Wednesday, 29 July 2026

 John LISTER (Werribee) (11:16): I have to admit, in speaking on the Legal and Social Issues Committee report into coercion and harm in high-control groups, coming into this as a very new member of Parliament with the member for Prahran, I was not quite sure what we would be getting into. I have to say that in those first few weeks my Google search history was quite wild trying to find information out there about this topic. It is so fraught out there; the information is so loaded. We often think this issue is about what we see on Netflix documentaries, on podcasts or on things like that, but what we came to find in this inquiry was that this issue is so much more than what we see in that popular media space. It was brought home through our inquiry process, through the hundreds of submissions that we went through and the witnesses coming to speak to us, just how important it is to focus on what this actually means. This is a nation-first, nay, world-first report into this issue. It has been broached before by places like France, Austria, New Zealand and the United States, but I would be hard-pressed in those Google searches to find anything else out there that goes to the depth that this report goes to.

At the very start, and as many of my good colleagues have said, framing this in terms of cults is not always helpful. At times I thought I was going to get into theological debates, which I always am up for, talking about Constantine and the Edict of Milan with some of our Christian lobbyists. But I think what was most interesting in this whole process was engaging with those mainstream faith groups and talking about the risks of these behaviours to their congregations, because this is what this report goes to. It is not a report into faith, it is not a report into what people believe; it is a report into how people behave. Talking to those religions was quite insightful. I remember speaking to one of my local Baptist pastors who said that he had seen these in his community, and in fact in what is a pretty confronting section, volume 2, we have a pastor from a Chinese Christian community reference that as well.

Some may ask why the member for Werribee would take such an interest in something like coercive high-control groups. Are there groups like this locally? The answer is this inquiry was not there to find those groups; it was there to understand what the warning signs of this behaviour are. Faith is a key part of my community and all of our communities, and we have seen very small examples, in my community at least, of groups exerting high control on their members.

This report’s recommendations and findings provide a framework for government – not just this government in Victoria but governments all around the world. It provides a framework for agencies and mainstream faith groups to look out for this behaviour and address it before we see the horrific impacts that a lot of our witnesses described with such bravery and candidness that it will stay with me for a very long time.

Most important to me as a former schoolteacher are the findings and recommendations on schools, recommendations 16, 17 and 18. A lot of work is being done in our schools around what respectful relationships look like, and it is quite clear that a lot of change has happened in our school system, but we need to look at what else we can do. How do we have those resources that help those teachers and those professionals in child protection to look out for those warning signs well before they turn into some of the horrific things that we have seen in our inquiry?

As I finish up and as one of the last speakers today, everyone here has thanked our fellow committee members not only for their bipartisanship but also for their commitment to what is a really, really important issue. The hundreds of people who submitted or gave witness testimonies we thank so much for revealing what is a really, really hard and personal topic for them. I think in particular I would also like to thank the secretariat, because in the end these reports do not come easy. Thank you so much for all your work.