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Religious cults face tougher controls while established faiths could win more protection from persecution following a Federal Parliament report.
The report reveals more than 500,000 Australians are caught up in fringe religions or cults and also shows that many in established religions from Christians to Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews feel they are being persecuted. Fears of persecution ranged from Jews listing 2248 incidents in 10 years which could be defined as racist or acts of violence towards them to Christians condemning popular television programmes such as The Vicar of Dibley and Father Ted for ridiculing them.
The report, titled Conviction with Passion, a Report into Freedom of Religion and Belief, was prepared and tabled by a federal parliamentary committee. It found Australia was generally a tolerant society but many members of religions, including Christians, felt under threat. One submission said Christians were under attack from "abortionists, pornographers, sex liberationists, radical feminists, homosexuals, alternative educationalists and left-wing radicals". The parliamentary committee was also told that the Internet was being used as a rallying point for anti-semitic organisations.
The committee said state and federal governments had been asked to examine ways of promoting and extending freedom of religion and belief. But the report also identified a number of cults including Queensland's Magnificat Meal Movement based at Helidon, the Family (or Children of God), and the Vibrational Individuation Programme as well as a range of groups offering personal development programmes and claiming to be religious organizations.
Federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams is now considering a recommendation from the report that a set of uniform standards be created to help control cults. The standards would include issues of human rights, indoctrination and financial donations.
Max Wallace, a spokesman for Purple Economy Watch which fights tax privileges for religions, said a cult tragedy in Uganda in which 370 were massacred in a church highlighted the dangers. Mr Wallace said an inquiry into cults was needed urgently. "I suggest that unless such as inquiry is done by the Government there will be no way to gauge the likelihood of a group suicide incident occurring in Australia," he said.
A spokeswoman for Brisbane's Cult Hotline, which operates through the University of Queensland's chaplaincy service, said cults usually recruited people during a vulnerable or transitional time of life. They often confronted young school-leavers in the city and at the beach during Schoolies Week, and "hooked them with dogma".
"People don't join cults, they're recruited," she said. "It's all about mind control. They start off being gently persuasive and slowly, slowly get control."
She said while established religion was losing numbers, there was still great spiritual need in the community. "There's a real spiritual supermarket out there, and a lot of scams," she said.