New Zealand cancels Candace Owens visa

Controversial far-right American firebrand Candace Owens has copped a second blow to her speaking tour ambitions following the cancellation of her Australian visa by Immigration Minister Tony Burke.

New Zealand has now followed suit and declined to grant Ms Owens a visa, denying her a scheduled speaking event in Auckland as part of her Candace Owens Live tour.

In a statement to NewsWire, Immigration New Zealand acting deputy chief operating officer Jock Gilray confirmed his department had blocked Ms Owens’ visa application on November 19.

“Immigration New Zealand has declined the application from Candace Owens for an entertainers work visa,” Mr Gilray said.

“Under section 15 of the Immigration Act, an individual may not be granted a visa to come to New Zealand if they have been excluded from another country.”

There is no information in the statement that New Zealand declined her visa on character grounds, which was the reason underpinning Mr Burke’s decision to block Ms Owens from Australia.

“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 said in October on announcing his decision to knock back her visa.

“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”

Ms Owens was initially scheduled to tour Australia across November but following Mr Burke’s intervention, the shows have now been rescheduled for early 2025.

The first date on the tour is listed for Auckland on February 28 and then Brisbane on March 4, Sydney on March 6, Perth on March 8, Adelaide on March 9 and then Melbourne on March 10.

Ms Owens’ has launched an appeal against Mr Burke’s decision.

In a statement, a spokesman for Ms Owens said the challenge would argue Mr Burke’s decision was made with “clear bias and improper motivations”.

“According to Ms Owens’ legal representatives, Mr Burke displayed prejudice against her case from the outset, making public remarks that cast doubt on his impartiality long before a decision was made,” the spokesman said.

“Mr Burke also revealed private details of Ms Owens’s application to the media, further calling into question his neutrality.”

The spokesman said the grounds for Mr Burke’s refusal were “legally unreasonable and unjustifiable”.

“The minister’s conduct suggests that this decision was aimed at boosting his public image rather than upholding a fair process,” the spokesman said.

“Mr Burke has been asked to step down from any further involvement in this case. An impartial official should reconsider her application.”

The legal challenge follows a concerted pushback from Ms Owens across her social media channels in which she lashed the government for what she called a “petty act of vandalism”.

She has suggested her application was blocked due to her coverage of attacks on Palestinians in Gaza.

“I just wanted to make sure that every person knows that despite me being fired, demonised, spoken ill about, I haven’t changed my position,” she said.

“That’s what this really is, a petty act of vandalism. No one’s worried about me coming to Australia because they’re angry that they’ve put this narrative out about me and my listeners haven’t accepted it.”

NewsWire has reached out to Ms Owens’ team for comment.

The influencer, who split from mainstream US conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and his news outlet The Daily Wire in March this year, counts 5.8 million followers on Twitter and some five million on Instagram.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim called on Mr Burke to cancel Ms Owens’ visa, arguing she failed the character test under the Migration Act.

“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.