When a Liberal senator, I was asked by the party to meet with some ‘business people’. Nobody told me they were Brethren

October 8, 2026 — 5:00am

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In the final weeks of the 2025 federal election campaign, as chair of three Liberal campaigns in Western Australia, I was asked by a senior party official to meet two men described to me as small business people who wanted to assist local federal campaigns.

I was not told they were members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. However, I had met Brethren members previously in the course of my political work and recognised them from that prior experience. They offered campaign assistance and during the discussion sought confidential campaign financial information and individual logins to Feedback, the Liberal Party’s voter-contact system, so they could conduct telephone canvassing from their own premises. Feedback contains electoral-roll data and information recorded through contact with voters. As a former deputy federal director of the party, I was not prepared to authorise unsupervised access of that kind and refused their requests.

When I raised my concerns with party officials, I was assured the relevant party liaison would “turn off” all involvement in my three campaigns. I understood that to mean their participation would cease. I was also requested not to refer to them as Brethren.

The 2025 election was tough and volunteers were scarce. There was a temptation not to look a gift horse in the mouth. But that made it more important, not less, to know who was helping, what they wanted in return, if anything, and who had facilitated the support.

The Plymouth Brethren Christian Church is a tightly-knit........

© The Sydney Morning Herald