The first podcast by the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, entitled A Not-So Exclusive Podcast, launched in October 2025. It featured Brethren spokesman Lloyd Grimshaw as host, with the first guests being Gareth, Dean, Greg and Charles Hales — the four sons of church leader Bruce Hales. Inside the PBCC, they are collectively known as The Hales Boys or The King's Sons.
As I watched the podcast, I experienced three things in succession: boredom, shock and anger.
Boredom at the general content — four middle-aged men discussing their childhood and their shared goal of paying off their mortgages by the age of forty. Shock at the sheer hypocrisy of their stories, given that many Brethren families follow rules which appear to forbid some of the very things openly discussed. Anger at the continued semantic games in their answers, particularly around the 2025 Australian election and their flat denial of any church involvement.
What the Podcast Revealed
Throughout the episode, the focus was overwhelmingly on business and money. There was an admission that family had come second or third in their priorities — leaving us to only guess what came first. A significant portion was dedicated to how they felt they had been misrepresented in the public domain, which came across as abject self-pity from men who, by any measure, lack self-awareness.
Most striking of all: for four sons of a so-called church leader, there was a remarkable absence of any reference to God or Jesus. The overwhelming sense they conveyed was that religious belief sits fairly low in their list of priorities. Which, when you consider the organisation they represent publicly as a Christian church, is telling.
"For four sons of a church leader, there was a surprising absence of any reference to God or Jesus."
Brethren Exposed Editorial — October 2025It was also notable how Dean Hales described those in fellowship as "Our People" — possessive language that sits oddly alongside the PBCC's public insistence that it is simply a loose collection of individuals with no hierarchy, no rules and no leadership structure. The brothers consistently talked about not supporting or working with a political party. It should be noted that $700,000 in donations went to Advance Australia. Advance is not a political party.
What Insiders Say
At the end of the podcast, I posted on social media asking insiders to confidentially share their views. Over the following week, I was contacted by multiple people. What they described strongly contradicts the Hales Boys' account.
Insiders in Australia have a very different recollection of the build-up to the federal election. They describe Signal chat groups, Zoom calls, a video from the leaders being shared across members' businesses, phone campaigning, and members travelling to other states.
Dean Hales is reported to have directly implored business owners to allow Brethren employees time off from work to campaign for the Liberals: "I guarantee you, that if the Libs get in, you will more than make up for any lost profit from this campaign." Members were told of the need to hustle and to create a Blue Surge, a reference to a Donald Trump documentary called The Art of the Surge.
Normal requirements for attendance at church meetings were reportedly suspended in favour of members hitting the phones and the polling booths. On election day, large teams were deployed before dawn, driving for hours, campaigning all day and observing counts into the night. Polling booths in every marginal seat were staffed around the clock, with security teams to guard signage.
All of this, we are to believe, happened in the usual Plymouth Brethren style: no organisation, no leaders, no formal processes, no rules, and entirely without the support of the church. Simply people who shared a view, and happened to be doing similar things, in similar places, at the same time. Who among us has not stumbled onto a chartered flight to another state, to campaign alongside people we know, who happen to belong to the same church, without any prior planning whatsoever?
The Logical Contradiction at the Heart of the PBCC
At times one must ask a simple question: does the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church actually exist? According to Lloyd Grimshaw and the Hales Boys, it has no rules, owns no businesses, did not get involved in the election, and each local community is entirely autonomous. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, they stated there is no formal process for electing a leader. The Brethren are, apparently, just 55,000 individuals who share similar views and break bread together.
If that is genuinely true, then the continued denial of any structure, hierarchy or rules has a perverse logical consequence: it gives credence to the argument that the actual power, the actual hierarchy and the actual rules must come from Bruce D Hales Pty Ltd — also known as UBT — managed by an executive board known as the Global Advisory Panel, chaired by Bruce D Hales himself. They prefer to call it an Ecosystem. It is, in every material sense, a commercial organisation.
"Plymouth Brethren Christian Church? That is simply a label — one that suggests mainstream Christian faith, grants religious protection and generates millions in charitable benefits."
Brethren Exposed Editorial — October 2025The PBCC as a named church exists to provide legal and charitable cover. The actual organisation, with its rules, its hierarchy and its decision-making, operates through the commercial structure. I have said this before and I will continue to say it until the regulators and parliamentarians who have been lobbied so effectively by this organisation take the time to genuinely examine it.
Conclusion
My view at the end of the not-so exclusive podcast was simple: it was an exercise in spinning yarns. An attempt to deflect from the negative publicity surrounding the Ecosystem and the so-called Plymouth Brethren Christian Church following the Australian election, the ongoing scrutiny of government contracts, and the growing body of evidence about how this organisation actually functions.
Four wealthy men, sons of the wealthiest family in one of the wealthiest religious organisations in the world, sitting down to talk about mortgages and misrepresentation. If nothing else, the podcast was a masterclass in missing the point entirely.