The "Australian-Djokovic Affair" - the affair that keeps on giving.
You may recall one of the novellas I produced about the Djoker and his Australian adventure included this short list of folks who have had their visa cancelled (or outright denied) due to Ministerial prerogative:
keith wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 11:26 pm
Here is a list of some of the folks who have been rejected using the law:
The Age: Rappers, deplorables and anti-vaxxers: The people Australia has banned
- Katie Hopkins (Covid restriction violator and public nudist - she's British)
- Milo Yiannopoulos (banned on character grounds, then let in after political pressure, then banned again after confirming his bad character)
- Chelsea Manning (character grounds - criminal background)
- David Icke (shape-shifting alien hunter and holocaust denier)
- Gavin McInnes ('Proud Boys' founder, terrorist)
- Kent Heckenlively (self described "worlds #1 anti-vaxxer" - banned in 2017 - so before Covid)
- Bassem Tamimi (Palestinian Activist)
- Johnny Depp and Amber Heard (importing bioweapons - i.e. smuggling their dogs Pistol and Boo)
- Snoop Dogg (character - drugs and firearms violations)
- Joe Cocker (marijuana possession - 1974 - different law back then, but similar effect)
You may not be aware of Katie Hopkins, but the Djoker Affair has brought her antics in Australia back to the attention of some folks:
Human Rights Commission investigates granting of visa to Katie Hopkins
(FYI:
Australian Human Rights Commission)
The decision to grant a visa to British far-right commentator Katie Hopkins last year is under investigation by the Australian Human Rights Commission following a complaint by a Muslim advocacy group.
Hopkins, 46, was granted a visa to appear on a reality TV show – reportedly Channel Seven’s Big Brother VIP – and arrived in Sydney in July while the city was in lockdown and thousands of Australians were unable to return home from overseas due to tight border restrictions.
But the media personality had her visa cancelled while she was in hotel quarantine, after bragging to her more than 260,000 Instagram followers that she opened her door to guards while maskless and naked to “call out” Australia’s quarantine system and COVID-19 restrictions.
...
At the time, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews described Hopkins’ behaviour as “despicable” and said there was “no place in Australia for visa holders who would deliberately endanger others”.
But the incident raised questions about why Hopkins was granted a visa in the first place, given her established record of harmful public commentary, including racial vilification.
...
In its complaint, AMAN submitted a response to a letter it sent to Home Affairs seeking an explanation for the visa, in which a spokesman said the risk of vilification and other harms must be balanced “against Australia’s well-established tradition of freedom of expression”.
“It can be reasonably inferred from this statement that Ms Hopkins’ freedom of expression, and those who would agree with her in Australia, was given more weight than the human rights of Australians who would be adversely affected by vilification,” it states.
“It is also a reasonable inference that the Minister does not believe that hate speech is best countered by prohibition but by more free speech.”
Hopkins’ rap sheet includes tweeting a call for a “final solution” – a Nazi reference to the extermination of Jews – in response to the 2017 bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. She has also described migrants crossing the Mediterranean as disease-spreading “cockroaches” and “a plague of feral humans” in a newspaper column.