The Victorian government has announced a parliamentary inquiry into cults and “organised fringe groups” in the state, following revelations from several former members of a secretive Christian group in Geelong that exposed severe punishments and extreme teachings being administered.
Earlier this month, Christine Couzens, Geelong’s Labor MP and a member of the Legal and Social Issues Standing Committee successfully passed a referral to the state parliament’s lower house for an inquiry to examine how cults and organised fringe groups recruit and coercively control its members.
On social media, Couzens said she was “pleased” by the announcement of the inquiry, adding: “I move by leave…That this House refers an inquiry into cults and organised fringe groups in Victoria, the methods used to recruit and control their members and the impacts of coercive control to the Legal and Social Issues Standing Committee for consideration and report no later than 30 September 2026.”
Survivors of the regional Victorian church as well as survivors of other cults, including Truth 2x2s, Children of God and Family International submitted their experiences of cults and high control groups to the Victorian State Attorney General and requested an inquiry.
The announcement comes four months after the Herald’s investigative journalist Richard Baker released the nine-part podcast Secrets We Keep: Pray Harder, which exposed the abuse, violence and sexism members of the the Geelong Revival Centre (GRC) experienced.
Baker interviewed survivors and ex-members of the GRC where, under the leadership of the late Pastor Noel Hollins, women and girls were oppressed and prevented from initiating intimate relationships, and followers were encouraged to use physical force to discipline their children.
Members were not permitted to make contact with a loved one who had left or was expelled from the church — according to the hardline church’s teachings, because persons put out of “fellowship” have lost their salvation. Nor did they have any freedom in choosing where they lived.
Baker also shared allegations of abuse in a series of articles published by the Herald in December last year. Around that time, Couzens met former GRC members to hear details of their experiences living within the tightly controlled Pentecostal church.
More recently, she arranged for a delegation to meet Attorney General Sonya Kilkenny who explained to her the extreme control the GRC church exerted over its members.
Last year, Greens federal justice spokesman Senator David Shoebridge said the allegations about the GRC posed serious questions about the risks to children and other vulnerable members.
“The extreme limitations on the movement, communication and actions of some members of this church would in any other circumstance amount to coercive control,” he said.
Former GRC member and religious coercive control awareness campaigner Ryan Carey, escaped the church in his late thirties. He once described Noel Hollins’ as “evil”, and someone who “…preached stuff that was racist and homophobic. He was a terrible person … [church members] called him ‘the apostle’ and he was their God on earth.”
Carey welcomed the inquiry, telling the Herald that government oversight was needed to protect members of strict religious and other groups who were being held hostage by the threat of separation from loved ones.
Carey is the founder of lobby group Stop Religious Coercion and regularly posts TikToks about his experiences inside the church.
Coercive control has become a criminal offence in NSW and Queensland but Victoria has yet to specifically criminalise coercive control. Western Australia and South Australia are in the process of drafting legislation to make it a criminal offence in domestic settings.
Earlier this year, a member of GRC, Todd Hubers van Assenraad was sentenced to 22 years and 10 months’ jail for repeatedly sexually abusing young boys over several years.
A month later, the leader of Toowoomba’s “Saints” — a group that shares similar religious beliefs to GRC, was sentenced to 13 years jail for the manslaughter of eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs, who was found deceased at her home in 2022 after her parents, who are members of Steven’s church, refused her access to her insulin on the belief that God would save her.
Survivors from extreme religious and high-demand groups are calling for criminal coercive control laws to be expanded to include “cult-like” leaders to ensure they are held accountable. Currently, Victoria relies on existing family violence laws to cover such control within domestic relationships.
Former Truth 2×2 member, Laura McConnell grew up in the group as a fifth generation follower. At 19, she told Women’s Agenda she was “excommunicated, essentially” from the group, after deciding to pursue a life of her own independent of the group’s principles.
“I left my rural community and came to Melbourne, I was queer, I was resisting getting married and having children,” she explained. “There are very tightly controlled gender and sexuality roles for girls in most cults, and the Truth 2x2s are very controlling in that regard.”
McConnell believes that cults tend to harm those most vulnerable, including women, children and LGBTQIA+ people.
“Control of sexuality and gender means tightly controlled roles – which also results in endemic levels of sexual violence,” she explained. “Women are often trapped in marriages, with limited financial independence, and their access to heaven conditional in staying in an abusive community.”
In Truth 2×2, McConnell said women were prevented from wearing trousers and cutting their hair.
“They do not allow LGBTQIA+ people in their communities, and push them out. There are limited roles for women – usually women have children, marry reasonably young. There are only certain kinds of work outside the home (usually feminised labour) which is suitable for women.”
McConnell said that most cult survivors are deeply traumatised and harmed people and that the harm doesn’t stop when they leave.
“It’s difficult to leave and also difficult to rebuild,” she said. “Truth 2×2 survivors also have a deep distrust of authorities – many of us were raised to be terrified out outside authorities – so leaving and going to police or Centrelink for help is difficult to do. Peer support and activists and advocates play a crucial role in supporting survivors like that.”
She also said that in Australia, there is very little awareness of cults — a risk, since they are “experts at circumventing laws.”
“Many of us who work in cult survivor advocacy and activism have ended up here because no one was supporting people around us when they left,” she said. “We don’t want other people to find it as difficult as we did to leave. Most of us (from all kinds of cults, not only religious ones) want there to be support networks, funding for counselling and safe housing, Centrelink support etc for cult leavers -because we all needed that when we left and could not access it.”
Currently in Australia, there is no funded agency or program to support cult leavers. A peer support model is used by cult survivors to support other survivors.
According to McConnell, there is an increasing number of trained religious and spiritual abuse counsellors, though she admits this is a relatively recent service.
“For those of us from highly controlling and secretive groups, we have very little network outside the group,” she said. “Many survivors have experienced sexual violence, financial control, domestic and family violence…on top of spiritual and religious abuse – are terrified they’ll go to hell for leaving, or die for leaving…we’re often told if we leave, we die and go to hell. And most cult survivors have complex post-traumatic stress disorder in my experience.”
The Victorian inquiry is due to provide recommendations by September 2026. McConnell hopes that the inquiry leads to a legal definition of a cult and high control groups.
“A group coercive control should be recognised as a legal issue,” she said. “I hope that the inquiry validates the work done by volunteer peer support, and recommends that we be funded for the peer support done for cult survivors. I’d really like to see agencies engaging with cult survivors and ensuring we’re supported and funded by government agencies.”
“At present most of us do this work without support or funding. Some cult survivors would like to see charity status stripped from high control groups…some high control churches have charity status. This is a valid ask of the inquiry too.”
National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service: 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).