Scientology in Australia
[5] As early as 1950, Dianetics was mentioned in Australia as "the latest craze in Hollywood"[6] and the "Hubbard sub-mind method" was explained under the heading "World of Science".
[7] However, this also meant Hubbard, founder of the Dianetics Mental Health movement, was also newsworthy when his wife said he was "hopelessly insane" in their divorce case and this was reported in several major papers.
[14] Through its group Citizens Commission on Human Rights, the Church of Scientology is active in the media about what it claims are the dangers of psychiatric drugs and the treatment of ADHD and has arranged at least one anti-psychiatry exhibition in Australia.
[15] The Church of Scientology, through its group Narconon, has run an anti-drug campaign in dozens of schools in Melbourne, giving presentations and handing out brochures.
[17] Some children at the school are involved in Scientology community outreach programs operating under different names, including Drug Free Ambassadors.
In a New York Times review, Janet Maslin wrote "... Mr. Morton has found a number of former Scientologists who are willing to speak freely, and in some cases vengefully, about the group's purported inner workings.
Maslin added that Morton "provides a credible portrait extrapolated from the actor's on-the-record remarks and highly visible public behavior.
"[24] Writing in Entertainment Weekly, Mark Harris gave the book a grade of "C−", and said "Cruise emerges from Morton's takedown moderately scratched but as uncracked as ever.
"[27] Budasi summed up her impression of the work, writing that "Morton's book is as much an indictment on Cruise's chosen faith as it is the life story of one of the world's biggest movie stars.
"[27] In a review in The Buffalo News, Jeff Simon wrote of the author: "To give Morton the credit he's clearly due: he is one of the best around at constructing a 250-page gossip column.
Giving testimony at the Anderson Report inquiry in 1964 he stated that "Since 1961 he had been increasingly concerned by information reaching the Mental Health Authority about people paying large sums of money for 'Scientology' courses.
[31] In November 1963, John Galbally, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council "accused the scientology movement of using blackmail and intimidation" which he said "could lead to suicides".
The very adriotness – and alacrity – with which the tenets or structure were from time so cynically adapted to meet a deficiency thought to operate in detraction of the claim to classification as a religion serve to rob the movement of that sincerity and integrity that must be cardinal features of any religious faith".
[37] Anderson's tone was strident, but offered in his own defence: If there should be detected in this Report a note of unrelieved denunciation of scientology, it is because the evidence has shown its theories to be fantastic and impossible, its principles perverted and ill-founded, and its techniques debased and harmful.
[...] While making an appeal to the public as a worthy system whereby ability, intelligence and personality may be improved, it employs techniques which further its real purpose of securing domination over and mental enslavement of its adherents.
[38]In Victoria this inquiry led to a ban and was legislated in the Psychological Practices Act, 1965, which prohibited using an E-meter or teaching Scientology for fee or reward.
However, it exempted any religious denomination recognised by the Australian government under the federal Marriage Act since it used a definition of psychology broad enough to include the counselling traditionally done by priests and ministers of religion.
The question which the parties resolved to litigate must be taken to be whether the beliefs, practices and observances which the general group of adherents accept is a religion.Justice Murphy said: Conclusion.
With due respect to Crockett J. and the members of the Full Supreme Court who reached a contrary conclusion, it seems to us that there are elements and characteristics of Scientology in Australia, as disclosed by the evidence, which cannot be denied.
"[56] Forensic psychiatrist Dr Alan Bartholomew presented evidence at the Inquest concerning Scientology's testing of gunman Frank Vitkovic.
[58] The coroner also noted the day before coming into the Church of Scientology Vitkovic was prescribed "appropriate medication" for stress related headaches and hypertension.
An alternative interpretation of events is provided by the director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, Adam Graycar: In his diary, Vitkovic also confided this advice "Look for people with a history of rejection, loneliness and ill treatment who also have a fascination with guns and you won’t go wrong".
The inquest exposed the tortured mind of a young man who saw himself as a failure, inadequate and lonely, tormented by violent fantasies and finally suffused with hatred.
Australian Greens senators Sarah Hanson-Young, Scott Ludlam and Rachel Siewert joined Xenophon, Milne and Brown in voting for the motion.
[70] The effect of tabling the report was to enter the Church of Scientology's response to senators Xenophon, Christine Milne and Bob Brown, in full, into Hansard, the permanent public record of the Parliament of Australia.
[71][72] In April, Xenophon had visited Malaysia to independently observe an anti-government protest known as the Bersih 3.0 rally and had also made his support for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim known to the public.
The NSW education minister, Verity Firth, warned all the state's primary schools after a DVD was distributed about a Scientology organisation called Youth for Human Rights.
[74] In February 2013, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television program, Lateline, accused the Church of Scientology of holding a Taiwanese woman, Alice Wu, in isolation at a Sydney property after she suffered an extreme mental breakdown.
[75] On 3 January 2019, a 16-year-old boy stabbed two people at the Church of Scientology's Advanced Organization and Saint Hill ANZO in Chatswood, Sydney.
It is internally illuminated by 150 special display lamps synchronised to create a stylised simulation of lava flowing down the sides of the volcano.
