Aussies divided over calls to ban Candace Owens from the country – as far-right US commentator lashes out

Australians have been divided over calls to stop far-right US commentator Candace Owens from entering the country. 

Home Affairs minister Tony Burke announced he would personally review her visa application ahead of her November speaking tour.

A ticket for her show in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide costs $95 – but it can cost as much as $1,500 for a VIP dinner with Ms Owens.

Having grown to fame during the Trump presidency, Ms Owens has drawn outrage for her controversial comments.

She claimed Israel was founded by a ‘cult’ and labelled some of the Holocaust attrocities as ‘completely absurd’.

Ms Owens has also taken aim at minority groups and claimed there was a link between trans people, ‘clinical insanity’ and a rise in mass shootings. 

Mr Burke, who has the power to block or refuse a visa, said he would oversee a brief of Ms Owens’ application once it has been made.

‘My opposition to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia has always been on the record,’ he said on Friday.

‘I have clear legal powers to knock back a visa to anyone who would incite discord.’

Allegra Spender, who is an Independant MP for Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, voiced her support to ban Ms Owens from the country.

‘Candace Owens should not be allowed to visit Australia,’ she wrote.

‘Ms Owens is a media provocateur, who makes her living generating controversy, division and hatred. 

‘We don’t need her input to public discussion in Australia a time when we must preserve social cohesion.’

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said Ms Owens represented ‘ignorant and malicious (comments) on social media’.

He added that Ms Owens’ views should fail the Migration Act’s character test and bar her from obtaining a visitor’s visa.

Some social media users were quick to defend Ms Owens. 

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

Ms Owens (centre) poses for a photo with ex-US president Donald Trump (left) and her husband George Farmer (right)

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, who has ministerial powers to reject visas,  said he would ‘personally’ oversee Ms Owens’ application once it has been made 

‘You can’t stop someone from speaking just because you don’t agree with them,’ one wrote.

‘Someone might try to do that to you one day.’

‘I’m a free speech guy, I may not agree with your views but you have the right to hold and express them,’ a second wrote.

‘More speech not less, bad ideas die in the light of conversation.’

Ms Owens called Mr Burke’s comments ‘crazy’ in a segment of her Youtube show that was live-streamed on Saturday.

‘I could never imagine anybody in government being like, I’m going to personally see to it, that this person does not come into my country because I don’t like their speech,’ she told viewers.

‘I’ve never been to Australia … this would be crazy in America, because we are so radical about speech.

‘We just believe in freedom of speech and freedom of debate.’