods): Frontline Technologies (Auckland- printing machinery supply); and Mortgage Express, a Harcourts real estate subsidiary. It might be prudent for LGBT and other concerned social liberal voters to organise a boycott of all three, to insure that Family First's strident anti-Labour rhetoric is hampered through insufficient campaign funds. As for the Maxim Institute, it still looks rather anemic, but we shall have to monitor its website, and see, closer to the forthcoming election.

As for the rest of the Christian Right, it seems strangely subdued. The Kiwi Party's Gordon Copeland had an anti-abortion bill defeated by voice vote, with little fanfare from anti-abortionists Voice for Life and Right to Life New Zealand. SPCS has mutated into an 'educational' group and cannot lobby due to its Charities Act 2004 restrictions. Family Party reps are trudging around Mangere, trying to attract attention in South Auckland.

Still, I suspect it'll all rev up again, come October or November.

Members of the Exclusive Brethren are behind a $30 million, four-storey retirement complex proposed for the heart of Unley, on a site currently owned by the reclusive religious group.

Called "Bentleigh at Unley", the retirement housing comprising 100 apartments in five multi-storey buildings would face both Arthur and Mary streets, west of Queen St towards King William Rd.

The company proposing the retirement complex, Unley Community Developments, lodged plans with Unley Council on April 15. Its directors are David Hack, Stephen Hornsey and Humfrey Le Souef, all Exclusive Brethren members, who have an agreement to buy the 1.1 ha (3.3 acres) site from the main organisation subject to development approval.

The property, which currently contains a meeting hall that would be demolished, is part of a portfolio of property owned by the Exclusive Brethern in the greater Unley Council area.

Last August the group confirmed it was relocating to Adelaide's more affordable southern suburbs and was considering the sale of its Unley meeting hall, estimated then to be worth $3 million.

Group spokesman Tony McCorkell had said the Mary St meetinghall was no longer needed since the group built a 1040-seat meeting hall at Happy Valley, in 2004.

The group also owns several uninhabited properties which back on to the meeting hall in Mary St. The new retirement development would also have basement parking, a health club, indoor pool, function centre and library.

The main buildings would be two and three storeys high at the street boundaries, stepping back to a fourth level.

Adelaide public relations consultant Rob Ball, speaking on behalf of Unley Community Developments, said the developments "architects and planners" had consulted closely with the council over privacy concerns and the apartments were "specifically designed to avoid any over-viewing of neighbours".

Flyers were dropped in the area last week offering briefings to residents, he said.

Arthur St resident and former Unley councillor Rufus Salaman said the size of the development meant hundreds of extra cars using Arthur St daily. "I'm concerned about overlooking and overshadowing and the way it would affect the two-storey landscape and general character of the area," he said.

In March, the Eastern Courier reported similar overlooking and traffic concerns of Hyde Park residents with another developer, Living Choice Australia, planning to convert the old Walford boarding house into a five-storey retirement complex. Both applications are in residential zones designed primarily for dwellings up to two storeys.

However, Unley's Development Plan does not contain height restrictions for retirement housing, which is judged on whether it suits the style and character of the area.

A new private school will be built in Moe if Latrobe City approves a planning permit at tonight's council meeting.

The Glenvale School would be an independent school with a Brethren denomination and is planned for the old Masonic Lodge site on High Street, Moe.

A council officer's report recommends councillors approve the application, despite an objection from a neighbour living opposite the proposed site, who is concerned about parking, traffic and devaluation issues.

According to a council officer's report, the current L-shaped, single storey building will be converted into three classrooms and a school hall, while outside there would be a playground area and off-street car parking.

There would be 19 students enrolled in the first year and this could eventually rise to about 45 students, according to the officer's report.

In a written statement to The Express, Glenvale spokesperson Tony McCorkell said the proposed primary school would accommodate up to 50 students from Moe and surrounding areas.

"We are looking forward to renovating this historic building in High Street, the cost of which will be met by local church members," he said.

"It is proposed this small school would be a campus of the Glenvale School providing the students with a strong educational network and access to a broader infrastructure."

Mr McCorkell said Glenvale would look to employ primary school teachers from the local area for the proposed opening in 2009.

"The Glenvale School has an excellent and well qualified teaching staff, none of which are members of our church," he said.

