Australia’s High Court has upheld the government’s decision to block conservative American commentator and author Candace Owens from entering the country, ruling that the move did not breach the nation’s implied freedom of political communication.
In a unanimous decision on Wednesday, the court found that Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke acted lawfully when he refused Owens a visa ahead of her planned speaking tour. Burke had cited her history of “conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic rhetoric,” saying she failed the Migration Act’s “character test.”
Owens took the case to court, arguing that the law was either invalid or had been misapplied. Her legal team claimed the “character test” was being used to silence voices with controversial political opinions.
Attorney Perry Herzfeld, representing Owens, said that “inciting discord” as a reason for visa rejection was too broad and open to interpretation. “It’s very much in the eye of the beholder,” he said, according to The Guardian. Herzfeld warned that such reasoning could exclude people “who will stimulate debate … the minister doesn’t like.”
But the High Court disagreed, writing that the justices “unanimously held that, reading the minister’s decision fairly and as a whole, the minister did not misconstrue [the act] in deciding to refuse to grant the visa.”
Following the ruling, Burke welcomed the outcome.
“This is a win for social cohesion,” he said. “Inciting discord might be the way some people make money, but it’s not welcome in Australia.”
Burke has previously accused Owens of making “extremist and inflammatory comments towards Muslim, Black, Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities, which generate controversy and hatred.”