BEN SMALL MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR FORREST
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR ELECTORAL MATTERS
OPPOSITION WHIP
ABC Afternoon Briefing
Television Transcript – Electoral matters
21 August 2026
Host: Patricia Karvelas
Guest: Ben Small MP
Patricia Karvelas
The Liberal Party has contested some of the claims of the nine newspapers reporting. For more, I spoke to Ben Small, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters and who's been part of this inquiry today.
Ben Small, welcome to the program.
Ben Small MP
Thanks for having me, PK.
Patricia Karvelas
According to submissions to the committee, a very large contingent of church members were bussed into your electorate campaign on your behalf. Can you just talk me through that? Did you organise them? What happened?
Ben Small MP
No I didn't PK and I think it's important that at the outset we clear up what we're talking about here which is that the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church which has been in Australia for more than 150 years and has some 16,000 followers across the country has been the subject of a hyper-partisan witch hunt led by the Labor controlled committee on electoral matters and frankly it is a disgrace that we see a group of Australians targeted on the basis of their religious faith for seemingly no other crime than having come to the conclusion that the Albanese government needed the boot at the last election. I mean, if that's the charge, throw me in the dock or line me up against the wall because I'm the first to say I'm guilty.
Patricia Karvelas
Okay. You definitely are guilty of wanting the Albanese government to lose. They didn't. But in terms of the behaviour, I mean, we know that this particular group of people, I mean, they're not meant to be politically active, they've been told not to vote. Do you understand why people think it's unusual?
Ben Small MP
If you listen to the evidence this morning, you know, a lot of those myths were really cleared up, PK. So, the church doesn't have a formal position banning their congregants from voting. Some interpret the Bible in a very, very literal fashion and have come to that conclusion. Others are active in our political process and vote, like many Australians of faith do, or indeed those Australians who aren't of a particular faith. We're a secular country, we believe in the separation of church and state, and that's why it's such an affront that we've got the Prime Minister enabling this committee to go after a group in this way. I mean, they appeared for three hours today when the AEC, which is the organisation charged with running the entire election, only appeared for an hour and a half. If that doesn't bell the cat on this, I don't know what does.
Patricia Karvelas
Can you categorically say there was no coordination between the Brethren Church and the Liberal Party campaign, your campaign?
Ben Small MP
That's certainly the evidence that we took from the church this morning. It is now on the public record.
Patricia Karvelas
But is that what you know as well.
Ben Small MP
Yeah, correct, correct. Because at the end of the day, I don't believe and certainly did not quiz every person who signed up to volunteer in my campaign as to whether or not they were a person of faith. I mean if Labor candidates were running around asking people to if they’re Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or any other faith for that matter, this debate would look very, very different.
Patricia Karvelas
Let me take it to something, an equivalent. If the Labor Party was busing in an entire group of people from say the Lakemba Mosque, I suspect you would ask some questions about the coordination for that wouldn't you?
Ben Small MP
But that's not the proposition that we're dealing with here PK. The proposition here was that the church had some sort of conspiratorial directive across Australia which has been thoroughly debunked on the back of three hours of public examination today and like I say twice as long as the AEC. The Prime Minister called this group a cult during the election and he's also said we need to turn down the temperature. So, either he's lying or he's going to pick up the phone today, he's going to ring Jerome Laxale as the chair of this committee and he's going to end the witch hunt. I mean Jerome Laxale has some serious questions to answer and how it's tenable for him to continue as chair after we took explosive evidence today that his office... not only leaked confidential correspondence to the media but that one of his own paid electoral staff provided a submission purporting to be a volunteer in the campaign and that there was no conflict declared by the chair of the committee through this process has led to the Plymouth Brethren Church rightfully ask the question as to what confidence they can have in the fairness of this important inquiry.
Patricia Karvelas
You're saying as individuals they have the right to be part of the political process. No one would contest that but the bit that I think does deserve at least some sunlight is whether you knew about their involvement at a kind of organisational level. You must have.
Ben Small MP
Look, for three hours we've seen in live TV today PK, the church examined on exactly that question. And they didn't deny that certain members of the church, indeed many members of the church, decided in the 2025 election that they were going to campaign for various parties. They included the Liberal Party, the National Party, but also Labor and One Nation. I mean, that's evidence that's now on the public record. So, I think for Labor to continue this witch hunt, enabled by a Prime Minister who could end it today, is a disgrace and an affront to every Australian taxpayer.
Patricia Karvelas
I suppose I'm going to question the language of a witch hunt. Isn't it... fair that committees ask questions of all groups in our community. That's how our parliamentary democracy works, doesn't it?
Ben Small MP
So why haven't the Labor members of this committee called every church leader in Australia to come before them in this way? I mean, we've seen extraordinary scenes today.
