It has been dismissed as “gossip” by the prime minister, but in the two months since the White House state dinner, the government has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to avoid answering the simple question: Did Scott Morrison ask the Trump administration to invite the Hillsong founder, Pastor Brian Houston, to the dinner?
The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Morrison had been “determined” to bring Houston to the White House, with several rounds of discussions between Canberra and Washington before the idea was vetoed by the White House.
The concern over whether the invite was appropriate is that questions still remain about the Hillsong founder’s failure to report his father’s child sexual abuse confession to the New South Wales police.
The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse heard that in 1999, Houston’s father, Frank, had confessed to him when confronted that he had abused a child in the 1970s. There are several other cases from around the same time in both New Zealand and Australia.
Houston did not report his father’s confession to the NSW police, the royal commission found.
Houston has maintained he believed it was not his place to report the crime, because the victim, Brett Sengstock, was an adult at the time Houston became aware of the abuse and could report the crime himself. Sengstock has refuted this claim.
The report on the potential invite came while Morrison was in the United States with an Australian press pack which immediately questioned the prime minister about the story. Morrison refused to answer any questions on it:
Journalist: It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that an invitation was sought to the White House for Hillsong Pastor Brian Houston who’s a friend of yours and that was not backed? Can you tell us what happened there?
PM: I don’t comment on gossip.
J: So it’s not true?
J: Did you actually put a request in for him to…
PM: I don’t comment on gossip or stories about other stories.
J: Does that mean it’s not true though?
PM: It means it’s gossip.
J: But it…
PM: It means it’s gossip.
J: But not true?
PM: I’ve answered the question.
J: True or not true?
Then on 2 October, the PM again refused to answer the question when asked by then Sky News host David Speers, and suggested there were “rather aggressive statements” being made about Houston.
“I’ve found that all a very unfortunate incident and particularly for those who are very upset about some issues that have occurred many years ago as well,” he said.
“But it’s a straightforward question whether you suggested his name for this dinner?” Speers asked.
“No I don’t think it’s helpful David. I mean there’s one unpublished source, comment, coming out of allegedly…,” the PM responded.
Speers: But you can clarify this?
PM: Well I don’t feel the need to comment on those things David, I really don’t. If people want to put their –
Speers: But why is that though?
PM: Because David I’m not going to go into the habit of just because one journalist somewhere in the world talks to someone who won’t put their name to it, and all of a sudden apparently we got to play 20 questions. That’s just not how I’m going operate. If people have an established source who’s prepared to put their names to things well that’s a different matter.
When Labor raised the story in question time in mid-October, Morrison accused Labor of casting aspersions on Houston.
“If they are suggesting anything serious, or casting any aspersions on the individual which is the subject of the question, then perhaps I suggest they go and attend that church and they explain their concerns directly to their parishioners,” Morrison said.
In Senate estimates the following week the department of prime minister and cabinet took all questions about the invite list on notice, despite the issue having been in the news for long enough for the department to have prepared a response. Departmental officials would not answer whether the prime minister’s office had compiled a list of potential invitees, or whether Houston was on that list.
Officials at the time suggested even mentioning whether a list was put together, let alone whether Houston was on the list, could harm international relations with the United States.
Nevertheless, the questions were taken on notice, with the government leader in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, stating he would see if the prime minister had any information to add. The government has yet to respond to these questions.
At the same time as officials were speaking about the matter, eight freedom of information requests to the department, filed by a number of media organisations and people, including Guardian Australia, were due for a response.
The department tried, and failed, to get an extension of time to respond to those requests. But the department took close to another month to respond to those requests.
At 6.20pm AEDT on Friday night, commonly referred to as the “take out the garbage” time of the news cycle, the department issued its decisions to refuse the requests.
In the decision provided to Guardian Australia, the assistant secretary for protocol and international visits in the department, Alison Green, said even acknowledging the existence of documents related to whether Houston was on the list would “diminish the confidence which the United States would have in Australia” as a recipient of confidential information.
This is despite the fact that Australia, in this instance, is the sender of the apparent confidential information – a list of potential attendees.
Green acknowledged that the document for the list of potential invitees exists, because the department of foreign affairs had already acknowledged it exists, but then won’t confirm its existence in relation to whether Houston’s name is on that list.
“Given the reference in the FOI request to a particular individual (in this case, Mr Brian Houston), mere identification of the existence of a document meeting the terms of the FOI request, if such a document existed, would in itself disclose the content of the confidential communication.”
There will be appeals to the decision to the information commissioner, which can take up to a year to complete, meaning the issue will drag well into 2020, as the government continues to avoid answering the question.
Why the secrecy?
It is no state secret that Morrison has had a close relationship with the Hillsong founder – Houston is mentioned in Morrison’s first speech in parliament. In July, Morrison and his wife, Jenny, appeared on stage with Houston at a Hillsong conference and asked the attendees to pray for rain.
It’s unclear why, then, the government just won’t answer the question.
Houston himself has been asked whether he was invited and said he wasn’t aware of it, because he, at the time of the last interview, hadn’t spoken to the prime minister about it.
After the news of the potential invite became public, it threw the spotlight back onto Houston’s response to his father’s child sex abuse, and led to reports that the NSW police investigation into Houston’s failure to report the confession to police was still active.
Guardian Australia also revealed that Houston refused to be interviewed by NSW police on the matter in 2016, and the police almost closed the investigation after that.