"Teachers are recruited based on their teaching ability and professional expertise."

The Exclusive Brethren says it may not need to repeat its 2005 election campaign in support of National this year, because polls are already pointing to a National victory.

Timothy Lough, an Exclusive Brethren businessman involved in the controversial 2005 leaflet campaign on behalf of the National Party, said no final decision had been made on whether to campaign again this year.

"Personally, I think things are moving in the right direction and why rock the boat? What I mean is just as far as the general polls and that go. Although things can change quickly," Lough said.

He said the Exclusive Brethren knew its involvement could be counterproductive for the National Party. "That's possibly something that we would consider. We're not thick . . . I guess you could say the climate towards us is different."

Lough said the Brethren remained concerned about the issues facing New Zealanders, with the economy the most important issue. "What we've always been interested in is prosperity for New Zealand."

A group of seven Exclusive Brethren businessmen budgeted $1.2 million for a covert leaflet campaign last election, unleashing a public relations disaster for National leader Don Brash. Brash initially denied knowledge of the leaflets, but then changed his story. Nicky Hager's book The Hollow Men later revealed there had been extensive behind-the-scenes cooperation between National and the Brethren over the leaflets.

National leader John Key said any help from the Exclusive Brethren this election would be unwelcome, and he had made that clear to his caucus.

"We'll run our own campaign and our own ship."

Last election Brethren members gave vital on-the-ground support to many National MPs' electorate campaigns, erecting billboards and delivering mailouts.

Labour has also accused Brethren groups of running organised telephone "push-polling" in six electorates in 2005, in which householders were given negative or false information about a candidate in the guise of conducting an opinion poll. In 2006 it was revealed an Exclusive Brethren member had hired a private investigator to follow Prime Minister Helen Clark and to investigate her husband Peter Davis.

Labour fury over Brethren campaigning triggered the highly controversial changes to electoral law which now tightly limit electioneering by groups that are not political parties.

Lough said that if his group did decide to campaign, it would register as a third party, as required by the Electoral Finance Act. Third parties can spend no more than $120,000 on their campaign.

Extracts:

They have escaped from a bizarre world of polygamous sex - but the girls of the West Texan sect may soon wish they could return to it, writes Tim Guest, who spent his own childhood in a notorious religious commune himself

Last Tuesday in West Texas, 416 shell-shocked children were ushered by police on to a row of yellow school buses. The kids - the girls with identical plaited hair and long, hand-sewn pastel dresses - were driven through a blue farm gate to temporary shelter 40 miles away. For many, it was the first time they had passed through those gates into the outside world.

...

The apparent horror these children have gone through seems to contradict the movement's intentions: to become perfect and self-sufficient - to "yearn for Zion" - in readiness to begin anew after the coming apocalypse. But, as I know from my own childhood, when we set out to build heaven, we also build hell.

...

Richard Wexler, of the US National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, told the Dallas Star Telegram the girls should be cared for in the same way as refugees from the fall of Saigon. "These children live in a very isolated world of their own and they have no idea of the world they suddenly find themselves in."

Yet Jill Mytton, principal lecturer in counselling psychology at London Metropolitan University, believes it may be even more traumatic. Mytton has spent time researching cults, and how to leave them. (She was born into the Exclusive Brethren, a restrictive wing of the evangelical Plymouth Brethren.) She thinks what the children are going through will be more complex than the journey of a refugee.

"People born into cults don't have any previous personality to return to," she says. "And they don't have knowledge of the outside world. A refugee is leaving a place they want to leave, but I'm not convinced these children want to leave. So they're not in control.

"I remember that lack of control very clearly. I was 16 when my parents took me out of a cult. Any structure to your life you've ever had is gone.

"You might argue that where these children were was terrible, frightening and horrendous - and it was - but it was a form of security and structure. It's absolutely right that they're taken out of it, but it's going to be a shock."

The pressures of leaving behind an entire world can take their toll. In his book Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers, Robert Snow tells of a US study of 353 former members from 48 cults. After leaving, 93 per cent reported anxiety attacks, 63 per cent had suicidal thoughts, and 23 per cent attempted suicide.

[To see the impact of Exclusive Brethren doctrine, read The Memorial Pages on this site.]

