Scientology in Australia - Banning and Legal Status

Banning and Legal Status

See also: Scientology status by country

Government criticism of the Church of Scientology was begun by a Victorian public servant, Dr Eric Cunningham Dax.

Based on the findings of the 1965 Anderson Inquiry, to which Dax contributed, the Church of Scientology was restricted from forming under that name in Australia. The ban in Victoria lasted from 1965 until 1973, in South Australia from 1968 to 1973 and in Western Australia from 1968 until 1972. As a response to the banning of Scientology in WA and SA, Scientology changed its name to the Church of the New Faith, a body incorporated in Adelaide in 1969, and continued to operate in those two states. However, it closed its Spring St office in Melbourne, Victoria.

The magistrates in the 1983 Victorian Court actions (see below) referenced the Anderson Inquiry, particularly that it was "Uncompromising in its denunciation of Scientology as a profoundly evil movement from which gullible - and the not so gullible - members of the community required protection", that it had "gained publicity in countries and states where the organization was entrenched"; that the leaders of the Scientology movement succumbed to the temptation to avoid "destruction" of the movement by simulating, so as to become accepted as, a religion; that "the ecclesiastical appearance now assumed by the organization is no more than colourable in order to serve an ulterior purpose"; and, ultimately, that Scientology

"... is, in relation to its religious pretensions, no more than a sham. The bogus claims to belief in the efficacy of prayer and to being adherent to a creed divinely inspired and also the calculated adoption of the paraphernalia, and participation in ceremonies, of conventional religion are no more than a mockery of religion. Thus scientology as now practiced is in reality the antithesis of a religion. 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".

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. It involves the administration by persons without any training in medicine or psychology of quasi-psychological treatment, which is harmful medically, morally and socially.

In Victoria this enquiry 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. In the understanding that Scientology was a form of psychology, this law required anyone practising psychology to register with the newly established Victorian Psychological Council. 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. Although similar laws were later passed in Western Australia in 1968 (the Scientology Act) and South Australia (the Scientology (Prohibition) Act, 1968 replaced by the Psychological Practices Act, 1973), the Church remained active in these two States.

In January 1973, the newly elected federal Labor government recognised the Church of Scientology as a religious denomination under the Marriage Act, making it effectively exempt from the provisions of the Victorian Psychological Practices Act. Western Australia had already repealed its Scientology Act in the previous year.

On 25 February 1981, officials of Scientology urged repeal of the Victorian Psychological Practices Act, which was subsequently amended by the Psychologists Registration (Scientology) Act, 1982 to remove all references to Scientology. This Act was repealed by the Psychologists Registration Act, 1987. The South Australian Psychological Practices Act has remained in force and has a necessary role in regulating the activities of psychologists and hypnotists in that State. However, neither this Act itself nor the current regulations now contain any reference to Scientology. The Western Australian Scientology Act, 1968 was repealed in 1972, and replaced by a Psychologists Registration Act, 1976. with similar provisions to regulate psychologists.

In 1983, the matter went to the Courts in the State of Victoria and subsequently to the national High Court. Scientologists argued a $70 payroll tax should not be paid due to its status as a religious organisation. The Commissioner of Pay-Roll Tax in Victoria had ruled that Scientology was not a religion. This decision was upheld in the Supreme Court of Victoria (Judge: Crockett,J) and then on appeal in the Full Court. The judgement concluding Scientology was not a religion relied on the premise that Scientology was a philosophy rather than a religion and that the trappings of religion had only been acquired after its establishment in order to give the organisation the semblance of a religion. Some support of this position was found in Scientologist writings: Scientology's predecessor in Australia was the Hubbard Association of Scientologist International ("H.A.S.I."), This association had published, at some time not earlier than 1961, a magazine which unequivocally asserted "H.A.S.I. is non-religious -it does not demand any belief or faith nor is it in conflict with faith. People of all faiths use Scientology."

The full bench of the Victorian Supreme Court affirmed that the

"Introduction of a service, ceremonies and other external indicia of a religion is no more than a cynical desire to present Scientology as what it is not for such mundane purposes as acquiring the protection of constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion or obtaining exemption from the burden of taxing laws... The creed and services described in a 1959 booklet called Ceremonies of The Founding Church of Scientology which had been published in America played absolutely no part in the teaching or practice of Scientology until the late nineteen sixties; These so-called ceremonies were devised and published as a device to enable, with such attendant advantages as would thereby accrue, Scientology to be paraded as a church in the United States and should properly be described as a masquerade and a charade."

Thus the Victorian court found that a considerable transformation had ostensibly occurred. The court found that "the ecclesiastical appearance now assumed by the organization is no more than colourable in order to serve an ulterior purpose", namely, the purpose of acquiring the legal status of a religion so that the organization might have the fiscal and other benefits of that status in Australia and elsewhere and the purpose of avoiding the legal disabilities to which the organization was subject by reason of the Psychological Practices Act 1965 (Vict.). He expressed his clear conviction that the purported transformation of Scientology to a religion was

"No more than a sham, the proclaimed belief in the efficacy of prayer is bogus, and the adoption of the paraphernalia and ceremonies of conventional religion is a mockery. The very adroitness - and alacrity - with which the tenets or structure were from time (to 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."

Though the court found that at least some parts of Mr. Hubbard's writing contained merely pretended doctrines and practices of Scientology, he also found that members of the Scientology movement are "expected to and, apostates excepted, accord blind reverence to the written works of Mr. Hubbard. Although the sincerity and integrity of the ordinary members of the Scientology movement are not in doubt, Scientology is no less a sham because there are others prepared to accept and act upon such aims and beliefs as though they were credible when they can not see them for what they are. Gullibility cannot convert something from what it is to something which it is not".

All these judgements were subsequently overturned by the Scientologist's appeal to the High Court of Australia in 1983, in Church of the New Faith v. Commissioner Of Pay-roll Tax. The court ruled that the government of Victoria could not deny the Church the right to operate in Victoria under the legal status of "religion" for purposes of payroll taxes. All three judges in the case found that the Church of the New Faith (Church of Scientology) was a religion. Justices Mason and Brennan said:

Charlatanism is a necessary price of religious freedom, and if a self-proclaimed teacher persuades others to believe in a religion which he propounds, lack of sincerity or integrity on his part is not incompatible with the religious character of the beliefs, practices and observances accepted by his followers.

but that:

The question to which the evidence was directed was not whether the beliefs, practices and observances of the persons in ultimate command of the organization constituted a religion but whether those of the general group of adherents constituted a 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. The applicant has easily discharged the onus of showing that it is religious. The conclusion that it is a religious institution entitled to the tax exemption is irresistible.

and

The conclusion to which we have ultimately come is that Scientology is, for relevant purposes, a religion. 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.

Wilson and Deane said:

Regardless of whether the members of the applicant are gullible or misled or whether the practices of Scientology are harmful or objectionable, the evidence, in our view, establishes that Scientology must, for relevant purposes, be accepted as "a religion" in Victoria. That does not, of course, mean either that the practices of the applicant or its rules are beyond the control of the law of the State or that the applicant or its members are beyond its taxing powers.

The High Court of Australia restored Scientology's tax exempt status in 1983. The High Court's decision, dismissing the earlier judgements, now serves as the current precedent for defining religious groups.