The Case of 'No-Vac' Djokovic & the Australian Border Force

These are my thoughts about nine times Australian Open Champion, Novak Djokovic being denied entry into Australia to defend his title.

We all know by now that on Wednesday, Novak Djokovic, nine-time Australian Open champion, was stopped trying to enter Australia to defend his title for a record breaking tenth time. He is presently in imposed quarantine in a hotel in Melbourne this week and there’s been an outcry amongst many people here in the UK, and elsewhere that he’s been denied entry and may not be able to defend the title (The Australian Open runs from Monday 17 January to Sunday 30 January).

An Australian court is due to hear Novak Djokovic’s appeal at 10am on Monday 10th January local time (11pm on Sunday, UK time) . If he loses, he’s likely to be deported immediately. But even if the court finds in his favour – which I believe is unlikely – the court has no power to issue him with a visa and so he’ll still have to leave Australia and re-apply. Either way he’s unlikely to be able to defend his title.

So, what is the situation and what has actually happened?

To enter Australia, you must hold a visa and, if you aren’t fully vaccinated, you MUST apply for, and be granted, an individual travel exemption. Such exemptions are issued in the name of the Commissioner of the Australian Border Force, not Tennis Australia or the Victoria State Government

The Federal authorities publish an extensive list of exemption qualifications, however, having had Covid within the last six months is not on the list of qualifications for foreigners. For Australian citizens it is possible to obtain such an exemption. Djokovic is a foreigner. He is Serbian. Unvaccinated foreigners can enter, but require a negative PCR test and must quarantine for 14 days.

Djokovic has spoken about his opposition to the vaccine and is apparently unvaccinated. His representatives say he thought he had secured a medical exemption to enter Australia on the grounds that he’d had Covid in the past six months and has a letter, on a Tennis Australia letterhead and signed by the organisation's chief medical officer, granting him one. He apparently presented that letter to Border Agents at immigration control at Terminal 2 in Melbourne Airport.

Indeed, Tennis Australia and the Victoria State government had ruled that if he’d had Covid in the last six months Djokovic qualified for an exemption. But exemption for what? Victoria State government is only legally competent to determine whether he is qualified for an exemption to enter the State of Victoria. They are not legally competent to determine whether he’s qualified to cross the Federal Border. That competency rests only with the Federal authorities, not the State authorities. And the Tennis Australia competency reaches on as far granting an exemption for him to participate in the Australian Open, not to granting exemption to cross the Federal Border.

Djokovic’s claim he had an exemption documentation from the Victoria State Government and Tennis Australia would have been enough to get him allow him to enter the State of Victoria and to play in the Australian Open, but not to enter the country itself.

And, honestly, who would go to a local (even State) government, tennis association, football association or any other sports association, for authoritative advice on the requirements to enter a country? And Australian Federal rules are clear: having had Covid in the last six months does not qualify a foreign citizen for an exemption. Did Djokovic know this? I’ve no idea.

Furthermore, in November, the Australian Health Minister, Greg Hunt, wrote to Tennis Australia chief executive, Craig Tiley, warning that players trying to enter Australia would not get a vaccine exemption because of a recent Covid-19 infection. He wrote that without a double-jab, overseas players trying to enter the country who have been infected by Covid-19 in the past six months "are not considered fully vaccinated". Had Tennis Australia pointed that out to Djokovic? We don’t know.

So, Djokovic apparently entered the country, claiming he had an exemption from the two-jab rule, based on documentation from the State of Victoria and Tennis Australia which were sufficient to enter the State of Victoria and to participate in the Australian Open, but not sufficient to enter the country.

My thoughts on widespread condemnation of the Australian authorities

Many people here in the UK are condemning Australia for being authoritarian and are comparing them to those of North Korea and China. This is unfair. There are two questions to ask in this regard:

1)    Do the Federal Australian authorities have the right to set their own rules for entry?

Yes, of course they do.

One of the rather interesting things about all this, is that most of the prominent people in the UK who are up in arms about all this are ardent Brexit supporters (I am myself a passionate supporter of Brexit), most of whom, like me, argued during the referendum campaign that one of the reasons for leaving the EU was so that we could regain control our own borders and manage them as we see fit. Yet now many complain that Australia is managing its borders as it sees fit. In the past, many of the same, sometimes prominent people, have also argued passionately that the Australian model of managing borders as one the UK should adopt. One can’t but sniff a little bit of hypocrisy in their present complaints. Either countries should manage their borders as they wish, or they should not. Can’t have int both ways.

2)    Are the Covid entry rules the Australian have set unreasonable?

Many people are furious at the Djokovic debacle because they think that, based on that has happened to him, Australia bans all travel to the country for unvaccinated foreigners. They cite this as being discriminatory against those who have chosen not to be vaccinated. Well, it’s not correct. You can enter Australia if you are an unvaccinated foreigner if you have a negative PCR test and go into quarantine for 14 days. Could Djokovic have done this? Yes, probably.

The court is due to hear Novak Djokovic’s appeal on Monday 10th January. If he loses, he is likely to be deported immediately. But even if the court finds in his favour – which I believe is unlikely – the court has no power to issue him with a visa and so, he will still have to leave Australia and re-apply. He is unlikely to be able to defend his Title in the Australian Open.

Whose fault all this is: Novak Djokovic’s, Tennis Australia, the Government of The State of Victoria, the Federal Government and authorities, someone else’s, or is it just an unfortunate set of circumstances that arose? I leave that to you.

What I do know though, is that if I was travelling to another country for something so important, I would be checking with the Australian Consulate and the Federal authorities and would not rely solely on a letter from the national tennis association.