Gaslighting on a biblical scale: Brethren evidence about election antics doesn’t match reality

October 17, 2026 — 4:00am

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The Liberal Party, the Exclusive Brethren, its “Man of God” Bruce Hales, and various tub-thumping evangelists like Turning Point USA and Freedom for Faith want to suggest that seeking information about the Brethren’s electoral activism in 2025 is a threat to religious freedom in Australia.

Even they can’t possibly believe this.

A reminder: thousands of Brethren members wearing blue Liberal T-shirts paired with shorts or netball skirts fresh out of the packet campaigned for the Liberal and National parties last year. The only reasonable conclusion is that this was a highly co-ordinated effort by both the Brethren and the Coalition to sway an election.

As former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds wrote in this masthead, even if local Liberal campaigns didn’t want these campaigners, they got a bunch anyway, thanks to orders from her party’s head office and organisation by Brethren elders.

Brethren members who knew nothing about politics were rostered at polling booths, flown around the country so nobody recognised them locally, put up in hotel rooms en masse and schooled to describe themselves simply as “concerned business people” – all in the service of a Peter Dutton victory.

Even more secretively, far-right figures, including those with neo-Nazi links, met Brethren businessmen, carrying around a duffel bag full of Brethren cash, and stalking and heckling left-leaning politicians with lines some of which were supplied by Brethren elders.

These plots were hatched by those........

© Brisbane Times