Answer: these three politicians came into contact with the Exclusive Brethren and have suffered political damage as a result.
Don Brash and John Howard are now history, but Kevin Rudd currently remains the Prime Minister of Australia. Will Rudd manage to retain his role in the next Australian General Election? Time will tell, but the informed media are sharpening their swords over a mounting list of unfathomable decisions that simply do not add up. Of greater import perhaps is the ‘chatter’ from members of the Australian electorate who are the final arbiters in the future of any politician.
For example, consider the voices of those who have objected to the seeming duplicity in Keven Rudd’s decision to allow over $70 million to be paid to the Exclusive Brethren school system in Australia. It is almost mystifying to watch the man who had the courage in late 2007 to call the Exclusive Brethren what they are – “an extremist cult and sect … who break up families” – and then just two years later, to fork out an almost obscenely disproportionate contribution to the school system blatantly designed by the cult for the cult.
These are not schools aimed at producing well-rounded citizens of the countries and communities in which they are located. They serve one main purpose –
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Who says Public Relations firms are ineffectual?
The news that Daniel Hales, brother to the Exclusive Brethren leader Bruce D. Hales, is to present a paper at the ICSA Annual Conference in New York in early July 2010 marks a new step in a carefully choreographed transformation.
Daniel Hales has lived in the shadow of his younger brother since not being selected as a suitable leader of the EB following the death of their father John S. Hales in 2002. Always heavily involved in the business and monetary aspects of the cult, he has nevertheless been carefully groomed over the past several years by Jackson Wells (http://www.jacksonwells.com.au/), the EB’s Public Relations Agency, to act as a spokesman for the group.
Several spokesmen have come and gone since Bruce Hales gained control in 2002. Due to the reluctance (some say inability) of Bruce Hales to face the media, a series of personalities have attempted to divert attention away from what many view as firm evidence of cultic behavior. Indeed, the Exclusive Brethren were recently described by current Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as “an extremist cult and sect” who went on to state that he believed “they break up families“.
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November 21st, 2009
The impact of Australian senator Nick Xenophon’s comments in Canberra this week regarding the Scientology ‘church’ should not be under-estimated.
First there is the man. Nick Xenophon is an independant and carries no party allegience. His 400BC namesake was also a soldier as well as a respected historian. Nick has a background in law and is a resourceful and intelligent political warrior. Several are noting that the modern-day Xenophon seems to have a strategy in his carefully worded attack against the ‘religion’ of Scientology.
“There are a couple of things to know about Nick Xenophon. The first is that the independent senator from Adelaide has a genius for publicity. He’s a hustler par excellence. The second is he’s rationing his tabloid impulses in Canberra. Xenophon’s record to date suggests he’s opting for strategy rather than sensation; picking his political fights, not going at everything like a bull at a gate.”
This is not a ‘flash in the pan’. Xenophon has been planning his attack for some time:
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Inside New Zealand: How To Spot A Cult
A two-part documentary that investigates the Exclusive Brethren and other cults is due to air in New Zealand next week. The first part of ‘Inside New Zealand: How To Spot A Cult’ is due to be broadcast on November 25th and the conclusion December 2nd.
Ever since Kevin Rudd, now the Australian Prime Minister stated clearly that the Exclusive Brethren are “… an extremist sect and cult”, the media have correctly portrayed this little-known religious group as one of the more destructive and dangerous cults.
Inside New Zealand: How To Spot A Cult gives viewers an intimate view of what life is like inside groups that some former followers say are cults operating in New Zealand.
“These former members have consistent stories about how the different organisations actually work,” explains producer Gary Scott, “and the techniques they say were used to control them, even though the belief systems can be miles apart.”
The recent Exclusive Brethren sex abuse case in New Zealand is likely to feature, together with details of the destructive foray into politics that marked the early leadership of Australian Bruce D. Hales.
The two-part documentary consists of ex-believers’ stories, and investigates the similarities they say exist between groups including the Exclusive Brethren, Scientology, Centrepoint, Gloriavale, Avatar and the International Church of Christ.
The following letter was written by the peebs.net Community to Jackson Wells, Public Relations Consultants to the Exclusive Brethren. It summarizes the Exclusive Brethren today and provides many important insights into the cult. We reproduce it in full.
Jackson Wells recently signed up another group that many would consider fall into the same category as the Exclusive Brethren, The Church of Scientology in Australia.
The Exclusive Brethren and the Church of Scientology – like any other religious organisations, and especially those who are unjustly pursued by the more rabid elements of the mass media – are entitled to seek advice about how they should communicate. That’s what we offer, and that should be the end of the matter.
KEITH JACKSON, chairman, Jackson Wells
Mr Benjamin Haslem
Jackson Wells Pty Ltd
PO Box 1743
Neutral Bay NSW 2089
June 30th, 2009
Dear Mr Haslem
We wish to respond to your recent article in the web publication “The Well”, Issue 36, Autumn 2009, entitled “Into the Light: understanding the Exclusive Brethren”.
Whilst the above title implies that your brief is to shine some much-needed light onto the activities of the Exclusive Brethren, we believe that this is the last thing they would want. Until recently, they have always preferred to keep a low profile, with good reason. Instead, it appears that they wish to counteract their negative image from the public scrutiny they have attracted in recent times – purely through their own actions – by engaging your company to create a “positive spin”. Unfortunately, even a company of your stature will have great difficulty in achieving this objective.
We take issue with your assertion that “outrageous and false claims” have been leveled against the Brethren by “mostly tabloid” media outlets and a “handful of disaffected former Church members”. Firstly, we are surprised that you regard serious newspapers such as “The Age” and “The Australian” (your former employer) as tabloid. Secondly, the contemptuous term “handful” is nonsense, and sounds suspiciously like part of a previously reported statement of a Brethren spokesman.
