The federal government has stripped controversial rapper Kanye West of his Australian visa for promoting Nazism in a recent single.
Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Tony Burke revealed the step in an interview with the ABC this afternoon when speaking about visa cancellations for people with Islamophobic and antisemitic views.
“Most of the visas that have been cancelled under this section have been where someone was seeking to make a public speech … the only one I can think of where it wasn’t for public advocacy, the visa, but we cancelled anyway, and that’d be Kanye West,” he said.
Burke said the decision was made after West, whose wife, Bianca Censori, is Australian, released the single Heil Hitler in May.
The track released on May 8 – the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II – includes a sample of one of Adolf Hitler’s speeches, and its music video has been banned in Germany.
“He’s been coming to Australia for a long time, he’s got family here, and he’s made a lot of offensive comments,” Burke said.
“But my officials looked at it again once he released the Heil Hitler song and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia.
“It wasn’t a visa for the purpose of concerts.
“It was a lower level and the officials still looked at the law and said you’re going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism, we don’t need that in Australia.”
When questioned by ABC host Patricia Karvelas about whether the “extraordinary” visa cancellation for a popular celebrity was sustainable, Burke said Australia didn’t need to import bigotry.
“What’s not sustainable is to import hatred,” he said.
“Some people say, ‘oh, don’t you believe in freedom of speech?’. And for Australian citizens, yeah, you’ve got full freedom of speech, but we have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry.”
Burke said immigration officials would assess any application by West to have his visa reinstated.
