Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton may refuse Chris Brown a visa, which would force the troubled R&B singer to cancel his planned tour of three concerts down under.

Minister for Women Michaelia Cash said she would recommend to Dutton that he refuse the musician a visa on character grounds because of Brown's criminal conviction for assaulting pop star Rihanna, the Associated Press reported.

"People need to understand if you are going to commit domestic violence and then you want to travel around the world, there are going to be countries that say to you: You cannot come in because you are not of the character we expect in Australia," Cash said. "This is a government that is not afraid to say no."

Cash made the comments while presenting a $70 million government initiative to prevent domestic violence, along with recently appointed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the Guardian detailed. She noted that the final decision on Brown's visa application would be up to her immigration counterpart.

"I can assure you that the minister for immigration and border protection will be looking at this very, very seriously," Cash said, but added, "I am clearly not going to preempt a decision by the minister; however, I can assure you what my strong recommendation would be."

New Zealand's government, meanwhile, has already announced that it would refuse Brown a visa on character grounds, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation noted. The singer is similarly banned from entering the United Kingdom, ABC added.

Posters advertising Brown's Melbourne concert were targeted by activists protesting the show, and at least one ad was replaced, after a sticker reading "I beat women" appeared on it, in reference to the singer's 2009 assault on his then-partner.

"Chris Brown's Australian tour was announced last Thursday night, and immediately we got a couple of emails from [our] members asking if we were going to do something," Sally Rugg, an activist for the progressive group GetUp Action for Australia told ABC's radio outlet.

The 25-year-old's engagements provided an "obvious way" for the group to talk about the issue of domestic violence, Rugg added.