FED: Irving plans renewed bid for Australia visa

AAP General News (Australia)
02-01-2000
FED: Irving plans renewed bid for Australia visa

By Max Blenkin

CANBERRA, Feb 1 AAP - Controversial British historian David Irving plans to make another
bid to visit Australia, saying the government can no longer refuse him entry because his
daughter is an Australian citizen.

Mr Irving, who has been refused entry to Australia on four previous occasions, said
it would be scandalous if Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock prevented him visiting a
family member.

He said he had legal advice saying the government could not refuse him entry to see
his youngest daughter Beatrice in Brisbane.

But Prime Minister John Howard said Mr Irving remained an undesirable.

"We have a view that because of his record he should not come to Australia," he told
reporters in Dubbo in central western NSW.

Government sources said any application from Mr Irving for a visitor visa would be
considered on its merits and all relevant matters taken into consideration.

"An application for a visitor's visa does not give any extra rights. It is not a rubber
stamp for automatic entry," Mr Howard said.

Mr Irving is suing American academic Deborah Lipstadt and publisher Penguin Books
in a high-profile action billed as one of the biggest cases concerning Holocaust history
since the trial of war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

He is seeking libel damages for being called a "Holocaust denier".

A scholar of World War Two and prolific author, Mr Irving has attracted worldwide controversy
for disputing that Nazi Germany was responsible for the systematic murder of six million
Jews and others or that Adolf Hitler was personally culpable.

He has been convicted under German law for denying the magnitude of the holocaust and
subsequently refused entry for speaking tours in Canada, Australia and other countries.

In 1996, the former Labor government refused him a business visa on grounds of his conviction
in Germany.

Mr Irving, 62, said he had no idea Beatrice, who does not share her father's views
on the holocaust, had become an Australian citizen until late last year.

"She broke this dreadful news to me about three months ago when she came to England.

I realised this was most fortuitous," he said on ABC radio.

"She became an Australian citizen because she likes Australia. She has an extremely
nice Australian boyfriend who no doubt one day she will marry and nobody will be happier
than I.

"I haven't actually sacrificed my youngest daughter in order to be able to get into Australia."

Mr Irving declined to say whether he would apply for a tourist or business visa or
what his intentions would be in Australia.

But he said he was not planning a speaking tour at this stage.

"Let's cross that bridge when we get to it," he said. "I will wait until I get the
invitation from Philip Ruddock. When Philip writes a letter saying `Dear Mr Irving, we
would love to have you' then I shall tell you folks what I am planning to do.

"I have a lot of friends in Australia. I would like to shake a lot of hands of a lot
of people who have given me a lot of support over the last few years ever since the ban
was first engineered under the Keating government.

"We all know who was behind that. I would like to come and speak a few blunt words
to the people who opposed me at those times and shake the hands of those who supported
me."

AAP mb/ss/bar/br

KEYWORD: IRVING NIGHTLEAD

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