The Chamberlains: Slander, Smear, and the War Against Seventh-day Adventists in Australia

This book reveals how religious prejudice and Catholic dominance within institutions shaped public opinion and influenced the courtroom. It shows how police tunnel vision, contaminated evidence, and fabricated forensic myths combined to destroy lives. It examines how the media sensationalised the Chamberlains’ faith, painting Adventism as cult-like, and how even after their eventual vindication, slander followed Michael Chamberlain to the grave. Posthumous allegations ensured that suspicion would cling to his name, serving as a final act of character assassination aimed not only at him but at the church he represented.

The Chamberlains’ ordeal is set within a wider historical context. From the smear campaigns of the Jesuit Counter-Reformation to the covert operations of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, the same tactic has been repeated: when ideas cannot be defeated, their messengers are discredited. In this sense, the Chamberlains’ suffering was not unique but part of a pattern of power and prejudice against religious minorities. Their story is about more than a dingo. It is about the weaponisation of slander, the entanglement of church and state, and the enduring cost of being different in a society that prizes conformity.

The Chamberlains: Slander, Smear, and the War Against Seventh-day Adventists in Australia is both history and warning. It clears the record for a family who endured the unendurable — and it challenges Australia to confront the unfinished task of ensuring justice for all.