High court rules that Newman showed ‘consummate disregard’ for the law by travelling to Australia knowing his visa had been cancelled

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The American anti-abortion activist Troy Newman has lost his legal bid

to stop his deportation from Australia, after he arrived in the

country without a valid visa.

Newman will also have to pay the Commonwealth’s legal costs.

In making his decision in the high court in Melbourne on Friday, Justice Geoffrey Nettle highlighted Newman’s “consummate disregard” for Australian laws, by travelling to Australia with knowledge that his visa had been cancelled.

“He does not come to this court with clean hands,” Nettle said.

The high court justice noted a recording that Newman took of him being stopped at Denver airport because he did not have a valid visa as an evidence that the campaigner knew his visa had been denied.

Airline workers had urged him to contact the Australian embassy before travelling on, Nettle said.

Despite disagreeing with the visa cancellation, Newman had “no right to treat it as nought”, Nettle said, adding that he had shown “consummate disregard” for Australian law.

He was “determinately and avidly” intent on travelling to Australia, the justice said.

“He is the author of his own misfortune and predicament,” Nettle said.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, on Friday released a statement saying he had asked his department to expedite his removal.

Newman could be deported as early as 6pm on Friday.

“Mr Newman-Mariotti has been treated in the same manner as any other illegal arrival,” Dutton said. “His detention and removal is entirely related to his decision to openly flout Australian law and travel to Australia without a valid visa.”

The minister as asked the department to investigate how Newman boarded the United Airlines flight without a visa in the first place.

He thanked border force staff for their “diligence” in detecting the “illegal arrival” at the border.

Newman, also known as Newman-Mariotti, won a 24-hour reprieve from deportation on Thursday night, when the high court ordered that he could not be removed from the country until the case was heard the following day.

Newman had been due to start a 10-day speaking tour of Australia on Thursday, but his visa was cancelled on Tuesday, before he flew out of the US, after it emerged that Newman had advocated that abortion doctors in the US be tried as murderers, potentially opening them up to execution.

The visa was cancelled under section 128 of the Migration Act, which grants the immigration minister the power to cancel a non-citizen’s visa if there are concerns for community safety and good order.

Despite not holding a valid visa, Newman flew from Los Angeles to Melbourne, arriving early on Thursday morning. He was detained by border force officials on his arrival in Australia.

United Airlines is undertaking an internal review into how a passenger boarded one of its flights without a valid visa. The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said it would be fined.

Newman’s lawyers will press on with a case to have the visa cancellation decision overturned. A directions hearing on that matter will take place on 30 October.

Central to the argument is that the minister “misconstrued or misapplied” his powers to cancel Newman’s visa, and that he did not take into account Newman’s right to political communication.

One of Newman’s lawyers, Karyn Anderson, told Guardian Australia that the “the question of the validity of the decision by a delegate of the [immigration] minister to cancel Mr Newman’s visa was not determined by the court”.

“His honour found that there was a serious legal question to be considered regarding whether the decision to cancel Mr Newman’s visa was invalid, having regard to the implied right to freedom of political speech,” Anderson said.

Mary Collier from Right to Life Australia, the anti-abortion group that organised the public seminars, expressed her disappointment at the high court’s decision.

“We were very much looking forward to hearing Troy speak in Australia,” she told reporters in Melbourne, adding that the organisation would let Newman decide if he wanted to pursue a legal case to overturn the visa cancellation.

Newman’s son, Daniel Mariotti, slammed the court decision via social media.



Labor’s Terri Butler, whose letter to the immigration minister prompted a review of Newman’s visa, welcomed the court’s decision.

“The guy got in the plane, knowing he didn’t have a visa and tried to get in past visa and customs, and you can’t get more contemptuous of Australian law than that, you can’t get more arrogant than that,” Butler told reporters on Friday. “So of course I respectfully agree with the court’s decision in that regard, absolutely.”