Australia’s “Cults Crisis”? Some Recent Developments in the “Cult Scene” 2000–2025

Since at least 2020 public concern around “cults” in Australia has emerged from a period of relative abeyance to once again become headline news, attracting significant free-to-air television coverage, numerous podcasts, and growing online activism. This has led to the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry in the State of Victoria. Drawing on a contextual constructionist framework, this article traces the social construction of this episode of “cult controversy” by mapping the contemporary Australian “cult scene,” examining how what groups wider Australian society perceives as “cults” has shifted in recent years and some of the changing dynamics of how these groups and their opponents interact with wider society. This article suggests that this so-called “cults crisis” has been primarily driven by three significant and overlapping changes in the “cult scene”: a younger generation of media-savvy anti-cult activists, comprising journalists, content creators, and (primarily) Second Generation Adult (SGA) former members; a more receptive socio-political and legal context in which the “cult problem” has converged with wider societal concerns around child abuse and domestic and family violence; and a broadening of the definitional parameters of what is classified as a “cult” in contemporary Australia public discourse to include a number of conservative evangelical and Pentecostal churches.