Our rules have been in place for years and when he came last time he served his quarantine like everyone else but bitched about the accommodation, food, training facilities and everything else. Australians whose children living overseas and couldn't come home were somewhat irritated by all his tantrums at the time.
Since then he's refused to declare his vaccination status many times in the media, so we were all curious to see how he would try to get around the vaccination requirements currently in operation. There was a lot of voxpop stuff about celebrities and sportspeople getting in while ordinary people with personal needs could not.
By the time he arrived, with apparently correct paperwork, the guards were expecting possible fraud so everything was very closely scrutinised. It appears that while he's authorised to play once he's in the country he's missing some of the paper trail evidence needed to actually get into the country.
Government wants to let him in for $ reasons, but their hands are tied because the voters don't want him to get in and we're soon to have a tight election.
He hasn't helped himself by claiming to have had a positive test on Dec16 and showing maskless public function appearances days later.
I know no Covid cases personally but some of you do. If you're tested positive on December 16, how long after that before you're fit enough to play professional tennis?
Maybe I'm just being suspicious, but:
1. In November he was specifically asked his vaccination status and refused to give it. He was also reminded of the requirements for exemption. So how did he know he was going to get a positive test in December?
2. He made several verified public appearances, including with children, in the days both before and after December 16.
3. Rafael Nadal had a positive test in December too, but he's here and has just played in a warm-up tournament. He has no sympathy for Djokovic - check out his interview here:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/06/rafael-nadal-novak-djokovic-australian-open-tennis-vaccinated
Let's see what happens in the courtroom.
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@bigdogg saidWasn’t it tennis Australia who gave him the exemption to play in the tournament and not the government to enter the country? That’s why this has all happened, he’s trying to enter a country on the grounds that he has already had covid recently but that isn’t one of the ways foreigners get to enter Australia.
They had granted him an exemption, but voided it after he got there.
I don't support Djoker's anti-vaxx position, but the Australian government shouldn't be screwing around with him like this.
They should have made a decision and stuck with it.
@trev33 saidYou've got that exactly right. He's approved for tennis, but not for immigration arrival.
Wasn’t it tennis Australia who gave him the exemption to play in the tournament and not the government to enter the country? That’s why this has all happened, he’s trying to enter a country on the grounds that he has already had covid recently but that isn’t one of the ways foreigners get the enter Australia.
Good resullt. He gets his Grand Slam, Govt gets to pay his legal fees and keep the voters in line, and nobody gets to be a scapegoat.
The only disappointment for me is that the refugees who shared the prison accommodation with him are not likely to gain anything from all the publicity because the world media will go home. These guys are political prisoners who have committed no crime but have got life imprisonment without parole.
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@ghost-of-a-duke saidI think a certain government just lost the next election, crazy. Wonder how much the judge was bribed with.
And yet did. 😲
Things will get messy from here.
@kewpie saidI think you just answered this yourself with the observation:
I know no Covid cases personally but some of you do. If you're tested positive on December 16, how long after that before you're fit enough to play professional tennis?
'Rafael Nadal had a positive test in December too, but he's here and has just played in a warm-up tournament.'
@contenchess saidBack around 10-15 years ago when people smugglers were sending boatloads of refugees into dangerous waters trying to reach Australia, the government of the day managed to stop the traffic by declaring that all refugees had to come through the approved processes, and anyone turning up on a boat without authorisation would have a lifetime ban on resettlement in Australia. They set up detention camps in other countries and took all the boat people there. Refugees had choices: go home immediately, stay in the horrible camps until their country's problems had eased and then go home, or apply to other countries for entry permits. Some of them were medivacked to Australia but are now stranded here in an unsuitable leased hotel with armed guards, the same hotel that Djokovic was put in. All the offshore camps closed but these few former "boat people" are permanently refused entry to Australia even though their refugee status has been verified. So effectively they're imprisoned for life unless they can find a place to go.
@Kewpie
Political prisoners in Australia?
No crimes and life without parole?
What?
Australia is a nation of immigrants, and generally we're pretty multicultural and tolerant, but we still have a rump of White Australia supporters who want everyone without British ancestry to go elsewhere, and they're a significant voter bloc. Things will improve once the baby-boomer generation stop voting.
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@very-rusty saidWhat part of a man being detained trying to enter a country belongs in the sports forum old rusty bucket?
To bad you hadn't thought of "Sports Forum".
-VR
