2 weeks ago
Candace Owens demands government reverse visa rejection
Paul Karp
The far-right provocateur Candace Owens has demanded the Australian government overturn its rejection of her visa for a planned national speaking tour.
Owens has appealed to the home affairs department about the minister, Tony Burke’s, decision that her presence in Australia could “incite discord”, warning that she will escalate to federal court litigation if it is not reversed.
The US conservative influencer and podcast host has advanced conspiracy theories and been accused of antisemitic rhetoric including minimising Nazi medical experiments in concentration camps.
In a statement Owens claimed to have launched a legal challenge that Burke’s decision “was made with clear bias and improper motivations”.
“According to Owens’s legal representatives, Burke displayed prejudice against her case from the outset, making public remarks that cast doubt on his impartiality long before a decision was made,” a spokesperson said.
Burke also revealed private details of Owens’s application to the media, further calling into question his neutrality.
Guardian Australia understands that the status of the matter is now only an application to the department to have the decision revoked.
A spokesperson for Owens clarified: “It is still in the appeal process … if the decision is maintained then it will be filed in federal court.”
“The grounds for refusal are legally unreasonable and unjustifiable,” the spokesperson said.
In October Burke said that “Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else”.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [notorious Nazi doctor Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” he said.
Guardian Australia contacted Burke for comment.
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Rubber has hit the road in a world-first medicinal cannabis driving trial, as Victoria’s government investigates if users can steer safely.
The trial, led by Swinburne University and backed by a $4.9-million state grant, aims to understand how tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the psychoactive compound in medicinal cannabis - impacts driving performance and risk on the road, reports AAP.
The trial will test drivers’ steering, braking and speed control and assess their ability to handle distractions at a Melbourne driver training centre.
All participants will be accompanied by a qualified driving instructor with dual controls to take over if required.
The trial was open to people prescribed cannabis for a sleep disorder, chronic pain or a mental health condition for at least six months.
The study will include impairment screenings before and after test drives.
Prescription cannabis has been available in Australia since 2016, and is used by more than 700,000 people to manage cancer treatment, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other medical conditions.
Victoria’s upper house recently passed legislation to end automatic licence bans for medicinal users caught driving with traces of cannabis in their system.
THC can be detected more than a week after it is consumed, which has landed authorised users with bans and hefty fines, despite debatable impairment at the time of driving.
From March 1 2025, magistrates will have discretion to determine if the driver was impaired at the wheel.
Severe heatwave forecast for parts of Queensland
Temperatures into the mid-40s will scorch parts of Queensland this week, with the Bureau of Meteorology warning of severe heatwave conditions in the state’s interior:
Candace Owens demands government reverse visa rejection
Paul Karp
The far-right provocateur Candace Owens has demanded the Australian government overturn its rejection of her visa for a planned national speaking tour.
Owens has appealed to the home affairs department about the minister, Tony Burke’s, decision that her presence in Australia could “incite discord”, warning that she will escalate to federal court litigation if it is not reversed.
The US conservative influencer and podcast host has advanced conspiracy theories and been accused of antisemitic rhetoric including minimising Nazi medical experiments in concentration camps.
In a statement Owens claimed to have launched a legal challenge that Burke’s decision “was made with clear bias and improper motivations”.
“According to Owens’s legal representatives, Burke displayed prejudice against her case from the outset, making public remarks that cast doubt on his impartiality long before a decision was made,” a spokesperson said.
Burke also revealed private details of Owens’s application to the media, further calling into question his neutrality.
Guardian Australia understands that the status of the matter is now only an application to the department to have the decision revoked.
A spokesperson for Owens clarified: “It is still in the appeal process … if the decision is maintained then it will be filed in federal court.”
“The grounds for refusal are legally unreasonable and unjustifiable,” the spokesperson said.
In October Burke said that “Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else”.
“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [notorious Nazi doctor Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” he said.
Guardian Australia contacted Burke for comment.
Thank you, Tory Shepherd! Let’s get straight on with the remainder of the day’s news…
I’m handing the steering wheel over to the dazzling Daisy Dumas, as my brain is fried and frazzled from my first question time in a few moons. See you back here tomorrow!
Question time ends
And with a final thundering answer from the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, to a Dorothy dixer (inflation, tax cuts, surpluses, rinse and repeat), question time is done for today.
Sharkie has question about veterans’ graves charity
The independent MP for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, has a question on a charity, the Headstone Project, which finds veterans in unmarked graves in South Australian cemeteries. Their application for tax deductibility status has been refused.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says he’ll “have another look”:
We get many more applications that we can afford to fund. We do our best working closely with the minister to work out how we can impose some sort of order and priority on those, but if there has been some obvious issue here for this one then I am obviously happy to take another [look].
The opposition MP Dan Tehan raises a point of order about relevance and prompts chortles by introducing Slovakia to the debate (it’s not entirely clear why, but I just wasted a couple of minutes looking at Slovakia’s interest rates).
Chalmers says Taylor should acknowledge ‘very encouraging’ inflation data
The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, says the Monetary Fund is predicting Australia’s inflation will be the second highest of any economy in 2015.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says he thinks Taylor means 2025. He goes on to say:
I think it is unfortunately dishonest of the shadow treasurer to ask a question about inflation without acknowledging the very welcome and very encouraging data we got last Wednesday.
The inflation we inherited at 6.1% is now 2.8%. If he wants to ask me a question about headline inflation, he shouldn’t have spent the last six months saying that headline inflation doesn’t matter, only underlying inflation matters. He has to make up his mind.
He says inflation peaked lower and later in Australia than in other countries, and says if Taylor wants to compare Australia with other countries he should acknowledge that they have higher unemployment than we do here.
Chalmers has another stab at Taylor, saying he assumes he has “someone who turns the IMF reports into little cartoons so he can understand” them.
Bandt asks why student debt relief cannot be introduced immediately
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, cheekily says he welcomes the government’s adoption of the Greens policy on student debt, but asks why it can’t be introduced immediately.
“I really do thank the member for Melbourne for that question,” Anthony Albanese says, and accuses the Greens of working with the Coalition to hold up the government’s legislation:
Take, for example, our help to buy legislation … something that we took to the last election, something just like what they did with the HAFF [the Housing Australia Future Fund], they actually have motions moved in the Senate between the Greens and the Coalition, where they defer things off into the never-never. And say we can’t talk about it.
Albanese says Labor has committed to a range of legislation it wants to get through this year and next year, and has committed to legislation for a second term.
“So we make no apologies for … saying what a re-elected Labor government will do,” he says.
