PETER VAN ONSELEN: Imagine a male sex worker came to Australia with a mission to sleep with teenage girls. Why is Tony Burke dodging the Bonnie Blue visa issue?
Why is Immigration Minister Tony Burke dodging the Bonnie Blue visa issue? He has previously expressed his willingness to intervene and use his powers to revoke visas.
For the uninitiated, Bonnie Blue is a British sex worker now living in Queensland on a visa.
During Schoolies Week, she plans to head to the Gold Coast to offer free sex to “barely legal 18-year-olds” as long as they let her film the encounter and upload it to her Only Fans account.
Although she sleeps with a wide range of men of all races, ages and appearances, she doesn’t deny that her most prolific and controversial content involves sexual acts with ‘barely legal’ teenagers.
“There are two reasons,” she told the Daily Mail.
“One, the teen category has been the most searched category online for a long time, people have always done schoolgirls. And I was like, there’s a gap in the market for someone who’s with a schoolboy. If we want to put it that way.
“From a business perspective, I knew there was a huge, huge gap that I could (exploit). And by sleeping with 18-year-olds, the content becomes a lot more relatable to younger subscribers.”
A petition has been launched to revoke her visa on character grounds, and because of the discord her actions are causing in the community. So far, more than 20,000 people have signed it.
Bonnie Blue says ‘there’s a gap in the market for someone who hooks up with a schoolboy’ so she heads to Schoolies Week to target ‘barely legal’ 18-year-olds for new content
Burke has previously said he would “consider refusing and revoking visas for anyone seeking to stir up discord in Australia”.
He recently used those powers to deny a visa application from Trump supporter Candace Owens, whose offensive commentary included anti-Semitic slurs.
When the immigration minister intervened in that case, he said Owens had “the capacity to foment discord” and so it was better to keep her out of Australia.
But Burke doesn’t seem to want to extend that approach to Bonnie Blue. Why not?
Child safety expert Kristi McVee pointed out that “if this was a male creator (OnlyFans) targeting ‘barely legal’ young women, we would take action and they would be called pedophiles.”
It’s hard not to agree that if Bonnie Blue were a male sex worker who targeted female “barely legal” 18-year-olds, Burke would certainly use his powers. Basically condemn the behavior.
If Bonnie Blue were a male sex worker targeting female ‘barely legal’ 18-year-olds, there is little doubt that Tony Burke (above) would use his powers to block their entry into Australia.
But when Daily Mail Australia contacted Burke to find out whether or not he was prepared to act as things really are, he didn’t even bother to respond.
When we complied with the request and were not content to let him bury his head in the sand, one of the Minister’s staff confirmed that the Immigration Department would do its job as usual – whatever that means – but the minister could not comment on it. individual cases.
Real? Even though in the past he was happy to comment on ‘individual cases’ when it suited him.
It is difficult not to conclude that Burke will hide behind due process in the department when it suits him, but will burst from that restraint when political opportunism demands it.
That is not (yet) the case when it comes to Bonnie Blue.
Maybe that will change as momentum builds and Burke calls for action.
Sex work is the oldest profession in the world, or so the saying goes. That famous saying took hold after an 1889 Rudyard Kipling story that referenced this idea.
The Bonnie Blue situation is not about stigmatizing sex work. Concerns about her actions are limited to the context of the way she practices her profession during Schoolies.
Although the people she targets are consenting adults, even just barely, the change.org petition claims that Bonnie Blue is a “predatory sex worker,” adding that she “finds the perfect opportunity to find young boys to to hunt and record sexual acts. content to sell’.
Immigration Minister Tony Burke has decided to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil for the time being. In stark contrast to his hard-hitting commentary on other issues when it suits him politically.
But when Daily Mail Australia contacted Burke about Bonnie Blue (above) to find out whether or not he was willing to deal with the way things really are, he didn’t even bother to respond, writes Peter van Onselen.