Australian Legal and Government Opinions on Scientology

Scientology declared a religion in Australia: the decision
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission on freedom of religion in Australia
The Anderson Report
Australasian Legal Information Institute
The Australian Tax Office and deductibility
"WISE Member Named Young Australian Business Person of the Year"
Census figures: how many Scientologists are there in Australia and New Zealand?
Non Fatal Offences Against The Person: Attorney-General's Department report

Scientology declared a religion in Australia: High Court decision

- from AustLII (see below). "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."

Some commentary from Frank Copeland on the decision. "Personally, I can find nothing wrong with the High Court's decision. As an atheist I consider all religions to be bogus, but I recognise everyone's right to believe whatever they wish, no matter how absurd. As an ex-Catholic in a country with a history of anti-papist discrimination I recognise that the protection of religious freedom is a vital civil right. $cientology's commercialism is much more blatant than that of other churches, but the fault lies with the laws that grant tax breaks to religions."

Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission on freedom of religion in Australia

The HREOC report Free To Believe? The right to freedom of religion and belief in Australia includes a mention of Scientology, in the context of the above High Court decision being the closest the Australian government has gotten to defining what a religion is and isn't.

For your convenience, I've extracted the Scientological highlights of the report.
Here is the full report. Be warned: it's 120K long and has awful HTML.

The famous Anderson Report

- the one that got Scientology banned in Victoria from 1965 until 1982 and in Western Australia from 1968 until 1972. The linked copy here is Chris Owen's HTMLisation, from his Official Papers on Scientology archive. There's also a copy on Dave Touretzsky's bookshelf site.

I'd put Kangaroo Court (the CoS's reply pamphlet to the Anderson Report), but somehow I don't think the CoS will give permission. Ah well.

Here's the section of the Anderson Report that Tony McClelland regularly reposts, comparing Scientology auditing to inexpert and dangerous hypnosis.
- 'Ex-Scio Kid' tells how this works in practice.
- Sten-Arne Zerpe tells how auditing implants false memories.
In The Scandal of Scientology, Paulette Cooper writes about the CoS's response to the Anderson report.
An extract from Sir Kevin Anderson's autobiography, Fossils In The Sandstone, chapter 17, wherein a certain Applied Religious Philosophy is mentioned in passing (though not by name, oddly enough).
A witness talks about the Anderson Report and Hubbard's response to it. "The guts of the thing is that Hubbard was outsmarted. He was very unhappy about that."

Australasian Legal Information Institute

You can do searches on keywords in this. (Thanks to andii for putting me onto this one.)

(Searching on 'Scientology' turns up a lot of fluff though ... I'll go through one day and pull the best ones for your amusement. Or someone else could if they like.)

The Australian Tax Office and deductibility

Are donations to Scientology in Australia deductible expenses for tax purposes? Don't bet on it ;-)

"WISE Member Named Young Australian Business Person of the Year"

Some propaganda from the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (a way for the CoS to suck money out of public members' businesses).

Bev's note alerting us to this excerpt from CoS magazine Prosperity #42. "... WISE member Gareth Jekel, the 'Young Australian Business Person of the Year' award. This was presented by the Prime Minister of Australia and was broadcast to millions of viewers by the Australian national television."
Frank Copeland's suggested explanation. "They've avoided outright fabrication this time, but a little bit of exaggeration goes a long way."
The official DEET press release on the subject - and a local text copy.

Census figures: how many Scientologists are there in Australia and New Zealand?

The Census is conducted every five years. The 'Religion' question is the only voluntary one, but that's OK because that's what I'm after: the number of people in Australia who will, when filling in a census form anonymously, say that they do indeed consider themselves Scientologists.

In the 1991 Census, it has become an a.r.s factoid that 1091 people were prepared to admit anonymously to being Scientologists.

(I say 'factoid' because I spent a bit of time in early 1998 trying to track down the origin of this figure and can't trace it. The 1991 Census figures are completely unhelpful unless I care to give far too much money to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for a number my tax dollars have already paid for. Help on confirming or denying this figure of 1091 would be greatly appreciated.)

The 1996 Census figure is 1488. An anonymous post to a.r.s claimed the 1996 figure was 1500. Murray Chapman gives some statistical perspective; 'Ex Scio Kid' gives the West Australian total as not more than 150.

The New Zealand figures are: 1986: 189; 1991: 207; 1996: 213.

Non Fatal Offences Against the Person

A report by a committee put together by the Attorney-General's Department, released in October 1998. Scientology scored a mention.

The full report is available as an Adobe Acrobat .PDF file.
Neil Muspratt gives the Scientological highlights of the report.
Legal crackdown on cults - press article on the report in The Australian, 14 Oct 1998