I am confining my border force comments to the statements by the public servants under Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews that they believed they have the power to ignore the decisions of our Federal Court — that is, they are above the law of Australia.
Accordingly they announced, prior to the court hearing, that in the event the government lost its case, it could again cancel the Djokovic visa and the world’s number one tennis player could face more detention – or be forced to leave even though he might win his case.
I cannot think of a more nation-damaging statement to the world…
Overseas companies will be very reluctant to expand in Australia now they know we have chaotic border rules and a Home Affairs department that believes it is above the law.
Australia sees itself as a place for world sporting events. The “Djokovic Affair” has shown the world that we are a very dangerous place to have global sporting events because of the chaos in our border control rules and lack of legal certainty.
At no stage during this utterly farcical embarrassment did Scott Morrison see the implications ably set forth here by Robert Gottliebsen. It wasn’t about tennis or placating the mawkish mob – whose whinging about having ‘suffered’ in the name of Doing The Right Thing was more nauseating than Omicron. It was about applying – not apologising for or seeking to sabotage – strict administrative impartiality. As on so many other occasions, the Prime Minister decided he’d lie doggo rather than defend high principle.
So much winning by Team Australia in the Fe(de)ral domain right now, people just can’t get enough of it. Burn, baby, burn!
Meanwhile at the recent local government elections, Labor has just regained the majority in my Council area. Based on their recent social media, their priorities appear to be (in order)
1) Sh-tting on the immediate past Mayor who gained the position by defecting from Labor
2) blanketing the municipality with signs telling us to stop being racist (a few years ago it was signs telling us not to spit in public, so it’s a slight improvement I suppose)
I look forward to a grander version of this should Mr Rubntug prevail.
BTW did you know that an Albocracy is form of government, “rule by Caucasians, especially Europeans”. LOL.
Self inflicted wound from Morrison, had he genuinely wanted to ensure Djokovic was not admitted to Australia he had plenty of warning to ensure he had his ducks in a row. Instead he thought that abusing ministerial power would make him look tough. We deserve better than a contest between these two muppets.
Tele’s chief sports writer, Oliver Brown
They and Karen need to be incarcerated for contempt of the law and the court.
This is a thug autocratic regime you run Smirko.
The problem for Morrison is that he has clearly bought the idea that government can solve all problems. It’s a problem for Morrison because his opponents clearly are more convincing in this belief.
If they overrule this decision of the courts, they will incidentally have wasted about half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money running the case.
Seriously, if they wanted to cancel his visa they could have spared both sides the court case and said we recognise your visa and we’re cancelling it right now – much cheaper.
So if they do decide to do that, I for one will want to know how they justify spending that half a million dollars.
Apparently the Immigration Minister is talking about making a decision tomorrow. There is still time for sanity to prevail!
Lots of average punters won’t understand how Djokovic won this court case, many are saying it’s money. They just don’t recognise that the government and the media were gaslighting them that Djokovic had broken the rules. The only way out for Morrison now is to sack Alex Hawke and blame him for the mess. If Djokovic has his visa canceled he can’t come back for 3 years.
Quite true Buccaneer. However can an average punter afford and organise a legal team in a day? Will an average punter get a federal court hearing for a visa matter within three days?
So money is indeed a factor. On that note the person that made this unlawful decision to ban the tennis player needs to pay all these costs out of their pocket. Pay up and do time.
That would be the minister – and, as we all know, ministers are no longer responsible for anything.
Senator Gerard Rennick
· 34 m ·
“The politicalisation of Novak Djokovic by the Federal government is a disgrace and an international embarrassment.
Rather than pick a long overdue fight with the Premiers over their obscene tyranny, it has decided to pick a fight with a person who committed the so called crime of being unvaccinated.
The irony of all this is that the Federal government has never wanted to defend the constitution or the right to refuse a vaccine but was more than willing to defend a stupid rule that healthy people, free from Covid can’t enter Australia.
It’s also worth nothing that the ATAGI guidelines clearly state if a person have had Covid in the last six months that person is entitled to an exemption from the vaccine.
So just to be clear I’m not in favour of special treatment for the rich but rather that the draconian rules that are in place be lifted for all Australians.
This will do incredible damage to international tourism at a time when small business and working families need all the help they can get.
It’s time the vilification of the unvaccinated stopped, mandates were lifted and our civil liberties were returned.”
The point being that Djokovic exceeded the government requirements and that the amount of money he paid makes no difference to that fact. The money he paid to expedite his defence really makes no difference to the false claims made by both the government and the media. I hope he sues the lot of them.
If the Morrison government were a tennis player, they’d be Sam Stosur.
(And I don’t mean to be too hard on Sam, it’s just a reaction to years of being told how great ‘our Sam’ was, largely on the basis of her gender, despite her crashing out early in tournament after tournament after tournament.)
Whatever happens, I’ll be watching the closing ceremony to see what happens if whichever stuffed shirt/blouse makes the mistake of thanking the Victorian government.
I’m late to this thread but I’ll add that Australians have been seeing Hollywood celebs waltz in and out of Australia for two years now with apparent impunity. This will have registered especially with the Lib base, what’s left of it.
Particularly so in Victorian, and even more so in the case of the premier.
Victoria.