Say Sorry has published today 48 individual parliamentary submissions – made by persons impacted by Jehovah’s Witnesses – that have been released this week by a parliament inquiry.
The Inquiry, is looking into coercive control and ‘cult’ like behaviour within cults and new religious movements within Victoria, Australia. Recommendations from the Inquiry will be delivered to parliament in September 2026.
26 November 2025 | by Steven Unthank
Background: On the morning of Thursday 3 April 2025, the following motion was put forward within the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, by Mary-Anne Thomas MP, Minister for Health:
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.
The motion was agreed to.
A six-page guidance note was subsequently published by the Inquiry. The guidance note stated:
Religious freedom does not grant a licence to cause harm. There is a distinction between genuine religious practice and harmful behaviour. The physical and psychological harms associated with cults was addressed in a 1998 report of the Model Criminal Code Law Officers Committee established by the Standing Committee of Attorneys‑General. It stated clearly that if a religious organisation intentionally causes significant harm, it should be held criminally liable, just like any other individual or group:
If a religious organisation does that, it, like anyone else, should be guilty of the appropriate criminal offence. “Freedom of religion” is not freedom, for example, to defraud, nor is it freedom to cause significant psychological or psychiatric harm to any person.
As part of this Inquiry, we will consider whether the law can adequately protect people when cults or manipulative groups are proven to have caused harm that should be criminalised.
Download | Parliament Inquiry guidance note
A series of articles on the Inquiry will be published by Say Sorry at a future date.
Inquiry website: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/cofg
Cult inquiry submissions dealing with Jehovah’s Witnesses
This website SaySorry.org is the result of the Say Sorry initiate which was launched in the State of Victoria, Australia, in 2018. This current inquiry, in our home state, is the third state parliament inquiry since 2011 that has received submissions in relation to Jehovah’s Witnesses. The first two dealt with child protection issues.
48 individual submissions have been published by the Inquiry that deal directly with Jehovah’s Witnesses. While many submissions were less than 5-pages in length, the majority of all submissions shared powerful lived experiences, including those of coercive control.
Several submissions were quite comprehensive, such as: submission 272 (90 pages) and submission 278 (106 pages).
Some submissions included supporting attachments that often included extracts or copies of articles published by the Watch Tower Society.
The authorship of the submissions received by the Inquiry were not confined to persons residing in Victoria or Australia. Numerous submissions came from other jurisdictions around the world.
These submissions collectively highlight consistent coercive control which the leaders of the Watch Tower Society and Jehovah’s Witnesses have over individuals and their lives.
Of particular interest were several submissions that came from former elders, including:
- Submission 144 (USA) former elder and member of the US headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Wallkill, NY; and
- Submission 207 (USA) from a former JW elder, regular pioneer, construction overseer, and member of a JW Hospital Liaison Committee.
Many submission authors related how they were greatly impacted by the revelations that came out of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
LINK TO RELATED ARTICLE | Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Child Abuse Royal Commission
To all who took the time to make a submission, you are greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Named Submissions
Submission 005 by Daniel Torridon
Submission 006 by Vicky Tsiaras
Submission 012 by Barbara Raquel Maccarrone
Submission 016 by Pawel Swiergiel
Submission 017 by Thomas Beanlands
Submission 059 by Susan Jurkovic [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2]
Submission 135 by Javan Worrall
Submission 138 by Arieth Bullman
Submission 156 by Brittany Fussell Jones
Submission 205 by Andres Chiriff
Submission 221 by Adam van Wirdum
Submission 278 by Larissa Kaput [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2] [Attachment 6] [Attachment 8] [Supplemental]
Name Withheld Submissions
Submission 207 [Attachment 1] [Attachment 2]
Criticism of the inquiry
The inquiry so far has not been without criticism.
On November 14 and 15, 2025, the Italian online newsletter, Bitter Winter [1]—which deals with religious liberty and human rights issues in China—published an opinion piece highly critical of the parliament inquiry.
The article author, Bernard Doherty—an Australian ‘scholar of religion’ and ‘academic specializing in the study of New Religious Movements’—wrote:
“Within days, scholars of religion and others began to be invited directly to contribute; however, to date, no Australian scholar of religion, let alone an academic specializing in the study of New Religious Movements, has been invited to appear at the hearings. Instead, the hearings have primarily heard from former members and at least one well-known international anti-cult activist.” [2]
A review undertaken by Say Sorry, of all 279 published submissions to the Inquiry, revealed none submitted by Bernard Doherty. It remains to be seen which so-called “cult” engages Doherty, and perhaps Massimo Introvigne himself, to prepare a report critical of lived experience submissions and the Inquiry itself, if at all.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bitter Winter is published by CESNUR, which was established by cult apologist Massimo Introvigne—who is himself a member of an Italian-based religious cult.
[2] <https://bitterwinter.org/the-victoria-australia-inquiry-on-cults-1-the-australian-context/>
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