The girls will move from a life tilling the fields, quilting and hand-sewing their own clothes, to a world where even supermarkets will seem daunting. They will move from a world where the apocalypse is near, to a world where they have a future.

Perhaps they may take heart from others who have been through a similar journey. "If you grow up believing that the world is going to end, you don't ever learn to have a future, or even think about growing old," says Juliana Buhring, who escaped, aged 23, from the Children of God cult. "You have to now plan for your future. You will in fact grow old, and that's hard to imagine.

"The children leaving the compound must be terrified. In one way you're terrified of the environment you've been in, but you're also terrified of the wider world. They're probably grateful for being rescued, but traumatised. They need strong, kind people, and counselling. The outside is a dangerous place."

Juliana draws parallels from her own experiences in leaving the Children of God. "In the first year especially, these people who have been leading such old-fashioned lives will have to learn everything about how to function in society, from making a telephone call or just stepping into a shop.

"The bigger challenge is the mental challenge when you start to realise you've been fed a certain view, a kind of tunnel vision. You have to figure out what you actually believe, what you think about things, what your actual mind is - to try to siphon your real personality from your cult personality.

"A lot of my generation still struggle with their identity, with fear of people finding out about their background, that they'll be labelled 'cult babies' and the rest. Then there are the practical issues: lack of education, finding jobs. You don't have a bank account, you don't technically exist. You've never been to a hospital.

"Some of my contemporaries still have an innate fear of hospitals, police, anyone who represents authority. It was drummed into us: authority represents evil."

Juliana says that her peers who left the Children of God had to sink or swim. "Either they have become hugely successful to prove the Children of God wrong, or they have become a 'self-fulfilling prophecy', as the cult says - a drug addict, a criminal, or they die. Often, because of a lack of education, they are easy prey to predators; they fall into bad situations quickly."

I had noticed the same thing among the children who emerged from my own religious background. I asked Juliana what she thought made the difference. "One thing I've noticed is if they find one good person in the outside world, that makes all the difference in whether they succeed or not."

In the case of the children from Yearning for Zion, finding someone to trust might be tough: for many, even their grandmothers will have been born into the sect. Now they have been transported in both space and time. "They are like aliens - or we are like aliens to them," was how Helen Pfluger, a Baptist church volunteer who helped to care for the children, describes them. "It was like talking to people from 1870."

There is something about the journey from a sect to the wider world that drives people to want to share their story. Pain drives us to narrate, Freud wrote, and pain combined with such a radical world shift perhaps even more so.

My childhood, steered by my mother's devotion to Bhagwan, had a different kind of sorrow - absence, of my mother, of structure, even of the guru, who we knew mainly through his empty chair - along with its consolation, a wild kind of freedom that still energises and sabotages my adult life.

My own inheritance of abandon took me years to unravel, but writing a memoir, My Life in Orange, was crucial in helping me. After beginning with cynicism, what I found, to my surprise, was compassion, for the dream my mother and her friends tried to bring to life.

Juliana Buhring, who last year published the memoir Not Without My Sister, agrees. "Being able to write it is, in a sense, triumphing over it. You've come to terms with it, you've created what your past was. It's out of your system and you don't have to think about it."

The children leaving Zion have a long way to go. Texan police are preparing to break open the sect's vaults, looking for evidence of sexual abuse. They will bring prosecutions, hopefully convictions will be made. But the girls themselves, reportedly not even close to being placed in permanent accommodation, are at the start of a long, difficult journey.

These children will have to forage their own treacherous route to acceptance, to grow into adults and claim ownership over their wounds.

Some journeys, though, are longer and rockier than others. It took me a book to bring to life the boon and curse of my childhood: the oceans of sorrow and the long days of summer delight. That journey helped me to reach my own shakily balanced life, but I never attempted suicide.

Juliana Buhring did, more than once. "One thing that helped me, no matter how bad I had it, is there's always something worse," she says. "I do a lot of work in Africa, with ex-child soldiers. It's a matter of where you're born, circumstantially, and all you can do is make the best of it."

I asked what her advice to the girls would be. "Get an education," she said. "When I started to educate myself was when my eyes were opened to everything. That's why they don't let you get an education: because knowledge is power."

