The High Court of Australia has upheld the government’s decision to deny a visa to American commentator Candace Owens, ruling that her entry could inflame social divisions.
It also said she could not rely on the country’s implied right to political communication.
Ms Owens, who boasts a massive online following for her provocative conservative views, had planned a speaking tour across Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, and Brisbane in November 2024.
But her visa application was rejected by Australian home minister Tony Burke, who cited concerns that her rhetoric could “incite discord”.
Mr Burke invoked his power under the Migration Act of 1958 to deny Ms Owens a visa. The law allows the government to refuse entry to any non-citizen who fails a “character test” or risks promoting disharmony.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Mr Burke said at the time, according to News.com.au.
“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”
Ms Owens challenged this decision, arguing that it infringed on the constitutional freedom of political communication.
Australia, unlike the US, has no explicit constitutional right to free speech, though courts recognise an implied freedom for political discussion among citizens.
In a unanimous decision on Wednesday, the High Court dismissed Ms Owens’s appeal and ordered her to pay the government’s legal costs.
The court ruled that while the Migration Act did place some limits on political communication, it served a legitimate purpose of safeguarding national unity.
“The implied freedom is not a ‘personal right’, is not unlimited, and is not absolute,” Justices Stephen Gageler, Michelle Gordon and Robert Beech-Jones said in a joint judgment.
Justice Simon Steward argued that Ms Owens, as a foreigner, could not rely on the constitutional protections reserved for Australian citizens. “At the very least, while remaining out of Australia, she has no right to invoke the protection afforded by the implied freedom or to use it as a means of entry,” he said. “It simply does not apply to her.”
Justice Jacqueline Gleeson noted that Australians would not be deprived of political discourse by her exclusion, given her extensive online presence. “It is notorious that political engagement increasingly occurs through social media,” she said, noting that Ms Owens’s followers could still access her views digitally.
In a separate judgment, Justice James Edelman said that Ms Owens’s legal arguments “should be emphatically rejected”, affirming that the home minister’s interpretation of the law was correct.
The decision followed calls by Jewish groups to bar Ms Owens from entering Australia, citing her alleged history of inflammatory remarks. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, for one, had warned that her visit risked fuelling “racist and bigoted comments about Jews and other vulnerable groups”.
The ruling against Ms Owens came months after the government revoked a visa for American rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, over concerns that his music and public statements glorified Nazi ideology.
Ms Owens has long been accused of promoting conspiracy theories, like suggesting that French first lady Brigitte Macron was born male – an allegation now subject to defamation proceedings by president Emmanuel Macron in American courts.
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