Before the end of the last school year, the principal of Brisbane’s Citipointe Christian College, Brian Mulheran, brought his teaching staff together and asked them to pray.
Multiple teachers recall how Mulheran ran a PowerPoint presentation that listed the key elements of the federal government’s proposed religious freedom bill. As he went through them in turn, he led staff in a prayer that each measure would be enacted in 2022.
Citipointe college and its principal jumped the gun this week, attempting to force families to sign enrolment contracts that contained anti-gay and anti-trans provisions that lawyers say likely breached Queensland’s existing anti-discrimination laws. Mulheran initially framed it as “a legitimate exercise in religious freedom” but by the end of the week, the attempt to enforce the contracts – and some say momentum for the government’s religious freedom laws – had collapsed.
In the process, what has become increasingly clear is the extent to which Citipointe – both the Pentecostal megachurch and its school – has promoted conservative political activism alongside what it preaches.
A Guardian Australia investigation has discovered extensive links to the Liberal National party, including church figures who are significant LNP donors; attempts by churchgoers to infiltrate party branches; and overt political campaigning by the church’s leadership.
God in the suburbs
Brisbane’s south-east is often called the city’s bible belt; brick and tile houses built in the 1960s and 70s, where several Pentecostal and Baptist churches brought God to the suburbs soon after the first major housing developments.
In 2018, when the Queensland parliament decriminalised abortion in the state, one of the local LNP MPs, Steve Minnikin, voted with his conscience and supported the bill.
Text messages, shown to Guardian Australia this week, sent among Citipointe churchgoers in the months after the vote, listed the nearby suburbs within Minnikin’s electorate and sought people there who were “willing to get political and fight back”.
By February 2019, more than 40 new or transferring members had applied to join Minnikin’s party branch. The LNP executive intervened to prevent a preselection contest.
While there is no suggestion the church leadership was involved in recruiting people to join the branch, Citipointe’s senior global pastors, Mark and Leigh Ramsey, have been vocal in their support for LNP politicians and attacks on Labor.
On her social media accounts, Leigh Ramsey described the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, as “irrational” and “deplorable” and posted frequent criticisms of her in the months before the 2020 election.
Ahead of the 2019 federal election, Mark Ramsey posted a portrait of the prime minister, Scott Morrison, and said: “This election is not about what party you prefer, it’s about Good Godly Leadership.”
Attempts to contact Mark and Leigh Ramsey were unsuccessful. Guardian Australia was told by the church they would not return calls and could not be emailed.
Certainly some Citipointe leaders and members have clear links to the LNP.
The chairperson of the Citipointe Christian College board, Graham Packer, is a significant fundraiser for the LNP. Packer, and two of his family leather companies, have donated $100,490 to the LNP in the past three years. He did not respond to questions.
Brisbane’s lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, is a graduate of the college, and state opposition frontbencher and former deputy leader, Fiona Simpson, is a parishioner of an affiliated church. One of Citipointe’s youth pastors, Daniel Myhill, worked in the office of the federal MP Luke Howarth last year, and the former state MP for Capalaba, Steve Davies, is a Citipointe member.
At the last state election, the LNP selected Citipointe pastor Janet Wishart to run in the local electorate of Mansfield. Her campaign posters were strung along the fence-line of the Citipointe campus and many of her volunteers were drawn from the church, including paid staff members.
Wishart now works in the office of the leader of the opposition, David Crisafulli.
Meanwhile, the Australian Christian Lobby – one of the bodies leading the push for the religious freedom bill – was birthed at Citipointe by a lay pastor, John Gagliardi, who once worked at the same church complex where school families were last week asked to sign enrolment contracts declaring homosexual acts were “immoral” and “offensive to God”. There is no suggestion Gagliardi was involved with the contracts.
Reputation at risk
The Citipointe campus at Carindale is set out like its own private village. On-site is the massive church auditorium, with a coffee shop, information booth and an Eftpos machine for collecting payments and offerings. The complex also includes the school, with 1,700 students, a tertiary college, Christian Heritage, and a childcare centre.
