It’s all over bar the shouting, and there’s been plenty of that. After 40 years of public service and political ministry, Fred Nile’s remarkable legacy is being reduced to a smouldering ruin by a competition of egos, bitterness and public striving.

The Judgment

Here are some selected excerpts from the most recent judgment ordering the CDP to be wound up – a damning report card on those running the party these past few years.

“89 The ongoing hostilities between the parties and persons associated with the Association in various capacities have continued since the Receiver’s appointment and it seems to me that the costs which have been incurred and will continue to be incurred in the receivership and the actual and potential claims for costs of these proceedings will likely dissipate the Association’s assets, in substantial part, before the proceedings are resolved so that its political purposes could not then be achieved. I am satisfied that these matters, combined with the lack of any apparent hope of resolution of the internal disputes within the Association in the foreseeable future and the inconsistency between the use of the Association’s resources for those costs and its specified purposes supports a winding up order.”

“91 The evidence, including that of Ms Wright to which I referred above, indicates that the manner of appointment of officers to the Association has not complied with the 75% requirement in cl 4(b) of its constitution for several years. It appears that no Annual State Council meeting was held by the Association in 2021 and no such meeting could be held in future without first resolving the fundamental and ongoing dispute as to the identity of the Association’s electorate branches so to appoint delegates of the branches to attend it. An election of office holders cannot presently be conducted in the manner prescribed by the Association’s constitution, where the controversy as to the identification of its electorate branches cannot be resolved without continuing litigation which will continue to erode the Association’s assets, and may be impossible to resolve in such litigation given the deficiencies in the Association’s branch records.”

“103 I will stay the winding up order which I am satisfied should be made for a relatively short period to allow the parties a further opportunity to resolve their differences as to what could be achieved by any meeting of delegates of branches of the Association or members generally and how it could be conducted. The Court can set aside that order before it takes effect if the parties agree the basis for the conduct of meeting that would result in the appointment of officers to the Association and the making of any necessary amendments to the Association’s constitution to regularise the branch system and allow future meetings of the Annual State Council to occur.”

Do Not Sue the Brethren

St Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? ² Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? ³ Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? ⁴ If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? ⁵ I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? ⁶ But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!

⁷ Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? ⁸ No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren!”

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