Labour President Mike Williams is calling on the Electoral Commission to abandon its policy of not pre-approving party election advertisements to avoid confusion over what will or will not count.

In a press conference ahead of the party's election-year Congress starting in Wellington today, he said that the act meant Labour would be spending less money in the election year and relying more on old-fashioned campaigning. "There's a lid on everything at the moment. At the moment we are not spending anything."

The act extended the regulated advertising period from three months before an election to start at January 1 of the election year.

He noted that the Chief Electoral Officer at the last election, David Henry, had actively engaged with candidates and parties before the election.

That included the Exclusive Brethren businessmen who sought advice from Mr Henry on how to spend $1.2 million supporting National without it counting against National's campaign expenses.

"He looked at their stuff and he said 'this is attributable and here's how you make it not attributable'."

To be fair, the Electoral Commission should do that, he said, as well as coming up with some clear determinations on what was and wasn't election advertising.

The Electoral Finance Act was passed last year to stop a repeat of similar Exclusive Brethren advertising.

Mr Williams said he would again be asking Owen Glenn for a donation despite the business magnate feeling burned by recent publicity. He had offered his resignations to Prime Minister Helen Clark for failing to reveal when questioned by a reporter that Mr Glenn had given the party a $100,000 interest-free loan.

Mr Glenn himself revealed it in a later interview and said he had given a substantial money to another undisclosed party.

Mr Glenn gave Labour $500,000 for the last election. Mr Williams said he could not anticipate what Mr Glenn's response would be: "He is what you call capricious."

The Congress will be the first public outing for Helen Clark since returning from China triumphantly with a Free Trade Agreement.

The agreement will provide an important pro-business platform for her in the event of a backlash against any decision to prevent Canadian interests buying 40 per cent of Auckland International Airport share.

It will also be an important platform for the party to parade its rejuvenated ranks with a new generation of Cabinet ministers, a slew of new candidates, and new MPs who have come in on the list to replace retiring candidates. Helen Clark makes her key address tomorrow.

It was once a top secret site used for operations during the Second World War. Now, a reclusive religious group wants to build a gospel hall at the former Ministry of Defence base in Goosnargh, near Preston.

The Exclusive Brethren, an evangelical protestant Christian church, has asked for permission to demolish a power house which used to serve an underground nuclear bunker on the Whittingham Lane base.

Planning consultants have described the sprawling site as the "ideal" location for a place of worship for the group, which encourages members to keep separate from non-members and avoid "corrupting" influences like television and computers.

It is thought there are around 150 Exclusive Brethren in the Preston area, who attend a gospel hall in Egerton Road, Ashton, and bought the MoD site last year.

Around 24 members live in Broughton, near Preston, and that number is expected to double in the next few years.

A planning statement sent to Preston Council by consultants De Pol Associates says: "The MoD site is ideally situated.It is very rare that a site of this size and in the right location becomes available."

The Whittingham Lane site's underground nuclear bunker was once used as a filter room, collecting information during the Second World War.

Planning permission was granted last year for the bunker to be turned into an eco-friendly five-bedroomed home.

The planning application will be decided by council planners under delegated powers, unless objections are received.

Rich Exclusive Brethren schools are receiving the same generous rate of government funding as the nation's poorest schools, including those in impoverished Aboriginal communities.

The Rudd Government has pledged to continue paying millions of dollars to the religious sect despite the group boasting that its students are "found in the middle to upper levels of the socio-economic group".

One of the architects of the Education Department funding scheme has told The Sunday Age that money distributed to schools at the highest rate was intended for the nation's most destitute children.

Jim McMorrow said schools funded under "category 12" were typically "the poorest schools in the lowest-income communities in the country".

"They were meant to be very, very poor, with very, very low income, and largish average class sizes," he said.

However, government documents obtained by The Sunday Age show Brethren schools in NSW and South Australia receive category 12 funding despite not meeting these criteria.

The controversial religious sect was awarded the lucrative school funding under the Keating government, according to a sect spokeswoman.

The funding deal — in which the cashed-up sect's six schools will receive $50 million in coming years — was then cemented by the Howard government and will be continued for at least the next four years by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Education Department documents also reveal that the Exclusive Brethren regarded former prime minister John Howard as their most influential supporter and ally of last resort.

