Candace Owens’s attempt to force her presence in Australia exposed a misguided belief in her own appeal as a free-speech pontificator and that the U.S. First Amendment is a universally exported right

You are not welcome. That was what the Australia’s highest court essentially told Candace Owens. The American right-wing podcaster had challenged he Aussie government for not approving her visa application so that she can fulfil her speaking engagements Down Under. Her visa was first denied in 2024 over concerns that she could “incite discord” in the community. Not hard to see why. She is widely seen stateside as a firebrand (to us, she is a haranguer), an agitator (in view of her charges against Brigitte Macron, a misinformer), a hothead (if she was a man, they might call he a brute), and, without doubt, a provocateur (the less polite call her a shit-stirrer). Enough reasons to not admit her anywhere.

She had earlier applied to go to New Zealand, for speaking engagements too. But as the result of the Australian ban, the Kiwi government similarly turned her down, only to change their mind, citing “the importance of free speech”, no doubt to her utter delight. But Australia stood their ground, so she appealed, arguing that the denial was unconstitutional as it infringed on the implied freedom of political communication. It is not clear why an American was interpreting the Australian constitution, but the High Court unanimously upheld the government’s decision, ruling that the Aussie Migration Act did not infringe on that freedom. It was to her great disadvantage that she mistook the First Amendment for a suggestion box.

Australia stood their ground, so she sued the government

The Australian government’s refusal to budge was not arbitrary; it was a necessary shield against imported scorn. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke did not base his decision on a minor ideological disagreement, but on a chilling public record of contempt. Even without the government’s calling out of her “extremist and inflammatory comments” targeting vulnerable groups, there is sufficient evidence from the videos she posted on Facebook that showed her at peak antagonist mode, from downplaying the Holocaust to promoting hateful rhetoric against Muslim, Black, Jewish, and LGBTQIA+ communities. When a public figure’s commentary is a documented vector for “controversy and hatred”—when she is so eager to launch a campaign of global humiliation, as she did against Brigitte Macron—it is not an attack on political debate. Simply put, it is defence of a country that has no desire to see its social fabric weaponized for American celebrity shock value.

Ms Owens’s case is, therefore, not a victory for censorship; it is a profound lesson in sovereignty for a world increasingly weary of America’s toxic cultural exports. The impulse to push back, as the Australians did so resolutely, is understandable. The world is simply too weary of any more manufactured, cranked up misery the Americans love to peddle and is petitioning for a sanity fence, not even tariffs. Ms Owens and her ilk have to stop offloading the arrogant notion that freedom is really just the right to take your loud belligerence elsewhere, anywhere. No country—especially not in the vast expanse of the Asia-Pacific—is obliged to import the vile and venomous, and vindictive. We want a better place to live in, not worse.

Illustration: Just So