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News
As elsewhere in the world, the enemies of Scientology found willing allies in the press. One of Melbourne's leading dailies, curiously named Truth, boasted in its news columns that the paper had "spearheaded the initial onslaught against Scientology in the early 1960s". No pretence of objective reporting was made by any of the Australian media. The usual "eminent critics" of Scientology -spokesmen for the Australian Medical Association, health authorities and leading psychiatrists were accorded front-page prominence as they daily voiced their deep concern about the dangers of Scientology. Lengthy commentaries on previously published reports of the U.S. marshals' raid on Scientology's Washington headquarters I continued to appear, with not a single line of explanation or rebuttal from the Scientologists. The newspaper accounts carefully avoided mention of the fact that the U.S. authorities had, in fact, raided a church. Instead, the stories stated that the marshals had "raided the headquarters of the Academy of Scientology". This secular designation was more in keeping with the establishment thesis that L. Ron Hubbard was a mental-health quack, preying upon "thousands of neurotics in Melbourne, in desperate need of proper medical care", that is to say, people who should be swelling the ranks of "patients" attending the proliferating psychiatric clinics and outpatient departments set up by the Mental Hygiene Service. Truth, the Melbourne newspaper mentioned in a foregoing paragraph, consistently referred to Scientology as "bunkumology".
The biased handling of news is effectively illustrated by the comparative "play" given a call for evidence against Scientology, and the lack of response to that appeal.Noting that the Government was powerless to move against Scientologists until they had valid evidence, to support such a move, Victorian Health Minister R. W. Mack issued a statement asking people who thought they had proof of illegal practices by Scientologists to contact the Crown Law Department.
The health official's request for information about alleged exploitation by Scientologists was given major prominence in the newspapers and run under a three-column, threebank headline.When not a single person came forward with a complaint against Scientology, the no-response story was a brief three-paragraph item, buried beneath an 18-point, one-column head. (I am here referring to articles in the Melbourne Age of August 10 and 14, 1963, respectively, which were typical.)
For more than two years, at the instigation of Scientology's "eminent critics", both the police department and investigators for Victoria's Department of Health had subjected the Church's activities to intensive investigation. But, according to a public statement of the Minister for Health, the authorities could find nothing in existing laws under which the Scientologists could be prosecuted.
New legislation would have to be drafted to stop them. That called for fancy footwork on the political level. Accordingly, a plan of action was worked out. Phillip Bennett Wearne, a disgruntled former Scientologist, acted as front man for the get-Scientology alliance. In his own words:
"I knew that the way to go about it was to go to the Labour Opposition; so former political contacts put me in touch with the Hon. J. Walton, M.L.C., and he was most interested in bringing in the subject. He was a backbencher, and a successful attack on some subject like this would be very helpful to his career as a politician. So I made several visits to Parliament and he recorded conversations about it, and I gave him notes and documents, and one thing and another."
On October 17, 1963, Walton delivered an antiScientology speech in the Victorian Legislative Council, calling for a full governmental inquiry into the practices of the dangerous cult. His remarks were prominently quoted in the press.Perceiving that the Opposition had hold of a good thing, John W. Galbally, Labour leader in the Upper House, gave the attack on Scientology his personal attention. In a high-decibel speech before the Legislative Council, Galbally censured the Government for its failure to deal with the wicked "cult", despite repeated warnings from the Mental Hygiene Authority "and other responsible persons and bodies" (meaning mental health lobbyists and the AMA). Availing himself of parliamentary privilege, which protected him against charges of slander, he described Scientologists as charlatans who were guilty of intimidation and blackmail, which could lead to insanity and even suicide.
Then, evidently in the belief that to deliver a truly rousing political oration, one must, in the words of former President Johnson, "get your hand up under the dress", Galbally read from a list of questions he said were asked of Scientology "victims who underwent lie detector tests". He came down hard on those having to do with sexual acts and perversions.In its sensationalized coverage of the speech, the Melbourne Truth modestly refused to cite any of the questions which, it said, any newspaper "conscious of public decency would not publish.""It is a scandal," Galbally declared, "that the Government allows this sort of thing to go on in Melbourne."The Labour Leader's words were still ringing in the air when his colleague, J. M. Walton, rose to continue the onslaught. From his briefcase he produced an E-meter, the harmless device that had figured in the now-famous FDA raid on the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington."This is the instrument the Scientologists use to extract confessions from people in prominent places in the community," he told House members.
He added dramatically: "We are dealing with something that is very deep and very dangerous."He was, in fact, dealing with a simple skin galvanometer, but the Victorian MPs had never seen one before and were properly impressed. In a final, thumb-screw tactic, Walton suggested that perhaps some members of the Government had themselves been consorting with Scientologists, to whom they had divulged their secrets. Because of this they had used their influence to prevent any official action against the cult.Yielding to the combined pressure of Opposition political leaders and mental health lobbyists, the Victorian Governor-in-Council on November 27, 1963 appointed a Board of Inquiry to "inquire into, report upon, and make recommendations concerning Scientology as known, carried on, practised and applied in Victoria".
The "Board" consisted of one man - Kevin Victor Anderson, Q.C., a senior member of the Victorian Bar and a practicing Roman Catholic. Appointed counsel to assist the Board in conducting the Inquiry was Gordon Just, instructed by the Crown Solicitor.The marathon Inquiry set something of a record for such proceedings, both in terms of the time consumed (16o days of sittings) and the enormous bulk of testimony (nearly 4,000,000 words, which filled 8,92o pages of transcript).When the Inquiry was first announced, the Scientologists expressed enthusiasm for the hearings because, they said, such an impartial review of the evidence would completely vindicate Scientology. They co-operated fully with the Board, providing all documents and records that were requested.As the Inquiry went forward, however, the proceedings appeared more and more like an adversary situation in which they were defendents. In a later legal brief, their lawyers said: "The Inquiry into Scientology was not judicial in constitution, it was not judicial in function and only perhaps in its 'trappings' was it superficially judicial in its procedure."A careful, unbiased reading of the transcript certainly supports some of the principal charges made by the Scientologists against the Inquiry; for example, that Anderson sometimes adopted the role of prosecutor, and harried both witnesses and counsel for Scientology, while treating with courtesy and deference those "expert" witnesses hostile to Scientology; that there was collusion among antiScientology witnesses; that the Board declared some findings before all the witnesses were heard; and that Anderson and Just used confidential information from Scientology files to embarrass and ridicule witnesses for Scientology.
Sessions of the Inquiry that were heard in camera sometimes bore a striking resemblance to the witch trials of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is only necessary to identify sex as the Devil and Scientologists as the witches who corsort with him. An auditing session here figures in the same way as Sabbats of the past.