Within months of leaving parliament, former health minister Greg Hunt started working for a Plymouth Brethren-linked company whose owners won $135 million in government contracts for COVID supplies.<\/p>\n
It was the first of three companies linked to senior Brethren figures in Australia and New Zealand that have engaged Mr Hunt as a board adviser, at a time when the church has fostered closer links to the Liberals.<\/p>\n
The Sydney-based church, which has been described by former members and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a “cult”, is supported by a business empire which includes more than 3,000 companies around the world.<\/p>\n
Members of the Plymouth Brethren are restricted from socialising with non-Brethren, women are blocked from almost all leadership positions and those who leave the church are shunned and blocked from speaking with their family.<\/p>\n
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Brethren members outside a Sydney “meeting hall”. The church has 55,000 members worldwide. (Four Corners: Briana Fiore)<\/p>\n
While their campaigning for Liberal candidates<\/a> at recent elections has put the group in the spotlight, their networking with senior Liberals has drawn less focus.<\/p>\n Hunt the adviser<\/p>\n As health minister in the Morrison government, Mr Hunt oversaw Australia’s strategy and response to the COVID-19 pandemic before leaving parliament in May 2022.<\/p>\n Early the following year he began advisory work for Connected Global, whose owners are close to the family of Bruce Hales, the leader of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church.<\/p>\n Mr Hunt now advises three Brethren-linked companies. (Getty Images: Asanka Ratnayake)<\/p>\n Connected Global’s owners and directors, Gavin and Russell Grace and other Grace family members, also run Westlab, a pathology supply company.<\/p>\n Westlab reported $54.1 million in COVID contracts with the health department while Mr Hunt was health minister.<\/p>\n In the 11 months after Mr Hunt retired from politics in May 2022, the company received another $80.8 million in COVID contracts with the department.<\/p>\n Bruce Hales, who is an accountant as well as being the Brethren’s spiritual leader, acted as an auditor for Westlab. Westlab sourced rapid antigen tests via a company controlled by two of Hales’s sons.<\/p>\n The leader of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, Bruce Hales (standing at microphone). (Supplied)<\/p>\n A spokesman for Mr Hunt said that after an approach in December 2022, the former health minister began working one day a month for Connected Global.<\/p>\n “Mr Hunt had no dealings, meetings, contact or engagement with the companies or individuals you raise while minister nor any decisions relating to them,” the spokesman said.<\/p>\n In regard to COVID-19 contracts “all decisions on procurement were made solely by the Australian public service”, he said. The Australian National Audit Office 2021 reviews “expressly confirmed that procurement was managed exclusively by the APS with no ministerial involvement”.<\/p>\n “Mr Hunt’s advisory roles began well after leaving office and explicitly rule out lobbying. There is therefore no conflict of any form nor could there be.”<\/p>\n Since last year Mr Hunt has spent an additional day a month in total working as board adviser to the Arconn design group in Sydney and Expedite Design in Auckland, both linked to senior Brethren figures.<\/p>\n Donations and volunteering<\/p>\n The Plymouth Brethren are facing fresh scrutiny over their role in the federal election in May, which is expected to be a major focus of a parliamentary inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, chaired by Labor’s Jerome Laxale.<\/p>\n “It felt like an assault on democracy,” Mr Laxale told Four Corners.<\/p>\n “It felt like they were there to buy the election \u2015 the amount of money that was being spent in some seats was extraordinary.<\/p>\n “This is not a standard that Australians want repeated ever again.”<\/p>\n Jerome Laxale says many Brethren members were campaigning for the Liberals in his seat. (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)<\/p>\n For the first time, Four Corners can confirm that members of the church have been major donors to the Coalition.<\/p>\n Three days before the 2022 federal election, as Brethren volunteers campaigned for Liberal candidates, electoral records show that a South Australian company, Voltex Electrical Associates, donated $115,000 to the Liberal Party.<\/p>\n Two months earlier, Bruce Hales was appointed auditor to the Voltex group. A Hales family member works for Voltex.<\/p>\n The owner of Voltex is involved in the Brethren’s South Australian church.<\/p>\n Brethren members have volunteered on Liberal campaigns despite traditionally being discouraged from voting. File photo (Four Corners)<\/p>\n Despite traditionally being discouraged from voting, at the last election Brethren members were reportedly being brought to seats around the country to volunteer for the Coalition.<\/p>\n During the campaign Anthony Albanese said the involvement of members of the “cult” needed to be explained.<\/p>\n “Where are all these people coming from?” he said.<\/p>\n “They don’t vote, by the way, but they all of a sudden have found this enthusiasm in their hundreds to travel around the country, to hand out how to votes. What’s the quid pro quo there?”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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