"Based on their previous expression of opinion or ideas."

That’s the key line from the immigration folks as they announced they are not stopping ol' Posie Parker from lobbing up and having a word about transgender issues.

Section 16 of the Immigration Act is a high bar. High enough that a few "controversial" views and a lot of hand ringing control freaks here can't scupper someone getting into the country.

Thank the good Lord.

"You can't stop a person arriving here based on their previous expression of opinion or ideas." That's not just the key line, but a critically important one.

Just to be clear, I know not of this woman any more than most of the rest of you will. I watched a bit of footage of the Melbourne rally and have read a bit.

I note with interest, in Victoria one of the MP's who spoke at the rally is on the verge of getting booted out of her party. But they now have what looks like an increasing amount of support from her fellow MP's over the fact that turning up and speaking is not actually a crime, and within the bounds of law around inciting violence you are, in fact, allowed to say what you think.

Where this has all gotten tricky is some of the people who follow these matters, and people who promote these matters, at least in some small part look to be fringe and/or troublemakers.

They are dealing with such events in the U.S right now around the activities of January 6th.

We have seen it here on the grounds of Parliament.

The part you don’t want to squash, the free expression of thought, is not the problem. The problem is the extrapolation of those thoughts, twisted to an absurd degree and turned into, an often, violent outworking.

But banning people, as those who wanted Parker banned, because of what “might" happen isn't good enough, or anywhere near good enough.

We can't cancel people because of fear and we can't ban because of what hasn’t happened, but could.

Once you are down that slope it's nothing but trouble.

Michael Wood, the Immigration minister who, thank God, doesn’t have power over the specific laws in this case, doesn’t want Parker here.

He's entitled to his opinion because that’s part of free speech. But people who would ban people because of their distaste are in fact more dangerous than the people they are trying to ban.

And what makes them dangerous is the fact they don’t get that.