McGorry backs Senate Scientology inquiry

Australian of the Year Pat McGorry has backed calls for a Senate inquiry into Scientology, saying its views on mental health are putting lives at risk.

"They are the deniers of the realities of mental illness, which I find incredibly irresponsible and dangerous," he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

The renowned mental health expert has joined psychiatry boss Louise Newman and the Brain and Mind Institute's Ian Hickie in urging senators to vote for an inquiry.

The Senate is expected to vote on the issue, brought forward by independent senator Nick Xenophon, by the end of next week.

Professor McGorry met Senator Xenophon on Tuesday to lend his voice to the cause.

"I'm concerned that any restriction or any discouragement of access to mental health care will cost lives and result in unnecessary disability for people," he said.

"The whole mental health field would support this call for an inquiry and it's something that's overdue in my opinion."

So far, only the Australian Greens have committed to voting for the inquiry and it needs more support if it's to get up.

Senator Xenophon said the church had nothing to fear from a transparent inquiry where it would be given the right of reply.

He said he would not abandon any victims of Scientology, adding he could be a "completely stubborn bastard" when it came to pursuing important issues.

The church's Australian vice-president Cyrus Brooks has rejected the support of the mental health experts.

"That's the wrong way for them to go there. They're going into the field of religion and they're in the field of mental health," he said.

Mr Brooks also attacked what it called "attempts by psychiatrists to use the Senate to try to gag an organisation because of its views on mental health".

"It is not the role of the Senate to investigate any organisation because of its views on treating mental illness," he said.

"In fact, it would be an attack on free speech and democracy."

Mr Brooks claimed efforts to convene an inquiry were an attack on free speech and debate, in response to Scientology's role as a "watchdog" of the psychiatric profession.

He claimed the church's Citizens Commission on Human Rights had exposed the notorious "deep sleep therapy" carried out at Sydney's Chelmsford Hospital in the 1970s and that it continued to attack the use of drugs in psychiatric treatment.