Exclusive Brethren COVID test supplier sets $14m Hills District record

The Sydney Morning Herald/August 6, 2023

By Lucy Macken

Less than a year after the son of Exclusive Brethren’s global leader Bruce D. Hales purchased a $9.5 million mansion in Dural, a member of his flock has gone one better and smashed all house price records for the Hills District.

Gavin Grace, a Ballarat-based member of the fundamentalist Christian sect and a director of laboratory equipment supplier Westlab, has paid $14 million for luxury acreage in Middle Dural, well and truly topping last year’s $12.36 million district record.

The purchase – with no mortgage – follows Westlab’s soaring profits of recent years on the back of more than $150 million worth of federal government contracts in the past 18 months alone for the supply of medical equipment and rapid antigen test kits.

The two-hectare estate features a 19-room mansion designed by US architect John Henry with seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, billiard room, library, home theatre, pool and a tennis court.

A source who was previously a member of the sect before they were excommunicated, suggested the property was being purchased by Hales, but settlement records show it settled in Grace’s name, and a spokesman for the Exclusive Brethren said Hales has nothing to do with it.

LJ Hooker Dural’s William Brush and Peter Colusso said only that the buyer came from Victoria.

But Hales is not unfamiliar with Grace and the success of Westlab. Corporate records show when Hales is not tending to the 50,000-odd members of the sect worldwide as its Elect Vessel, he has an accountancy firm Bruce D Hales & Co, and last year was appointed the auditor of Westlab.

A financial report into Westlab lodged by Hales last year shows company revenue soared an extraordinary 926 per cent in the 2022 financial year, up from $52 million in 2021 to $534 million.

Hales’s appointment as auditor prompted probity questions as to the independence of his role given he is the global head of the sect, known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, but Grace refuted that in a statement saying the audit was undertaken by a senior auditor from Bruce D Hales & Co, and not Hales himself.

Until recently, the Exclusive Brethren were not known for their lavish taste in housing, but that changed in recent years as the Hales family have purchased some of the area’s most expensive homes, including a $9.5 million luxury estate in Dural bought by Gareth Hales.

Members maintain a strict doctrine of isolation from the modern world, shunning social interaction with “worldly” outsiders, union membership, voting and university. Further, women are banned from wearing pants, having short hair and working in a position of authority over men.

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