Conservative American commentator Candace Owens has been refused a visa to Australia after an intense lobbying campaign by Jewish groups, robbing her Australian fans of an opportunity to see her live.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke on Sunday confirmed that Ms Owens, who has 18 million social media followers, would not be allowed into the country for her five-date speaking tour next month because her opinions had upset minorities.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Mr Burke told Nine newspapers.
“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”
Australia has rejected Candace Owens’ visa application – with immigration minister Tony Burke explaining the decision by saying she has the “capacity to incite discord”.
What rubbish. There are many controversial views and speakers out there. The way to sort the good ideas from… pic.twitter.com/3BeW9QZtOj
— Free Speech Union of Australia (@FSUofAustralia) October 27, 2024
Mr Burke’s decision was celebrated by Jewish groups including the Zionist Federation of Australia, which in August demanded Ms Owens be barred in a letter written to Home Affairs by leaders Jeremy Leibler and Alon Cassuto.
“Bigotry and anti-Semitism are unacceptable in any form, regardless of whether they originate from the far left or right,” Mr Cassuto said on Sunday.
“For the sake of our nation’s social cohesion, there is no place in Australia for Candace Owens.”
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich called the visa cancellation a “victory for truth”.
“This is more than just a visa being revoked. This is a tribute to every single survivor who bore witness to the horrors of Auschwitz. Australia has no place for those who mock the suffering of genocide survivors and insult the memories of the 6 million Jews who perished,” Mr Abramovich said.
Ms Owens is yet to comment on the move, but in August she responded to calls for her tour to be cancelled by saying it had surprised her but that it is “not going to harm you to hear different ideas”.
“It’s kind of incredible to think people could be so fearful of just speech and conversation,” she said on 2GB radio.
Mr Cassuto and Mr Leibler claimed in their August letter that Ms Owens was spreading “dangerous conspiracy theories” and Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan said at the time that he supported their calls.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim had also demanded Mr Burke ban the conservative pundit, and claimed that she failed the Migration Act character test.
“At a time of unprecedented strains on the cohesiveness of Australian society, which is very largely the outcome of ignorant and malicious comment on social media, the last thing we need to be importing into our country is yet another so-called celebrity who has made racist and bigoted comments about Jews and other vulnerable groups,” he said.
However, the ban upset many Australians, including The Free Speech Union of Australia, which spoke out against it on X.
“Australia has rejected Candace Owens’ visa application – with immigration minister Tony Burke explaining the decision by saying she has the ‘capacity to incite discord’,” the FSU wrote.
“What rubbish. There are many controversial views and speakers out there. The way to sort the good ideas from bad, the true from the false, is through open discussion and debate, not censorship.
“Besides, it isn’t clear at all that censoring controversial views, reduces, rather than increases, the so-called ‘discord’.”
Conservative influencer Kobie Thatcher wrote: “I don’t agree with all of her views, but the only attack here is on free speech.”
“Her tour is now cancelled. What a disgrace. I bought my mum tickets and she was really looking forward to that,” podcaster Jake Rattlesnake said.
Last month Ms Owens was suspended from YouTube on Monday and fully demonetised for sharing an interview with Kanye “Ye” West which contained “claims that Jewish people control the media,” which the social media site said is “hate speech.”
“There will be no show today, or at all this week. That’s because @YouTube has issued me a strike and a one week suspension for my sit down with Kanye,” Owens said at the time.
“They also removed the interview as ‘hate speech’, as it was mass reported by Zionists. Their tactics never change.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta earlier this year announced they too would be censoring criticism of “Zionists” as “hate speech.”
The decision expanded an earlier policy Zuckerberg enacted for Facebook and Instagram in 2020 to ban all Holocaust denial as well as all content which depicts “Jewish people running the world or controlling major institutions such as media networks, the economy or the government”.
“The idea of banning content that promotes stereotypes of Jewish global control came up a year ago, in a meeting with several Jewish groups convened by Facebook, and was pushed primarily by the World Jewish Congress,” The Jewish Daily Forward reported at the time.
Header image: Candace Owens with Donald Trump, left, Dvir Abramovich, right (Facebook)
