Faith on Trial podcast: Hillsong church charges Compassion International charity $1m a year
The megachurch charged a charity for poor African children $1 million a year for promotion at Hillsong conferences, according to documents tabled in parliament.
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Christian megachurch Hillsong charged a charity that helps African children living in extreme poverty $1 million per year to be promoted at their conferences.
According to documents tabled to parliament, Compassion International handed over the money that could have gone to pay for food and medicine for some of the world’s poorest children to subsidise Hillsong’s event costs.
The “disgusting” revelations are the latest example of financial scandal that have emerged in documents tabled under parliamentary privilege by Independent Federal MP Andrew Wilkie.
The documents come as News Corp’s Faith on Trial podcast has also uncovered more shocking revelations about the Hillsong megachurch.
Hillsong’s conferences, where Compassion International was promoted, attract up to 30,000 people, with pop star Justin Bieber once attending.
“Hillsong does not promote Compassion out of the ‘goodness of their heart’,” a whistleblower’s document state.
“Instead, Hillsong charges Compassion $1,000,000 per year for the privilege of being their child sponsorship partner.
“Hillsong’s travel, green room, gift and honorarium expenditure is so extreme that even with the $1M contribution from Compassion, they still make a loss in their church operations and conference budgets.”
Compassion International has a similar system of child sponsorship that was made famous by World Vision with their heart breaking television advertisements.
The charity’s website lists the children who have been waiting the longest for a sponsor, which currently includes an eight year old girl from Ethiopia living in an area “heavily affected by AIDS and is highly vulnerable to exploitation.”
“This contribution from Compassion could otherwise be directly used to provide more assistance to children living in extreme poverty – rather than contributing to Hillsong’s excessive spending and luxury lifestyles,” the whistleblower documents, tabled in parliament state.
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A former Hillsong member who helped with making some of the videos promoting Compassion International said staff didn’t know how much Hillsong was paid.
He said he was “glad all the behind the scenes is coming to the forefront”.
“We weren’t paid much to do it because it was a good cause,” he said.
The former staffer acknowledged there were some costs in producing the videos because teams would fly overseas for filming.
He added that the cost of running Hillsong’s conferences at Sydney’s Olympic Park was expensive.
“Hiring Qudos Bank Arena costs a fortune, and you have costs with bump in and bump out,” he said.
Tim Glenn, Compassion International’s spokesman did not confirm the figures, but defended the spending.
“We have relationships with dozens of churches around the world. And the terms of those also are obviously confidential. … It is not unique for a church to partner with a non-profit ministry in exchange for opportunities to share about your ministry at those church events or conferences,” Mr Glenn told the Christian Post
The Compassion International payments were one part of a tranche of financial disclosures in the documents.
Mr Wilkie also told parliament that Hillsong hid $80 million a year from the Australian Taxation Office, used “private jets like they were Ubers” and had spending sprees that “would embarrass a Kardashian”.
The whistleblower document states: “Perhaps the most disgusting aspect of all the excessive spending and private benefit is that Hillsong promotes child sponsorship organisation Compassion International at its conferences and workshop tours via ‘on stage’ presentations and permitting Compassion to have a display ‘stand’ at the event.”
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, which has the power to strip Hillsong of its tax-free status, has announced it was investigating the megachurch’s finances.
Send your story tips to crimeinvestigations@news.com.au or stephen.drill@news.com.au
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