Australian Defence Department funds controversial development training

April 3, 2008



Australia's spent thousands of dollars on controversial development seminars, Australian media reported Wednesday. The seminars are run by a San Francisco, California-based training company called. The company evolved from "est", and has faced criticism regarding its techniques and its use of unpaid labor.

Australia's Defence Minister said that the government is in the process of reviewing Defence Department expenditures on career development. "We're in the process now of doing an audit, completely unrelated with anything to do with Landmark, which is being undertaken into learning and development to make sure that they meet our needs. ... We have to be very sure that the courses that people do undertake are relevant, appropriate and indeed in line with what community expectations might be," said Snowdon in an appearance on ABC Radio.

The Australian and Australia's ABC News reported that Landmark Education had been listed in France as a "possible " in the mid 1990s. When asked about this on ABC Radio, a spokeswoman for the company in the United States, Deborah Beroset, responded: "What happened in France was that a commission established by the French parliament issued a report in which they listed almost 200 organisations as being possible cults ... We were never contacted. We were inappropriately included in that list".

In a program which aired Wednesday, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio program  reported that Australia's Defence Department spent at least 12,270 of taxpayer funds to send government employees to Landmark Education courses. According to AM, the Defence Department said it does not appear that further funds have been sent to Landmark Education since 2004.

In a statement released by the Defence Department, the government stated: "A search of Defence records does not indicate exactly how many individuals attended courses with this training provider, however it is believed it was a small number of individuals. ... Defence has been unable to determine individual reasons for why groups within Defence choose this training provider."

AM also reported that the use of unpaid labor by Landmark Education "has attracted the attention of the US and French governments," and that some individuals in the mental health field have accused the company of. When asked about the allegations by mental health experts that Landmark Education's techniques amounted to brainwashing, Deborah Beroset responded: "Well, there is absolutely no credence to that whatsoever."

In a March 9 article in the , Peter Rolfe reported that taxpayer money was used to send at least 37 police and government staff from Victoria, Australia to seminars run by Landmark Education. Police and Emergency Services Minister said that "Decisions on the appropriateness of staff attending courses by Landmark Education are made by individual managers who remain best-placed to assess the development needs of their staff," but State Liberal MP  told the Herald Sun that the funds should have been put towards fighting crime. Apple Inc.,, and have sent employees to Landmark Education seminars, according to a spokeswoman for Landmark.

In October 2006, Landmark Education took legal action against Google, YouTube, the, and a website owner in Queensland, Australia in attempts to remove criticism of its products from the Internet. The company sought a subpoena under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in an attempt to discover the identity of an anonymous critic who uploaded a 2004 French documentary of the Landmark Forum to the Internet. "" (Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus) was produced by, a French news program. The Electronic Frontier Foundation represented the anonymous critic and the Internet Archive, and Landmark withdrew its subpoena in November 2006 in exchange for a promise from the anonymous critic not to repost the video.

Landmark Education is descended from, also called "est", which was founded by Werner Erhard. est began in 1971, and Erhard's company repackaged the course as "The Forum" in 1985. Associates of Erhard bought the license to his "technology" and incorporated Landmark Education in California in 1991.