Australia’s image takes a hit in the pursuit of public popularity and votes
The decision to deport Novak Djokovic, just four days after a federal court ruled that he could remain, is a transparently political move by an Australian government desperate to save face. To be sure, it will prove enormously popular with the country’s electorate, 83 per cent of whom support throwing out the world number one tennis player. And yet it is astonishing that Alex Hawke, an inexperienced immigration minister with no legal qualifications, has sanctioned the opposite course of action to Anthony Kelly, a senior judge. It suggests an administration operating less according to the letter of the law than to the movement of opinion polls.
Mr Hawke’s justification was telling: he was invoking his discretionary powers to eject Djokovic, he said, because “it was in the public interest”. But in the interests of public health, or public popularity? For all that Djokovic has been caricatured here in Australia as a menace, it is difficult to rationalise the idea of one of the world’s bestconditioned athletes, who by his own account has had Covid-19 twice, representing a clear and present danger to Melbourne, a city that is 93 per cent double-jabbed and recording in excess of 40,000 positive cases a day.
The impression is that Mr Hawke is acting more out of political expediency, with the beleaguered government he represents heading to an election in four months. This was reaffirmed by a court hearing in which it emerged that the central basis for the case against Djokovic was that he could “excite anti-vaccination sentiment”. Nicholas Wood, the player’s lawyer, noted this was a “radically different” pretext to the reason given for his original visa cancellation: namely, that he had insufficient grounds for a medical exemption. Ahead of Djokovic’s final court appeal tomorrow, the terms of reference for this debate have shifted.
From the outset, Scott Morrison, the prime minister, has treated Djokovic as a convenient vehicle for illustrating his country’s uncompromising border policy, and as the perfect distraction from the slide in his poll numbers, caused by his decision to let the omicron variant rip through the population. Within moments of Mr
Hawke’s announcement, Mr Morrison sought to extract maximum political capital, declaring: “Our strong border protection policies have kept Australians safe.” But this latest twist smacks of more than mere opportunism. For Australia to expel the Serb, despite the judge’s admission that he had done everything possible to demonstrate his right to enter, risks making the country look vindictive.
To be sure, Djokovic has not helped his own cause. It was a serious PR misstep for him to issue his own timeline of his movements before leaving
Spain for
Australia, which, far from bringing clarification, succeeded only in muddying the waters. To acknowledge that he had kept an interview with a French journalist despite being knowingly Covid-positive, and to concede that his agent had lied on his travel declaration on his behalf ? It would be difficult to imagine a pair of confessions more likely to turn the Australian mood against him. And yet these revelations were separate from the original charge that his claim of a prior Covid-19 infection in the past six months did not make him exempt from Australian vaccination rules. For Mr Hawke to deport him as a potential lightning rod for anti-vaxxers gives the impression of an after-theevent decision, as if the government has been scrambling to find any cause to kick him out so that Mr Morrison can triumph. This is no longer about the sanctity of Australia’s borders. It is about chasing votes.
The consequences for Djokovic himself are stark. Having had his visa cancelled, he faces being banned from Australia for three years: a serious setback to his chances of lifting himself clear of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal with a 21st major title, given his record of winning the Australian Open nine times.
But the repercussions for Australia’s image are equally grave. A nation that has portrayed itself in recent years as open, cosmopolitan and outwardlooking has emerged from its targeting of Djokovic as insular, populist and paranoid.