As the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church continues to deny allegations of involvement in the 2025 federal election, Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale claims this does not stack up with the “outpouring of evidence” he has encountered.
What happened: In September last year, Labor’s Jerome Laxale was appointed to head an inquiry into the 2025 election, investigating a purported increase in aggressive conduct and intimidating behaviour at polling stations.
Nearly a year later, Laxale interviewed Lloyd Grimshaw, the director of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, last Friday.
The brethren: Plymouth Brethren Christian Church is a sect of evangelical Christians. Much of the inquiry has centred around the church and allegations of its involvement in the 2025 election, something the church adamantly denies.
What they said: Laxale told the Lorikeet Grimshaw’s testimony left him with “more questions than answers”.
While the church made an official submission to the inquiry denying its involvement in the 2025 election, last week the inquiry found that this submission was made by the entity of the church — essentially, its upper administrative body — rather than the church in its entirety.
Laxale expressed frustration at this, calling it a “very narrow definition”.
“When they claim that the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church made no donations and did not support any political party, they are talking about that small entity”.
He claimed the evidence he has heard so far has shown a “significant presence of members of the church” across the North Shore, in both Bradfield and Bennelong.
“Essentially in every target Liberal seat, you saw this aggressiveness that was more than society expects at elections”.
The Lorikeet asked the church whether they disputed this.
Acting as a spokesperson, Grimshaw said “as is their democratic right, some individual citizens who are members of our church did get involved in the 2025 election, however they did so under their own steam and in their own name, not our church’s”.
The inquiry’s focus on the church has drawn criticism from the Coalition, who in an interim report claimed it had been “reduced to a partisan witch hunt of Australians based on their religious faith”.
When asked about these comments, Laxale said the committee was following the evidence and terms of reference set out for the inquiry.
“We've received 360 submissions, over 80 of them specifically reference the Brethren. You can't ignore that evidence, right?”
In the hearing, Grimshaw dismissed these submissions for either being anonymous, from Labor-associated figures or “anti-church activists”.
What now: The committee's work is not yet finished. Laxale said it would have a final set of recommendations for the government by the end of November.