If Bruce Hales, global leader of the secretive Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, started last Friday hoping to persuade parliament that his church’s involvement in the 2025 election was not coordinated, then he failed spectacularly.

“Either he was repeatedly and systemically dishonest to the committee, or he’s been marginalised by whoever is now in charge of operations for the church at large,” Monique Ryan, the independent member for the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, tells The Saturday Paper .

“Much of what he said was utterly at odds with what current and former members of the church have told me in private communications and in the number of submissions to the committee that those people have made.…