The deportation of tennis player and pandemic vector Novak Djokovic was a debacle from the get-go for the Morrison government, which greenlit his entry only to decide the Serbian champ was good cannon fodder for a “we will decide who hits tennis balls in this country and the circumstances in which they hit them” campaign after he arrived — before the Federal Court threw out its visa cancellation.
That left the government to reply on its near-bulletproof deportation powers, only for the geniuses at Home Affairs to argue that deportation was justified on the basis that Djokovic posed a threat of an “increase in anti-vaccination sentiment generated in the Australian community”, at the exact moment lunatic anti-vaxxers within the government like George Christensen and Gerard Rennick were attacking vaccination.
Scott Morrison refused to accept any parallel between the two situations, presumably on the basis that him deciding he no longer wanted to accept the support of a conspiracy theorist wingnut was much harder than deporting someone.
In any event, somewhere along the way, Morrison became confused about why Djokovic was deported. It had nothing to do with any “increase in anti-vaccination sentiment generated in the Australian community” apparently, but it was because “this is about someone who sought to come to Australia and not comply with the entry rules at our border.”
Morrison might have been forgetting that in fact the Federal Court had overturned the government’s decision to refuse entry to Djokovic because the government itself admitted it had acted unreasonably when it stopped him from entering.
Legal niceties? Well, perhaps, but insisting a now spurious and legally overturned “reason” for Djokovic being deported applied rather than the government’s own bizarre reasoning that Djokovic would lead some anti-vaccination campaign while playing in a tennis tournament distracts from the profound hypocrisy of a prime minister too timid to do anything to pull into line renegade anti-vaxxers on his own backbench.
The likes of Christensen and Rennick cause far more anti-vaccination sentiment than Djokovic ever has. The player is a dickhead — but the dangerous dickheads are much closer to home.
….. If only Djokovic was a Coalition back-bencher he could have played out the Open.
… Of course, if he had been one of “Scotty’s Reliables”, he’d never have been able to play in the French Open….
Christensen is pretty good at deporting himself when he’s in the mood.
Wish he would do so permanently.
No, he wouldn’t have led an anti-vax campaign, but he might have given a signal that vaccination rules can be got around.
Not just the callow interns “…on the basis that
himHIS deciding he no longer wanted…” who struggle with simple grammar.No doubt ‘rely’ was the word meant here. Or was it? We will never know.
Phryne, seems nobody much uses the possessive for noun clauses any more. Well, almost nobody.
1 No one outside Australia ha heard of Christensen and Rennick – few people in Australia have heard of the pair and their influence can be judged by the number of Australians that are vaccinated.
2 Djokovic is known internationally as a nutter but the best tennis player for the moment – he was given a free pass by the Federal Court judge because of the process of letting him and kicking him out used by the Government was faulty [ the Court cannot examine the complicity of Tennis Australia]- the reason d’être for kicking the fool out was not what was examined – that was dead with subsequently.
There always will be anti vaxxers so eliminating them locally is futile and useless., but importing them is another matter and Morrison’s reasons were spot on.
If so, the visa would never have been issued in the first place.
You can’t say no one knew who he was.
It was always just another dead cat from a pm who’s on the ropes.
Not to mention what issuing and then rescinding a visa does for our international reputation. Oh, I forgot, we don’t care about our international reputation.