Australia -- Scientology should lose charitable status over its attacks on mental health: McGorry

Sydney Morning Herald -- Scientology should lose charitable status over its attacks on mental health: McGorry

By Ben Schneiders
June 13, 2021 — 12.01am


https://amp.smh.com.au/national/sci...on-mental-health-mcgorry-20210610-p57zrn.html


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Two of Australia’s top mental health advocates and researchers have described Scientology’s anti-psychiatry campaigning as dangerous and harmful to the community and said the church should be stripped of its tax-free status.

Professor Patrick McGorry, a former Australian of the Year, and Professor Ian Hickie, a co-director of the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind centre, both say they have been harassed over many years by Scientologists and Scientology-linked front groups at conferences in Australia and overseas.

[SNIP]

Under the 2013 Charities Act religions enjoy tax-free status because they are presumed to be for the public benefit, but if there is evidence they do harm, those benefits need to be weighed against the possible detriment.

Scientology objected to that requirement during consultation over the act and in a 2011 public submission said it could allow “intolerable religious discrimination and bigotry”.

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