Far-right US influencer Candace Owens loses legal fight to enter Australia

Australian curate cited US influencer’s nationalist comments downplaying the Holocaust and making Islamophobic remarks.

Far-right American influencer Candace Owens has mislaid a ineligible bid to beryllium allowed to participate Australia aft a tribunal ruled with the authorities that granting her a visitant visa could “incite discord successful the Australian community”.

The High Court of Australia said successful its ruling connected Wednesday that the government’s determination to garbage Owens a visa successful 2024 “was not invalid” and ordered her to wage the government’s ineligible costs successful the case.

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The tribunal “unanimously” ruled that the nonfiction successful Australia’s Migration Act utilized by the authorities against Owens “applies where, successful the lawsuit that the idiosyncratic were allowed to participate oregon to stay successful Australia, determination is simply a hazard that the idiosyncratic would disturbance up oregon promote dissension oregon strife successful the Australian community, oregon a conception of that community”.

Owens, a well-known right-wing podcast big and governmental pundit who has built a ample online pursuing for arguable views and conspiracy theories, applied for an Australian visa to undertake a commercialized speaking circuit successful November 2024.

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke – who has the powers to contradict noncitizens introduction based connected a “character test” – rejected Owens’s exertion successful October 2024 owed to the hazard of her views “leading to accrued hostility and convulsive oregon extremist action”.

Burke had cited her nationalist comments connected the Holocaust and different Islamophobic remarks.

“From downplaying the interaction of the Holocaust with comments astir Mengele done to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capableness to incite discord successful astir each direction,” the curate said past year, according to Australia’s Herald Sun quality outlet, referring to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doc who conducted experiments connected Jewish prisoners astatine Auschwitz.

The High Court of Australia has delivered its ruling successful the conflict betwixt Immigration Minister Tony Burke and a arguable American right-wing influencer. > https://t.co/Caf2KV6zMQ pic.twitter.com/Gyi8l6kkKm

— Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) October 15, 2025

Owens appealed the minister’s determination to the High Court connected the grounds that refusing her a visa infringed connected state of governmental communication, though successful Australia – dissimilar the United States – determination is nary explicit law close to escaped speech.

“The implied state is not a ‘personal right’, is not unlimited and is not absolute,” High Court Judges Stephen Gageler, Michelle Gordon and Robert Beech-Jones said successful their associated judgement connected the case.

The judges noted that Burke had denied Owens a visa aft examining her views and comments connected areas including antiracism, Black Lives Matter, anti-Semitism, women’s and LGBTQ rights, COVID-19 and anti-vaccination.

Burke had recovered her views to beryllium “extremist and inflammatory comments towards Muslim, Black, Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities which make contention and hatred”, and the curate concluded that she had failed the “character test” required for a visa and that allowing her into the state would not beryllium successful the nationalist interest, the judges said.

Owens’s “submissions should beryllium emphatically rejected”, High Court Judge James Edelman said successful a abstracted judgement.

In July, Australia besides cancelled the visa of US rapper Ye, formerly known arsenic Kanye West, implicit concerns helium would person promoted Nazi ideologies successful his opus “Heil Hitler”.