In 2000, the sect's elders asked Mr Howard for special assistance on school funding because of his "sympathetic support in the past and the contact with you over the years".

Federal school funding documents show that the Brethren's multi-campus NSW school, Meadowbank, and the South Australian school, Melrose Park, were funded at the same rate as "special schools", giving them the same per-student funding as Nyangatjatjara College, in the Northern Territory, the Giant Steps school for autistic students and schools for the hearing-impaired.

The Brethren's MET school in Meadowbank does not meet the criteria for category 12 funding: it is in suburban Sydney, has small class sizes, and is financially supported by a community that boasts it has no poverty.

The sect's Victorian school, Glenvale, which has campuses at Glenroy, Lilydale and Melton, receives a lower rate of funding.

In 2004, the Brethren told then education minister Brendan Nelson that "a survey of the Brethren over past decades would establish that they are in the middle to upper levels of the socio-economic group. Any unemployment or poverty … is not left unattended."

In May 2000, four Brethren elders wrote to Mr Howard seeking federal funding for the Sydney school because of a dispute with the NSW Government.

"Because of your sympathetic support in the past … we felt compelled to bring this matter to your attention," the elders wrote.

A month later, a federal government bureaucrat wrote back to the Brethren saying, "(education minister) Dr Kemp has asked that the department consider ways in which recurrent funding may be made available"

The poverty list

Schools funded at the Category 12 or special rate in 2001-04*.

• Kulkarriya Community School, Fitzroy Crossing, WA
• The Alice Springs Steiner School, Alice Springs, NT
• Nyangatjatjara College, Yulara, NT
• Bellhaven Special School, Young, NSW
• Mansfield Autistic Centre, Mansfield, VIC
• St Gabriel's School for Hearing Impaired Children, Castle Hill, NSW
• Melrose Park School, St Marys, South Australia**
• MET School, Sydney, NSW**

* In the 2005-08 funding round, "special" schools were put on a higher rate.
** Exclusive Brethren school.

SOURCE: FEDERAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) is rejecting allegations it has breached electoral law.

Yesterday in Parliament, National's deputy leader Bill English said the CTU and other organisations were in breach of the Electoral Finance Act.

The CTU had failed to include the home address of its financial agent in its application to become a third party under the law, he said.

Registered third parties are allowed to spend more money during election year on political campaigning.

CTU president Helen Kelly said Mr English had got his facts wrong and her organisation had not broken any laws.

Ms Kelly said Mr English was confused by the requirements.

"I'm disappointed that he didn't take the time to ring and get a quick answer on this."

Mr English also accused another union - the Public Service Association - of a similar breach.

New Zealand First and Green billboards were also breaking the law, he said.

Mr English suggested the reason so many organisations that supported the Government's controversial Electoral Finance Act were breaking the law was because they considered it "absurd", or that "Labour and its mates" could break the law while everyone else had to obey it.

Justice Minister Annette King said she expected the Electoral Commission would look at any alleged breaches of the law and if Mr English had real concerns he could take them to the police.

She also wondered why Mr English did not bring up National leader John Key's promotional DVD, "that breaches every part of the Act".

Ms King accused Mr English of speaking "out of both sides of his mouth".

While he berated other parties in Parliament, National had taken a "sneaky" approach to electoral financing by getting anonymous donations before Christmas so it would not have to account for them.

The new electoral finance laws came into effect on January 1.

The Government introduced the new laws saying these were needed to counter third party campaigning, like that done by the Exclusive Brethren in support of National ahead of the last election, and large donations hidden in secret trusts.

Opponents say the new laws are an attack on free speech.

As 'Son of Rambow' prepares to wow cinema audiences, Alex Hannaford examines the Plymouth Brethren, the movement whose stringent rules shape the life of the hero.

Most of us can recall the thrill of seeing our first action-packed film. For Will Proudlock, the boy hero of the new Garth Jennings movie Son of Rambow, the effect is intensified, as his illicit viewing of a Sylvester Stallone film is his first sight of a moving picture.

Son of Rambow: ready for action

Will belongs to a Plymouth Brethren family, and listening to music, watching television or seeing films are all forbidden to members of the reclusive religious sect. Seeing Rambo is therefore a life-changing experience for Will.

