Are visas being used as weapons in the culture wars? Granting or denying a visa tarnishes the reputation of political speakers. It is growl of disapproval from the Big State.
Inconsistencies regarding the application of the minister’s discretion for visas has been long suspected and stretches between governments. The problem is extensive, long-standing, and getting worse.
Some of the denials are more outrageous than others.
While there are reasonable grounds to reject the visa of an individual who has been convicted of terrorist charges or some other criminal matter, the expansion of these rejections to include ‘character’ or ‘potential harm’ without clear criteria has left the government free to play politics with borders.
This is not to say that minister discretion should be scrapped, only that it would be wise to keep an eye on how it is used.
Most will agree that the way tennis champion Novak Djokovic was treated left Australia embarrassed. His eligibility of entry was passed between the federal and state governments, providing fodder for the media and feeding civil aggression toward unvaccinated people. Novak’s punishment was a collective punishment justified by bureaucratic form-ticking nonsense.
Despite official excuses, many suspected Novak’s crime was moral. His good health weakened the effectiveness of propaganda while the circus surrounding his detainment and eviction lives on as a relic of Victoria’s two years of hysteria. There was nothing wrong with Novak’s character. The only entity he posed a danger to was the government.
A recent high-profile example of visa politics relates to trans activism.
Women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull was a no-show at CPAC in Brisbane after she failed to secure a visa. Smeared as ‘anti-trans’ by mainstream publications, the pro-women speaker committed the terrible crime of calling biological men out for forcing their way into women’s spaces.
Women’s rights and so-called trans rights are in direct, mutually exclusive conflict. The government has picked their side, but it is becoming a politically delicate issue for Labor, particularly as female voters abandon the Labor Party. Stories about the loss of medals and records taken from women by men are hitting the headlines at the same time as consensus slips away for various medical treatments related to children.
‘I was very much looking forward to upsetting all the right people with my trip,’ said Ms Keen-Minshull. ‘In disappointing news I haven’t got my visa for Australia. They haven’t got the gumption to actually cancel me. Instead, what they are doing is just pretending that they haven’t processed it even though they are days overdue, so how annoying.’
‘The New Zealand government is reassessing whether Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull will be allowed to travel to the country without a visa after protests who supported her at a rally in Melbourne on Saturday performed the Nazi salute.’
Let’s rephrase this. A group of known Neo-Nazis, who seek fame by gate-crashing events, terrified speakers and attendees at the Let Women Speak rally. As punishment for having the event ruined, Ms Keen-Minshull is now being punished with petty visa wars. See how this works? Visas are being used as glue to make mud stick.
Can we expect the visas of Climate Change UN speakers and Net Zero companies to be cancelled if Neo-Nazis show up to a climate rally and hold signs about loving the environment?
Yeah. I doubt it too.
Cancelling visas damages the reputation of the speaker, but it also disrupts efforts by conservative organisations to attract big-name speakers to draw in crowds, sell tickets, and start building a conservative movement to oppose the Labor government.
Is Labor interfering with the intention of disrupting the freedom of political communication in this country? Have other governments made similar choices in the past?
CPAC suffered without Posie Parker. ARC suffered without Jordan Peterson.
Next on the list is Candace Owens, whose visa was denied over the weekend.
‘Australia has no place for those who mock the suffering of genocide survivors and insult the memories of the six million Jews who perished,’ said the Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission.
Really? So where did all these people come from on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne shouting ‘from the river to the sea’? Visa programs, perhaps?
We know some of them came from visa programs because the Labor government went out of its way to misuse the tourist visa system to bring in Palestinian refugees without proper background checks and character references. What proof do we have that Palestinian refugees, lifted out of a terror-held region where polls indicate the vast majority of citizens support Hamas, hold views compatible with Australian culture? In particular, we know that Palestinian children grow up under the control of state-sanctioned school and social indoctrination with one goal – the murder of Jews.
Mind you, what else can we expect except hypocrisy from a Labor government that gives millions to Palestinian aid groups knowing full well that a substantial portion of that money will end up in the hands of Hamas…
Candace Owens is a commentator. She’s often unwatchable. I find much of what she says to be ill-informed nonsense. Many former fans comment that the more she speaks, the less interest they have in her commentary. But she is not a danger to Australia and if her ideas are found to be wanting, isn’t the best course of action to take them out for a walk and challenge them? Or is Australia no longer the land of debate? We know what else Ms Owens is, she is a big scalp for the Labor government to parade around at the next election.
‘Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else,’ said Immigration Minister Tony Burke. ‘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 cannot expect anyone to take his reasons for refusing her seriously while such disparity of logic exists.
We are left to wonder how long it will be before banning visas escalates to empowering the office of the eSafety Commission to block Candace Owen’s social media accounts, transforming geographical borders into digital ones.