The church runs its own Hillsong-style music group, Citipointe Worship, and has established outposts in the US, New Zealand and Bulgaria.
Its governing body, the Christian Outreach Centre (branded publicly as the International Network of Churches) reports about $54m in annual income and $250m in assets.
The school has long had a positive reputation, one that many parents say was built by the former headmaster, Ron Woolley, who ran the college for more than 30 years and brought its teaching in line with the Queensland curriculum.
Concerned parents and teachers say this week’s furore over enrolment contracts is simply emblematic of the shift towards a more literal religious doctrine that has taken place since Woolley retired in 2018 and Mulheran was brought in to run the school.
Concerns include the way Mulheran sermonises to children, often speaking about homosexuality as “sin” and “going bright red when he does”. The principal has previously claimed he was “cured” of debilitating headaches by the prayer of a healing pastor.
In a letter to the church community on Thursday, Mark Ramsey addressed the increasingly damaging media reports about the school.
“Little did we realise that at the end of the first month of 2022 we as a church and school would be under the spotlight of government, media, the public and the communities in which we are located,” Ramsey wrote.
“We believe that every person is made in the image of God, is equally loved by God and is of equal value. We know everyone matters to God, therefore, everyone matters to us.
“I know some of you may have questions and maybe even feel disappointment in some aspects of this situation, and if you do, that’s ok.”
A question of timing
Announcing the withdrawal of the school’s demand for parents to sign enrolment contracts, Mulherin this week offered an apology.
“We deeply regret that some students feel that they would be discriminated against because of their sexuality or gender identity, and I apologise to them and their families on behalf of the college,” Mulheran said.
“As stated previously, the college does not and will not discriminate against any student because of their sexuality or gender identity. It is central to our faith that being gay or transgender in no way diminishes a person’s humanity or dignity in God’s eyes.”
But given the extent of Citipointe’s political involvement, some have wondered aloud whether the attempt to institute enrolment contracts was deliberately timed to coincide with the federal debate about religious freedoms.
Teachers at the school say Mulheran was “acutely aware” of the political context, and he has been politically active on such matters in the past. In 1996 he lobbied the Senate to give employers “the right to discriminate”.
“I have got a friend whose brother is a homosexual,” he said. “He does not feel harassed or anything by discussions that we have. (But) I do not accept his moral behaviour.
“People who employ other people ... should have the right to discriminate.”
Mulheran has also lobbied state MPs on discrimination laws and has previously been a state advisory board member of the rightwing Christian lobby group, FamilyVoice. The same group this week said criticism of Citipointe college showed “Australians are now in bondage to woke and LGBTIQA+ ideology”.
The Queensland education minister, Grace Grace, who is also the parent of a non-binary child, earlier this week questioned the motivation of the school.
Asked about the school’s LNP and political links, and the contracts being released while the religious freedom debate was happening, Grace said: “I certainly have suspicions about the timing.
“Why is a new contract being put to parents at 5pm on a Friday when school resumes for some students on the Monday?” Grace said.
“I sincerely hope this has nothing to do with chasing votes at the upcoming election.
“I hate to think that vulnerable students could ever be used as part of a political stunt in that way.”
If the contracts were connected to the religious freedom debate, they appear to have brought elements of that campaign to heel.
Matilda Alexander, from the LGBTI legal service, said the contracts provided people with clear evidence what faith-based schools could attempt if certain elements of the laws were imposed; but that the backlash also showed community sentiment was firmly against those sorts of moves.
Schrinner came out publicly and said he would not sign the contracts for his own children, who attend the school. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, also condemned the contracts and announced on Thursday the government would amend the religious freedom bill to explicitly prevent students being expelled for their sexuality or gender.
The irony was not lost on those teachers at Citipointe who had been asked by Mulheran to pray for the legislation to remain intact.
“Perhaps we should have prayed harder,” said one teacher. “Or then again, maybe some of us were praying for a different outcome.”
