Dear health minister,
Just a quick note to pass on the appreciation of countless people who (I am told) are celebrating the church rehabilitation industry’s coming demise.
Those are the precise words one of my closest sources used after hearing that you had called for an urgent briefing on how and why the Morrison government funded the Pentecostal-linked Esther Foundation and the one80TC rehab facility which has very close ties to Hillsong church.
It will indeed be interesting to see how the Morrison government’s processes worked and what it tells us about the integrity — or lack thereof — in how it dispensed public money through the Health Department.
And what of the role of bureaucrats? Sports rorts we know about. Rehab rorts? That’s a whole other chapter.
I know you are calling for information from your department but there are some things they might not be aware of, which is why I am writing. I only found out these things after our stories were published last week.
The new information might just give you the ammunition to ask: what role did the Morrison Pentecostals have in allocating close to $2 million in taxpayers funds to the one80TC rehab facility? And how in heaven’s name did the Australian taxpayer ever get dragooned into paying for it? And how did one80TC’s activities ever get called rehab?
In my stories last week I danced around the question of how closely the one80TC rehab facility was tied to Hillsong Church. Jacob Harrison, who spoke to us for our stories, called one80TC “a Hillsong indoctrination centre with a mild interest in rehab“. (Harrison had landed into rehab at one80TC direct from a psychiatric ward and found himself washing Brian Houston’s car as a “volunteer”.) Frankly I didn’t appreciate how right he was.
Another source has since pointed me in the right direction. It emerges that the Hillsong Foundation (which supports the church’s outreach works in Australia and overseas — in Africa, for example) donates about $300,00 to $400,000 a year to one80TC.
According to the source it is a “feature recipient” every year in Hillsong’s Heart for the House Appeal, held each June to drum up donations.
Most interesting is a report which gives the metrics on Hillsong’s donation to one80TC, which it describes as a “Christ-centred organisation” which is “more than just a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program”.
“It’s been an exciting year for one80TC, with 80 salvations, 37 baptisms in 2022 alone, and eight of our ex-one80TC students choosing to stay on for our graduate program, where they volunteer with the ministry for 12 months after completing the program,” it says.
Eighty “salvations” and 37 baptisms? And we are not even halfway through the year.
As my source points out, Hillsong records these numbers as if the success of the rehab program is based on whether or not you become a Christian.
Essentially, my Hillsong source says, it means the church is “buying” conversions by taking advantage of people at their most vulnerable. (Their words, not mine.)
The one80TC coffee lounge, held after each Sunday evening service at Hillsong’s Hills campus, is apparently run purely by volunteers and is the only time and place where the “inmates” are allowed to see their families. So basically, my source concludes, the families of one80TC rehab residents are also being forced to attend Hillsong Church so they can also be “brainwashed”.
I know also that one80TC is signed up to the idea that the most common underlying cause of addiction is childhood trauma which, they say, includes abuse and “fatherlessness”.
One80TC quotes one Bill Muehlenberg as the authority on fatherlessness (rarely talked about in Australia, the facility says) and cites his paper, “The Facts on Fatherlessness”, which he prepared for the Fatherhood Foundation of the Australian Family Association in 2002.
Muehlenberg is a conservative evangelical writer with a large following. According to the Christian news site Eternity News he is “concerned with the shift in culture away from the traditional family, as well as loss of freedom of speech, and the rise of the progressive left”.
“But rather than a solution in politics, he places his hope in revival,” the site reported when he was cancelled by Facebook.
If you peel back the layers you find, too, that the Australian Family Association is a creature of the socially conservative National Civic Council, established by BA Santamaria. (But you probably knew that.)
Minister, this is not the kind of intel you might get from departmental officials who, I suggest, are not likely to have ever set foot inside one80TC or Hillsong Church.
But can they answer the simple question: what is the rationale for giving public money to a rehab facility which measures its success by the number of souls it saves for Christ? Did Scott Morrison or any other government member hijack the grants assessment process? To what end?
Looking forward to the outcome of your inquiries.
Excellent investigative journalism, David. This what it used to look like, before Murdoch, politicians and vested interests corrupted it. Now, relaying diversion and talking points from those same vested interests seems the norm. And to be clear, my concern is the cavalier attitude of Government to spending our money.
And to continue on with the financial aspects. The church is likely to further benefit financially through those conversions, because if the converts become fully fledged church members, they then tithe their income. So, it’s easy to think that it’s quite a profitable process: government funded conversions, through an institution that seems to rely a lot on volunteer labour, to harvest a crop of people willing to give 10% of their income. All while the more affluent members of the church spout platitudes about outreach, rehabilitation and creating good.
no doubt there’s a graph or chart somewhere that plots the Convert Lifetime Value (CLV) – a measure of the average convert’s revenue generated over their entire relationship with the church
A very lucrative BUSINESS.
You’d be surprised. Even the established denominations do something like this: estimated income of parishioners, tracking against how much is expected and how much is actually given. All possible because of online giving.
Pyramid scheme writ large. We need a full audit and if necessary claw back from the multi million Hilssong empire.
More akin to a Ponzi, as investing in the cult will reap dividends in the afterlife.
“And so it begins!” A phrase often used when this type of religious/social/political fraud is discovered but unfortunately more often than not the participants and patrons (old boys networks) close together to protect the entities involved, and themselves. Maybe an investigation or even a royal commission is put in place, but these turn into a game of street soccer kicking the can down the street.
As for the separation of the three pillars of democracy, the same principle should be applied to society. Particularly as one of the pillars consist of victims who have been indoctrinated into various sects since childhood and another driven by self-interest groups such as ‘Big’ business, minor self-interested political parties and the odd radical trade union. The responsible pillar, our public service which carries responsibility to ensure this does not happen has been much more than decimated – but maligned and hog-tied by those same who are enablers of these rorts. Rort is a rather weak word in this situation.
If I started worshipping the flower fairies at the bottom of my garden and tried to convince those around me to do the same as per the fairies requirements – I’d probably end up in an institution of some sort. Why does the same not apply to mainstream religions which believe in magical imaginary deities?
Trying to convince others of anything is one thing – boring, but no big deal.
Being able to enforce obedience to an idea on others opinion is the sole prerogative of organised religion and usually endorsed by the state because it makes people obedient.
Unfortunately for Australia, there is no separation of church and state in our Constitution. Only s116 which provides for non-discrimination on the basis of religion. So if a government wants to roll out a faith based policy program, as long as they don’t call it anything to do with faith, it’s all ok.
In essence, as we have just witnessed, the church, through its proxies, can run the state.
Your last paragraph, while I agree with it, is vexed. One writer on this news site, identifies as a Semite. I am not sure whether Semitism is a faith, culture, tribe, or all three. Same could be said for the other Abrahamic faiths. It’s time to relegate them to community group status and take away the power of the status of religion. Start with making religious institutions pay tax.
Good story btw David. Keep the pressure on.
Without a federal ICAC, there’s a limit to how much pressure any journalist can apply, because the story has nowhere to go.
But if the new government does what it says it would do, there will be a federal ICAC in the new year, 2023, and David Hardaker’s story will have somewhere to go.
I remember Queensland in the 1980s. It was diligent journalism that brought down the bjelke Peterson government and led to the first state CMC.
Actually, nowadays you probably wouldn’t be placed in an institution if you worshipped flower fairies. If you aren’t a danger to yourself or others you probably wouldn’t be detained just because you are delusional.
Good riddance to the loathsome happy clapper Liar From the Shire. Australia, have a bloody good look at yourself for electing such a fraud to the office of PM and ensure you don’t do anything as stood as that again!
Gotta laugh that their KPI’s are conversions and baptisms of broken people trying to come to grips with their lives. If they were serious their real KPI’s would be the numbers they get thru the pearly gates. Trouble is we dont get the stats on entries to heaven or hell. Thats because they dont exist. Which they know but there is money in the scam so they have to keep it going.