British Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist David Icke has labelled Australia an “Orwellian totalitarian state”, after the cancellation of his visa just hours before boarding a flight to begin a speaking tour of Australia was heralded as a ‘defining moment for the nation’.
The cancellation of his visa today came after The Australian reported that two formal letters requesting the action were sent to Immigration minister David Coleman on January 24 by a Labor candidate, Josh Burns, and a Jewish community leader, Dvir Abramovich, but had received no response.
While the Department of Home Affairs told The Australian it does not comment on individual cases, Mr Icke’s tour operator confirmed the cancellation of his travel.
Mr Icke is known for claiming Jewish people funded the Holocaust, while at the same time campaigning to have Holocaust denial taught on school curriculums — views that caused his publisher to abandon him in 1995.
He also claims the world is run by an Illuminati of lizard people, and that the Jewish Rothschild family is among its leaders.
In a statement on social media Mr Icke rejected the claim that he was anti-Semitic, and criticised The Australian for being part of a “smear campaign” against him.
“I was shocked and appalled to have received the news earlier today that my visa had been revoked just hours before boarding a flight to Australia.
“This is the creation of a blatantly Orwellian totalitarian state.” he said
Mr Burns, the preselected Labor candidate in the Melbourne electorate of Macnamara, said he was disappointed in the time it took for a response to his letter.
“After ignoring our repeated requests, the Minister has finally backed down and reversed his decision to grant David Icke a visa.”
“David Icke has called for Holocaust denial to be taught in schools and has actually written about bloodthirsty Jewish ‘lizard people’ controlling the world.”
Mr Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission called the cancellation a “defining moment for who we are as a nation”.
“Bravo Minister Coleman for heeding our call and for declaring in a loud voice that anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers will never find a home in Australia.
“We salute the government for taking a clear-eyed and moral stance in rejecting hate and incitement,” he said.
Online ticket sales to Mr Icke’s events are yet to mark the event as being cancelled.
Mr Icke’s Everything You Need to Know tour was scheduled to begin on March 1 in Melbourne — a city home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel.
During question time today Labor MP Tim Watts joined the call for Mr Icke’s visa to be cancelled, saying that “no decent Australian can tolerate this” and that his visit was “a threat to Australian multiculturalism”.
Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told The Australian “it should not have taken a media article for Mr Dutton to wake up and cancel David Icke’s visa.”
He said “while it is welcome Mr Dutton has taken this action today, he has yet to apologise for allowing Polish anti-Semitic hate preacher Stanislaw Michalkiewicz into Australia.”
Mr Michalkiewicz — criticised by the Vatican for claiming Jewish victims of the Holocaust seeking compensation for seized property were trying to “outmanoeuvre Poles out of $65 billion” — began his Australian speaking tour week.
Mr Burns also mentioned Mr Michalkiewicz, telling The Australian it was “a pity the Government only made this call after being exposed for having let another anti Semitic hate preacher in Stanislaw Michalkiewicz into the country.