The purple economy

Religious groups according to the Business Review Weekly, “are the hidden giants of the economy. In an era of corporate regulation, they are virtually unaccountable” (March 24, 2005).

In the past decade, for example, the Uniting Church has sold 52 churches, and expects “to sell more than 350 properties in Victoria and Tasmania alone, over the next forty years”. Such wheeling and dealing of property, by all churches, has seen them become “a new breed of land-developers, selling off open space as well as buildings for commercial exploitation”.

Enough is enough, according to Wallace. Direct funding, tax exemptions, with little or no regulation, together with a deliberate strategy of non transparency of church finances, makes for a political-religious complex, which “plays a significant and ominous role in Australia’s political and religious life”.

Churches need to understand that the demands for accountability and transparency, taxation reform, and for an Australian Charities Commission, will continue, and it will be futile campaign to label such demands as Christianphobia.