Elect Vessels Make No Sound

The Age

Thursday September 21, 2006

IT IS more the stuff of a mystery novel than organised religion. Nocturnal meetings, guards lurking in the shadows to repel intruders, faceless leaders - this is the twilight world of the Exclusive Brethren, which certainly takes the first word of its name as gospel.

Exclusive, but also secretive. This wealthy international sect, whose supreme leader is known as the "Elect Vessel", is all the more mysterious for its doctrines. The brethren forbids (among other things) mobile phones, public entertainment, contraception, abortion, or voting - the last of these being possibly the most irreconcilable, given the brethren's reputation for subsiding election advertising heavily critical of the Greens and Labor. The elections in Tasmania and New Zealand are examples.

As this newspaper revealed on Tuesday, the brethren held talks with the leader of The Nationals in Victoria, Peter Ryan, to determine his conservative social policies before November's state election. Although the brethren denies knowledge of these talks, Mr Ryan says he met a four-member delegation, but does not intend to accept their funding.

On Tuesday night, The Age was turned away from a meeting of hundreds of the sect's members at its main hall in Pascoe Vale: no entry without an appointment and interview. The brethren did not wish to identify any of its Victorian leaders, and one of its elders, Athol Greene (father-in-law of Elect Vessel Bruce Hales), described our questions as "over my head".

Privacy is one thing; obsessive secrecy another. In truth, here is a rich, conservative and ambitious religious organisation prepared to put its money where its mouth isn't: to attempt to influence a democratic process its own beliefs outlaw. Those who do vote have every right to know exactly what the Exclusive Brethren stands for.