Sect leader, self-help author and political player: The mystery man behind Morrison’s Tokyo speech | ErykBagshaw LisaVisentin
The man hosting Scott Morrison’s Tokyo address is the leader of a Japanese sect, who has published more than 220 self-help books, claims to have 50,000 devout followers and whose political influence reaches across Australia, Asia and Europe.
Morrison skipped the first sitting week of the new Parliament to speak at the forum, called the World Opinion Leaders Summit, despite the event starting on Thursday, fuelling speculation about speaking fees he may be earning and adding to the expectation that he will quit politics during this term. Handa is not the only link to the religious right at Thursday’s gathering. Canada’s conservative evangelical former prime minister Stephen Harper now leads the International Democratic Union, one of the co-hosts of the event. The IDU was led by John Howard between 2002 and 2014, who was religious but not as publicly as Morrison., used his first speech since losing the election to urge churchgoers not to trust in governments.
Scott Morrison delivers a sermon at Victory Life Centre in Perth, urging churchgoers to trust in God, not government. Thursday’s forum follows growing scrutiny on the reach of religious groups in Japanese politics after the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. His assassin, Tetsuya Yamagami, had blamed the Unification Church for “destroying his family and driving it into bankruptcy” after his mother donated more than $1 million to the church. Abe had appeared at the church as a paid speaker in September.
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