We are a community of people, most of whom have intimate knowledge and personal experience of the Exclusive Brethren doctrine of extreme separation, which has caused many hundreds of families worldwide to be torn apart over the past 50 years. As a result, people have been forced to spend the rest of their lives apart from their families, with all the pain and trauma that that entails. Some have even been driven to suicide, as the following link shows:
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Are Jackson Wells now writing Exclusive Brethren advertisements for teachers in their schools? Surely we are not alone in recognising certain phrases and the old familiar half-truths and hidden meanings. Below is a July 2nd advert for a teacher in an Exclusive Brethren school in Australia. The EB are looking for a ‘teacher of Business and VET based Accountancy’ (a highly honored profession among the Brethren).
It is quite striking how impossible it is to tell that this is an Exclusive Brethren ad! This brings back memories of those notorious political smear leaflets – possibly the main difference between those and the advertisment below is that the address here is probably real!
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Examples of media attention focused on the Exclusive Brethren are very hard to find in the United States. The ability of the group that Kevin Rudd, now the Australian Prime Minister, described as “an extremist cult and sect” to “fly under the radar” is well-known. Peebs.Net, has attempted to ‘pull back the covers’ since the site started in May 2004. As you might imagine, this process has not been encouraged!
Unlike the USA, most citizens of Australia and New Zealand know of the Exclusive Brethren and of their track record in recent years. Perhaps the closest the US press came to looking at this “dangerous group” in any detail was following the secretive activities surrounding the ‘Thanksgiving 2004 Committee’, a political 527 group that funded pro- G.W. Bush advertisements in various US papers during the last president’s second run for office in 2004.
Today in Burlington, Vermont a news article appears that shows signs that this lack of exposure might change. The Burlington Free Press describes what it calls a ‘Contentious Lawsuit’ that has been raging in the New England state since early 2007.
As far as Peebs.Net is concerned, it is vital to maintain Truth and therefore, it is interesting to note how quickly the Exclusive Brethren resort to the smear tactics that has brought them increasing negative press exposure in Australia and New Zealand.
It is estimated that there are now over 46,000 Exclusive Brethren members worldwide, with as many as 10,000 located in USA. The closest North American Exclusive Brethren gatherings to Vermont are Boston, MA and Montreal, Quebec.
Secretive worldwide sect battles Vermonter in court
The Burlington Free Press, USA
By Sam Hemingway
Free Press Staff Writer
April 5, 2009
Timothy Twinam of Williston says he just wants to tell the truth about what’s really going on inside the Exclusive Brethren, a well-heeled, reclusive evangelical Christian group with 43,000 members around the world.
“This is a very closed group,” said Twinam, 54, a native of Great Britain. “They don’t circulate much with people, and over the years they’ve become ever more exclusive and cultish.”
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The United Kingdom’s Church Times recently interviewed Rod Thomas, chairman of Reform. Reform is described by Rod as:
Rod Thomas is one of many who have tasted what it is like to live within the Exclusive Brethren:
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Leaving it opened up life in a way it hadn’t been opened before. I came out with the rest of my family, except my father. He was later excluded — probably for not being able to control his family. When you see these things happening, you know it has nothing to do with Christian love, nothing to do with standing firm in the faith.
The Peebs.Net Forums are full of stories that demonstrate the truth in Mr. Thomas’s remarks. Like many who have rediscovered that there can be enjoyment in their faith, Rod states:
I hope the first impression of my church is that it’s joyful and friendly. People say that. Emphasis on the Bible’s teaching is at the centre, and we’re in the process of change. We were a small church, now we’re a medium-sized church, and I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to change and grow.
Many will recall the words that Kevin Rudd, now Prime Minister of Australia used to describe the Exclusive Brethren in late 2007:
“I believe that this [the Exclusive Brethren] is an extremist cult and sect,” he said. “I also believe that it breaks up families.”
Web: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/22/2012097.htm
Rod Thomas confirms this opinion during the interview:
Being in the Exclusive Brethren and seeing the destructive effect it has on families has given me a lifelong love of the tolerance you find in the Church of England. Leaving was an important choice. So was marriage, and finding a church which taught me the Bible. And, of course, becoming ordained.
Read the rest of the interview:
Church Times
Interview: Rod Thomas chairman of Reform
by Terence Handley MacMath
Web: http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=68164&print=1
‘Firestorm: Black Saturday’s Tragedy’ and the familiar sound of Exclusive Brethren silence
Frequently, it is what the Exclusive Brethren do not say that speaks loudest.
Many will recall the first cult smear advertising that first hit the streets in New Zealand in 2005. Later, Australia suffered the same influx of brochures, pamphlets and handouts. They all had one thing in common - the group behind the material was never mentioned.
Rather than provide any normal route to identity, the Exclusive Brethren intentionally obfuscate their publications. When you consider the way they hide their tracks, this is perhaps understandable: false addresses, misleading names, even the business premises of their unsuspecting tenants … One thing is constant, the name of the Taylorite / Symington / Hales Exclusive Brethren never appears.
9/11 and now 'Black Saturday'
And now, in perhaps their most cynical effort todate, they use their own children in an effort to extract money from a public for whom they care nothing and even seemingly entrap a Prime Minister who has publicly declared them an “extremist cult” to assist them. And their public relations lever? The killer bush fires that swept across Victoria in southern Australia during February, less than a year ago.
‘ Firestorm: Black Saturday’s Tragedy‘ is published by Dennis Jones & Associates of Byswater, Victoria, Australia and there is even a website dedicated to the PR cause: http://www.blacksaturdaysfirestorm.com.au
The Glenvale School is an Exclusive Brethren school – one of those campuses that is set to receive some of the over $70 million hand-out authorized by Kevin Rudd over the next two years:
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