Why did Candace Owens have her visa rejected?
Content warning: Discussion an individual with transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic views
Right wing political commentator Cadence Owens has been refused entry into Australia for her upcoming speaking tour. Her show advertises an electrifying evening with a Conservative women known for her controversial takes, and bold and unfiltered perspectives. Immigration Minister Tony Burke said that "Australia's national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else," and that her speaking tour could have the ability to create social unrest.
But why is the Australian Immigration Department so concerned about her?
Owens has a large audience on social media, with almost 3 million subscribers on YouTube. Her content is primarily political commentary and interviews which is not very controversial in and of itself . The subtle and explicit ideas within her content are what has created the Immigration Department’s concern. She routinely denies and downplays the Holocaust, claims that Muslim people started slavery and that transgender people are being forced to have surgery, and denies the existence of systemic racism.
The consequences of these ideas in Australia have become a major concern for the Australian Security Intelligence Agency (ASIO), with the Australia’s terrorism threat level being raised from ‘possible’ to ‘probable’ in the past six months. This was primarily due to the increasing prevalence of cases they class as ‘ideologically motivated threats’. These are inclusive of extreme right wing, Neo-Nazi, extreme conspiracies, anti-authority, misogynist, nationalist and racist ideology. Many of these ideas that ASIO have been targeting are found in Candace Owen’s content and spread by her fellow right wing political commentators.
Even though ASIO is focused on the extremes of the spectrum, radicalisation starts somewhere more innocent. During Day 2 of the Social Media Summit, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said that individuals and groups with these extreme ideas “share content from the internet on social media and use social media as a gateway to dark parts of the internet”. He also said with the accessibility and increasing use of social media, "Individuals can be self-radicalised, and the process can take days and weeks rather than months and years". This can begin with content like videos on Candace Owen’s YouTube such as ‘Is it Race or Personal Choices that determine Poverty?’ or ‘Modern Feminism Is RUINING the Next Generation of Women’. Burgess said that it only takes 10 minutes before “the algorithm starts recommending more and more violent misogynist propaganda”.
The core defining values of Australia, as with other western liberal democracies, include freedom of assembly and political participation, freedom of speech, expression and religious belief and basic human rights. The Australian Government wants freedom of expression and political participation, but Candace Owen’s disregard of people’s basic human rights is evident. Candace Owen’s platform seeks to legitimise these ideas that ultimately disallow for the political expression and speech of a large cohort of the Australian population.