Burke’s jab to far-right speaker before $1500 Aussie tour

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has committed to personally reviewing the visa application of far-right, anti-Semitic speaker Candice Owens, who is scheduled to come to Australia in November for a speaking tour.

Tickets for her Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane shows, Candace Owens Live, are currently selling at $95 for reserved seating and extend to $1500 for a pre-show VIP dinner with Owens herself.

A fifth show is slated for Adelaide on November 22, with VIP Meet and Greet tickets costing $295.

Mr Burke, who has discretionary ministerial powers to block or refuse a visa, said it appeared Owens had yet to make an application three months out from the shows.

“Tickets to these events are selling for $100. I hope she has a good refunds policy,” Mr Burke said.

“There hasn’t been an application for a visa but if there is the brief will come to me personally.

“My opposition to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia has always been on the record. I have clear legal powers to knock back a visa to anyone who would incite discord.”

His strong stance has been welcomed by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim.

“At a time of unprecedented strains on the cohesiveness of Australian society, which is very largely the outcome of ignorant and malicious comment on social media, the last thing we need to be importing into our country is yet another so-called celebrity who has made racist and bigoted comments about Jews and other vulnerable groups,” he said.

Mr Wertheim said Owens’ publicly-held views means she should fail the character test under the Migration Act, and preclude her from a visitor’s visa.

“Our new Minister for Immigration now has an opportunity to show the leadership needed to affirm that principle,” he said.

On Friday, Independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender called for the controversial pro-Trump speaker to be barred from entering Australia.

“Ms Owens is a media provocateur, who makes her living generating controversy, division and hatred. Her denial of the truth of The Holocaust is obscene,” she said.

“We don’t need her input to public discussion in Australia a time when we must preserve social cohesion. I welcome the minister’s call to review her visa application.”

Coalition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan also backed calls for Owens to be refused entry.

“There is no place in Australia for people who spread hateful messages and undermine social cohesion,” he said.

Owens has been criticised for downplaying the documented atrocities committed during the Holocaust as “completely absurd” and “bizarre propaganda”, and branding Adolf Hitler’s actions as “nationalist”.