Australia’s top court backs government in denying Candace Owens entry

Far-right US commentator Candace Owens has lost her fight to enter Australia, after the country’s High Court ruled that the government acted lawfully in blocking her visa on the grounds that her presence could “incite discord in the Australian community.”

The unanimous ruling, delivered Wednesday, affirmed that Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke was within his rights to deny Owens entry under the Migration Act, a law that allows authorities to block visitors who may stir up social or racial tension. The court also ordered Owens to pay the government’s legal costs.

Owens, known for her combative takes on race, gender, and politics, had planned a speaking tour across Australia in late 2024. Her application was rejected months earlier when Burke said her history of inflammatory remarks posed a “real risk” to public order.

“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,” Burke said at the time, referencing the Nazi doctor notorious for medical experiments on Jewish prisoners.

In her appeal, Owens argued that the visa ban violated her right to freedom of political communication, a cornerstone of her defence in US courts. But Australia’s judges made clear that such a right does not exist in the same way under their Constitution.

“The implied freedom is not a ‘personal right’, is not unlimited and is not absolute,” Justices Stephen Gageler, Michelle Gordon and Robert Beech-Jones wrote in their joint opinion.

Justice James Edelman went further, saying Owens’s legal arguments “should be emphatically rejected.”

The decision marks another example of Australia tightening entry controls against foreign figures accused of hate speech. In July, the government also cancelled the visa of US rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) over concerns that his song “Heil Hitler” promoted Nazi ideology.