‘Tail, film, heckle’: Inside the Brethren’s secret election influence plot with the far-right

From day one of the 2025 federal election campaign, the prime minister was being secretly tracked. When Anthony Albanese stepped up to speak at a press conference in Brisbane on March 29, a man was already lying in wait.

Albanese would later recall how someone suddenly “stormed” through the press scrum, “yelling out all sorts of aggressive” things about immigration.

He was among a motley crew of far-right agitators paid to harass the prime minister and his ministers, as well as Greens and teal independent candidates, in nearly a dozen scripted stunts on the campaign trail.

Running the show behind the scenes were elders from a wealthy Christian sect formerly known as the Exclusive Brethren. Messages leaked from inside the secret operation, which this masthead can now publish, show the trail leading right to the top of the church – to Gareth Hales, one of the powerful sons of the sect’s world leader, Bruce Hales.

Chats on encrypted apps show Brethren figures tailed politicians and fed “private intel” on their locations to far-right activists with a history of white supremacist associations. They show how, the night before Albanese’s press conference, McIntyre was brought in to “tail, photo/video, heckle”.

Multiple Brethren leaders appeared in the chats alongside far-right figures like McIntyre discussing payment and logistics. Pictures were shared from successful stunts, which this masthead has now traced to more than a dozen disruptions splashed across social media during the campaign.

One elder even suggested one-liners to agitators heckling MPs – all designed to grab headlines and embarrass opponents of the Coalition.

Six sources with knowledge of the operation, speaking anonymously for safety reasons, have told this masthead how the Brethren used information from contacts in Canberra to track the PM’s plane, then followed his protective detail from airports, at times driving agitators to his hotel for ambushes, and afterwards paying them in bundles of cash.

The church and elders approached about the revelations, which this masthead first reported last month, have repeatedly denied any involvement in the stunts, including when questioned by a recent parliamentary inquiry.

But one of the senior Brethren figures behind the operation, Lester Sharples, has now confirmed to this masthead “it was organised by a number of people, of which I was one”, though he denied knowing of money changing hands.

The stunts were just one arm of the Brethren church’s multimillion-dollar, undisclosed effort to help elect Peter Dutton as prime minister.

Key far-right figures were also paid tens of thousands of dollars to serve as middlemen in the church’s shadowy advertising campaign, this masthead can reveal, endorsing Brethren posters and buying ad space.