The Athena School in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Newtown has found itself facing the NSW consumer watchdog following claims that it deliberately masked links by the school to Scientology.

The information in question was contained in a leaflet which has been called a possible breach of trading practices by the NSW Green Party. The Green Party yesterday lodged an official complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for contravention of the Trade Practices Act.

The leaflet features the logo of the Scientology education division – the Applied Scholastic emblem – which is displayed in the bottom corner of the pamphlet. The logo is accompanied by notation that advises the school’s educational services are based on the teachings of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. According to the Sydney website of the Church of Scientology, the father of Dianetics wrote about education on such diverse topics as family, marriage, education and drug rehabilitation.

John Kaye, the NSW Greens MP, wrote in his letter to the ACCC that the flyer being distributed failed to declare that the school uses for its moral code the controversial work The Way to Happiness by Hubbard, and that it was using the Applied Scholastics approach with its pupils.

School principal Fiona Milne claimed that Scientology was not taught as a religion at the school, which rather used study methods proposed by Hubbard in its teachings. Saying that children’s education was the primary goal of the school, Milne acknowledged that some pupils and at least four teachers were confirmed followers of Scientology.