Hillsong pastor Brian Houston claimed he ‘doesn’t know’ if Prime Minister Scott Morrison had asked for him to join a meeting with US President Donald Trump during an official visit to Washington.
The Wall Street Journal reported Morrison asked for Mr Houston to join him on the official visit last month, but was told by White House staff that the pastor was not invited.
While speaking with 2GB Radio on Thursday, Mr Houston said he wasn’t aware of any invitation from Morrison.
Speaking with 2GB Radio on Thursday, Hillsong pastor Brian Houston said he ‘doesn’t know’ if Scott Morrison had asked for him to join a meeting with US President Donald Trump
Scott Morrison (pictured with President Trump) had requested his ‘mentor’ and Hillsong pastor, Brian Houston, join him during his visit at the White House last month
‘If people only knew how little I talk to the Prime Minister at all. It seems I’m a lot more important in a lot of people’s eyes than I really am,’ he told Ben Fordham.
‘Was I invited? I genuinely don’t know.
‘At first I thought “well no, I wasn’t,” because it was news to me. Now I literally don’t know because the Prime Minister and I have never had a conversation about that.’
It comes a month after he addressed the reports on social media, denying that he had ever been invited to the State Dinner.
The Australian Royal Commission into child sex abuse found the Hillsong pastour Brian Houston (pictured) did not report his father to police after learning he sexually abused a boy
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said the guest list was at the discretion of the White House.
Frank Houston, who died in 2004, admitted to molesting a boy for years beginning when the child was seven in the 1960s and early 70s.
In 1999, Frank Houston told his son Brian that he had sexually abused the boy.
Brian suspended his father from the church but decided not to tell the police about his father offending, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
‘We are satisfied that, in 1999 and 2000, Pastor Brian Houston and the National Executive of the Assemblies of God in Australia did not refer the allegations of child sexual abuse against Mr Frank Houston to the police,’ the commissioners wrote in their report.
The boy gave evidence saying Houston would come into his room ‘nearly every night of the week’ to abuse him during visits in 1970.
Golfing legend Greg Norman (pictured with wife Kirsten Kutner) is among a host of high profile Australians at the state dinner
The victim told the commission he had been left ‘full of shame, fear and embarrassment’ and the abuse by Houston had ‘destroyed his childhood’.
The Prime Minister reportedly agreed not to bring Mr Houston to the White House.
Morrison called Mr Houston his ‘mentor’ during his maiden speech to Parliament in 2008.
In July, Morrison and his wife Jenny appeared at the opening session for the Hillsong annual conference, standing by Mr Houston’s side, claiming Australia needed more love and more prayer.
‘There’s a lot of talk about our freedoms as Christians in this country and they should be protected,’ Morrison said at the conference.
Mr Morrison and Mr Houston are pictured at a Hillsong conference in Sydney earlier this year
President Trump and Scott Morrison met for bilateral talks and a joint press conference ahead of the dinner on Friday night (pictured)
‘There’s nothing more fundamental than freedom of belief.’
The Australian Prime Minister was just the second foreign leader to attend a US state dinner since the Trump administration began three years ago.
The two leaders met for bilateral talks and a joint press conference before the official state dinner took place in the White House’s Rose Garden.
Morrison was the first Australian prime minister to score an invite since George W Bush hosted John Howard in 2006.
Mr Trump paid tribute to Australia and Morrison at the dinner by quoting from iconic poem No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest.
First published in the Australian Women’s Weekly in 1940, the poem featuring a stirring call to patriotism was penned by Morrison’s great-great aunt Dame Mary Gilmore, who is on Australia’s $10 note.
The President raised a toast to Scott Morrison (left) after addressing guests at the dinner in the White House Rose Garden
‘We are the sons of Australia, of the men who fashioned the land; We are the sons of the women who walked with them hand in hand; And we swear by the dead who bore us; By the heroes who blazed the trail,’ Mr Trump quoted from the poem.
In reply, Morrison paid tribute to the warm hospitality from the U.S President and First Lady during his speech where he praised the US president’s ‘belief in America and its people’.
‘Thank you so much Mrs Trump for the amazing night you’ve created for us here,’ Morrison said.
Mr Trump (pictured middle right) paid tribute to Australia and Mr Morrison (middle left) at the dinner by quoting from iconic poem No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest