Australia\u2019s high court has unanimously backed the government\u2019s 2024 decision to refuse rightwing provocateur Candace Owens a visa to enter the country.<\/p>\n
The full bench of the court ruled on Wednesday that the minister\u2019s denial did not infringe an implied constitutional freedom of political communication.<\/p>\n
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, in October 2024 refused Owens\u2019 visa application <\/a>ahead of a planned national speaking tour, arguing she had the \u201ccapacity to incite discord\u201d.<\/p>\n Burke said at the time the US conservative influencer and podcast host, who has advanced conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric \u2013 including allegedly minimising Nazi medical experiments in concentration camps \u2013 did not pass the \u201ccharacter test\u201d to receive a visa under the Migration Act.<\/p>\n A statement released by the court said: \u201cThe minister found that there was a risk of \u2026 [Owens\u2019] controversial views leading to increased hostility and violent or radical action.\u201d<\/p>\n Owens, in court, sought a declaration that a section of the act was invalid or, alternatively, that the minister had misconstrued the act when refusing to grant her a visa.<\/p>\n Owens\u2019 lawyers argued the character test was more likely to exclude non-mainstream political views that sparked division.<\/p>\n Perry Herzfeld SC contended the threshold of \u201cinciting discord\u201d to reject a visa was so broad it could capture disagreements and robust debates and was \u201cvery much in the eye of the beholder\u201d.<\/p>\n This meant visas could be withheld from people who \u201cwill stimulate debate … the minister doesn\u2019t like\u201d, Herzfeld argued in the high court in May.<\/p>\n But the judges on Wednesday \u201cunanimously held that, reading the minister\u2019s decision fairly and as a whole, the minister did not misconstrue [the act] in deciding to refuse to grant the visa,\u201d a summary of the court\u2019s judgment<\/a> stated.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The court stated that the section Owens argued Burke had misconstrued \u201capplies where, in the event that the person were allowed to enter or to remain in Australia, there is a risk that the person would stir up or encourage dissension or strife in the Australian community, or a segment of that community, of a kind or to a degree that is harmful to that community or segment.\u201d<\/p>\n In October last year, Burke said: \u201cFrom downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [notorious Nazi doctor Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction. Australia\u2019s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n The minister argued Owens met all relevant legal requirements to be issued a visa \u2013 except for the character test. Owens maintained that she satisfied all the requirements.<\/p>\n The high court found Owens was not entitled to any relief and ordered her to pay the defendants\u2019 costs. Owens and her Australian solicitors were contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s high court has unanimously backed the government\u2019s 2024 decision to refuse rightwing provocateur Candace Owens a visa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-214189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}