The Brethren were not in Jennings's original script for the film, set in the 1980s and based on the director's own Essex childhood, and which proved a smash hit at the Sundance Film Festival. But both Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith knew something was missing.

"It's really hard to show the impact that movies can have on a kid," Jennings says, "but I lived next door to a Plymouth Brethren family for 25 years, and by moving the story next door it captured the qualities we were looking for."

Jennings has not set out to paint a bad picture of the Brethren. "No one is evil in the film, but religion is one of the things that holds this character back.

"Although we'd found our plot, it also opened up a can of worms because the Plymouth Brethren is a very secret society. Although I lived next door to them, they kept to themselves and it took a lot of investigation to find out more."

The Plymouth Brethren was started by law student John Nelson Darby in the early 1800s after he broke away from the Anglican Church in Ireland. A gathering in Plymouth, Devon, in 1832, gave the sect its name, but 10 years later, the group itself split into 'Exclusive Brethren' and 'Open Brethren' - the former being much stricter.

A relative of Jennings's taught at an Exclusive Brethren school and the director used him to build a clearer picture of life behind closed Brethren doors.

"I found out loads of little details," Jennings says. "The Exclusive Brethren shun pretty much everything that could be a distraction from serving God, including television, film, literature and pop music. They are not whacky, but they do take their beliefs very seriously and follow a strict moral code.

"When I was growing up in the 1980s, video and computers hadn't saturated our lives like they have now. It must be much harder to 'opt out' these days. You'd be constantly battling against the evils the rest of us indulge in.

"There are quite a lot of ex-Brethren, casualties I suppose, families that have been pulled apart. Once you've left that's it: if your family are still in the Brethren you're not allowed contact with them."

One example is David (not his real name), 56, who left the Exclusive Brethren in the early 1970s after a new leader began introducing stricter rules. The leader's behaviour also raised alarm bells.

"In my first 10 years the Brethren were a happy group," David says. "Friends and relatives who were non-Brethren were allowed to stay with us and we could eat with them, but in the early 1960s an American named Jim Taylor forced his way to the top and began 'separation'."

Separation meant sect members must keep away from anyone who didn't follow the Exclusive teaching. They weren't allowed to make friends or eat ("break bread") with anyone outside the church.

"Suddenly, we had to cut off any contact with our cousins," David continues. "They were dead to us. There was no cinema, no joining in with prayers at regular schools, no going round to friends' houses. It was all to do with the orders of Jim Taylor.

"In 1970, Taylor started sleeping with another sect wife. He claimed he was a pure man, but there was an Exclusive Brethren gathering in Aberdeen and he appeared on stage obviously drunk. After that there was a split in the group."

In the following two years, about 8,000 Exclusives left, but a large number remained.

"My wife and I left, but my eldest brother and some uncles and aunts stayed and cut off contact with us," says David. "Taylor effectively radicalised the Brethren. It was always strict, but he made it worse.

"My eldest brother rarely talks to me, though we live in the same town. At my father's funeral, last year, he stood 100 yards away from everyone else. If I see him in the street and he's on his own, he'll raise his hand. If his wife is with him, he'll ignore me. I'm just sad for them. They're missing out on so much."

Today, the leader of the Exclusive Brethren is an Australian, Bruce Hales, who inherited the job from his father, John. There are now about 46,000 Exclusive members worldwide.

In the early 1990s, questionnaires were sent to 300 former Exclusives around the world, 200 of which were returned completed. Of these, 76 per cent felt a sense of loss in leaving close friends behind. Half were plagued by upsetting memories of their days in the Exclusives.

A spokesperson for Peebs.net - an information website set up to 'investigate and report the truth behind the Exclusive Brethren' - says: "We've been following Son of Rambow since it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival … shame no active Exclusive Brethren will be allowed to see the movie."

That's one of the reasons why Jennings isn't worried about a potential Brethren backlash. "I don't feel conniving about it, but it is a point. They'll never see it.

"Besides, you could see our film as a statement on the corrupting power of television. I see it as something completely different - that by shutting people off from certain things, you're not really educating them.

"While it may be right for some people, it can't be right for everyone and it certainly isn't right for the boy in the film."

Son of Rambow is released on Friday

Former National leader Don Brash has dismissed a return to Parliament after being wooed to join ACT by leader Rodney Hide and founder Roger Douglas.

With Mr Hide having already secured Sir Roger for this year's election, coaxing Dr Brash on board would have been a major coup likely to slice support from National.

It is understood Mr Hide approached Dr Brash - once described as ACT's "tenth MP" despite being in National at the time - in January. Sir Roger has said he also talked to Dr Brash.

But Dr Brash said his political days were over.

"I made it clear that I was not standing for any political party. I had 4½ years of Parliament - it was a fantastic opportunity and for more than three years, I was leader of the National Party.

"We made a substantial amount of progress in rebuilding support ... John Key is the new leader, and I think he's doing a great job so no, I don't want to get back into Parliament."

Sir Roger is expected to be in the top five of ACT's list and Dr Brash would have expected a similar placing.

His reluctance to return is understandable. He had a bruising fall from grace in 2006 after the publication of e-mails suggesting he knew more about Exclusive Brethren plans to campaign for National in 2005 than he let on.

He was also tarnished in 2006 by claims of an affair with Auckland businesswoman Diane Foreman. He and his wife Je Lan separated late last year.

Dr Brash said he was now living in a one-bedroom rented apartment on Auckland's waterfront.

His arrangements are reminiscent of his account of the three years he lived alone in a tiny Glenfield flat after he left his first wife, Erica, for Je Lan in 1985.

A 2005 biography described how he would cook a slab of corned beef once a fortnight, fill the freezer with sandwich bags containing two slices of meat and each night heat it on a pot of peas.

He laughed when asked if he had returned to his corned beef diet, but declined to comment.

Extracts:

BUT it is the Twelve Tribes' attitude towards children that has proved most controversial. Harsh discipline is one of the group's central tenets, as detailed in its 267-page Child Training Manual, copies of which have been handed out to parents at Picton. Written by Spriggs, the manual codifies when, why and how to hit children, saying "you must make it hurt enough to produce the desired result" and that "stripes or marks from loving discipline show love by the parent".

Peter Baker ("Nathaniel"), an elder of the Picton community, would not answer questions about the manual. But he defends the Twelve Tribes, saying "we are devoted believers in Jesus Christ". Baker, who came to the Twelve Tribes from the Exclusive Brethren, says no staff get paid, explaining that members "work only for love, like the disciples of old". They don't vote, he says, "because we look forward to the Kingdom of God coming to Earth, so we don't involve ourselves with government business". As for the sticks, "we have found them to be more effective than wooden spoons."

Yet others say the community is a law unto itself. "Once, when I was making some food in the kitchen, I saw an eight-month-old boy being repeatedly hit with a stick for 40 minutes by his mother," George, a former member from Picton, says. "All because the kid kept dropping a lid that she'd given him."

David Pike, a former member from the tribe of Mannasah, in the US, told of seeing a two-year-old "switched" for eight hours "because she didn't want to eat a bowl of millet, which is what they eat all the time. I also saw young boys who couldn't sleep on their backs because their buttocks were so welted and bloody."

The group has been embroiled in several high-profile scandals overseas, with members in the US recently convicted of child-sex offences and child labour violations. In 2000 two members in France were sentenced to six years in jail for negligence after their 19-month-old son died of malnutrition.

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National MP Nick Smith says he is facing financial ruin as a result of a long-running defamation case against him by the local subsidiary of an American multinational timber company.

Osmose New Zealand is seeking $14.7 million each from Smith and scientist Dr Robin Wakeling, claiming comments the two men made damaged its business.

It is the fifth time Smith has faced a defamation suit. In 1993, he was sued for defamation by the Exclusive Brethren for $4m, in a case that was settled out of court without Smith having to pay the church money.

Disgraced Wellington lawyer Bruce Carran sued him in the 1990s for defamation, in a case that never went to court. In 2001, Smith said he had to take a second mortgage out on his house to defend himself against a $75,000 suit by Inland Revenue critic Dave Henderson.

And in 2004, Smith made an out of court settlement with West Coast conservationist Bruce Stuart-Menteath over a defamation action.

In 2004 Smith was convicted of contempt of court after publicising details of a Family Court case, and fined $5000.

(Bold added)