Patricia Karvelas
Is that because there was some evidence of something that they were pursuing?
Ben Small MP
Where Labor MP’s were asking for lists of members to be tabled. I mean, if that's not a persecution or a witch hunt, PK, I don't know what is.
Patricia Karvelas
Usually you follow something based on information that you have that's why this particular group was pursued wasn't it?
Ben Small MP
The opening statement that the church Director made this morning I think exposed that because of the odd 80 submissions that mention the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church in some way, their advice is that as few as 4 of those would meet any sort of legal threshold for the identification, a positive identification of a church member. So when we talk about evidence let's talk about cold hard facts, not Labor Party enabled spin and slander.
Patricia Karvelas
Okay, so next election of course could be in 18 months. Would you do it all the same way again?
Ben Small MP
I'm looking forward to the next election, PK, because we have a plan to fix our economy and restore our way of life, and I’m hoping that Australians across the board-
Patricia Karvelas
No, but in terms of the campaign, my question is about the way you campaign, will you try to seek to get the support of members of that church to campaign for you?
Ben Small MP
I'll ask for Australians of every creed to support me. I have a button on my website you can go to right now to join up and volunteer for my campaign in Forest, as does, I imagine, every MP across the country, I'm sure every candidate. That's because we don't ask questions about people's religious faith. We simply say, hey, do you want to come on board?
Patricia Karvelas
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a very sort of passive way, right? Like just asking people to come to you. The actual process of activating people to come along is a different thing and we all know politicians of course want that, you want people to come on board. How are you going to manage this?
Ben Small MP
I do programs like this PK and I go and stand down at supermarkets next to a little Ben Small sign to do exactly that. I'm seeking to engage the community to support me in my work and my advocacy for that local community and of course others will have a different view in my electorate and they'll choose to run against me and that's perfectly fine. I mean this committee is charged with shepherding and safeguarding our democracy. There's no criticism there. And I think that if everyone plays to the same set of rules, which are clearly laid out in the Electoral Act, then we've got absolutely every confidence the next election will be a fair fight. I look forward to it.
Patricia Karvelas
Now, Advance Australia is a right wing lobby group, that's how they're described. They complained they were threatened into appearing. They said they have never seen a committee publicly threatened to use its powers in such an act of political grandstanding. Is this really a threat just to ask a group to answer questions again in a democratic process?
Ben Small MP
Look, the Parliament's committees do have the power to compel witnesses to appear via a subpoena. I've not seen a committee race to threaten a subpoena so quickly as was the case with Advance appearing. I understand they'd had one invitation previously and due to a scheduling clash hadn't been able to attend. on that basis for the committee to race to a subpoena again shows that this is a hyper-partisan witch hunt of the enemies of the Albanese government but they came willingly today they're still in the committee room right now as we're talking giving their evidence in good faith and I mean that's all we can ask of people.
Patricia Karvelas
Okay as it stands of course the committee's been meeting all day, do you think there's a case for changes to electoral laws?
Ben Small MP
We've certainly put forward through our dissenting report to the interim report of this committee that there is clear evidence of poor behaviour on polling booths across the country and that needs to be addressed for every voter to have confidence that when they approach a polling booth and they exercise their democratic right that they're in a safe environment to do so. There's a hot debate running across the parliament as to how we do that. The government has some ideas I personally put forward some suggestions that we actually exclude the physical act of handing out how to vote cards entirely from our booths. I think that in the era of being able to communicate with people online via SMS in addition to direct mail and newspapers and all the traditional ways that voters are very well able to inform themselves approaching election day. So, if we can remove some of the some of that poorer behaviour and enable voters to make a quiet and considered decision before they enjoy a democracy sausage that’d be great.
Patricia Karvelas
Why should it I've got to challenge you on that, why should it be quiet? It should be considered but why quiet? Why can't people be active and hand out vote cards? Wouldn't you be actually taking away some of the democratic agency that people deserve to have?
Ben Small MP
Yeah, and that's one of the arguments that we need to consider in getting the balance of these reforms right. If the committee was focused on that and taking evidence from across the community to ensure that we did get that right, I'd be very supportive. Instead, we're wasting our time on three-hour witch hunts of church members. I mean that's the nature of where this committee, formerly one of the most serious and considered committees of the Parliament, because it is charged with shepherding our democracy, that's where the efforts have previously been spent and I call for that to continue now.
Patricia Karvelas
Ben Small, thanks for joining us.
Ben Small MP
Thanks PK.
Patricia Karvelas
That was Liberal MP Ben Small, who is also the Assistant Shadow Minister for Electoral Matters, on that inquiry into last year's federal election and the role of some of the third parties.