Grand Final border hoppers broke the law but don’t deserve jail

Jailing two men for going to another city in their own country while drug dealers and sex attackers walk free proves we’ve lost perspective.

This country has gone certifiably bonkers.

I have sat in court while drug dealers and paedophiles have been allowed to walk out with suspended sentences.

Meanwhile, two blokes who went to another city in their own country have to spend three months in the clink.

Yes – Hayden Burbank and Mark Babbage broke the law. They should not have falsified documents to break through Western Australia’s fortress for Perth’s grand final.

But honestly. They did not hurt anyone and they did not spread Covid.

Both men will also have to face a Northern Territory court next month charged with knowingly forging documents, criminal deception, giving false or misleading information and contravening an emergency declaration.

Have we lost all sense of perspective?

A big fine would have done the job. Even a suspended sentence. But for WA’s courts to impose an actual custodial sentence for such a crime is a joke.

The idea that people would be jailed for going to Perth would have been unthinkable two years ago.

Hayden Burbank and Mark Babbage.

Morris Jones owner Burbank (left) and Babbage (right) in the Dees’ rooms after the grand final.

Burbank on the ground after the game.

People would have laughed in your face if you suggested it.

But here we are. In the age of coronavirus, when distraught relatives are banned from seeing dying family and sick hospital patients are not allowed to see those close to them, it is hardly a surprise that we would lock people up for going to another state.

Unfortunately for Burbank and Babbage, they were the right men at the right time (or the wrong men at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it).

Perth was flying high on the back of the grand final.

They have been relatively Covid-free and seem determined to keep it that way, even at the expense of being able to see their own families interstate.

This is the state, of course, that gave 53 of their parliament’s 59 seats to the bloke who said he would keep the WA border shut to keep the drug smugglers out.

I have no doubt the public sentiment in WA is dead against these men.

The courts made an example of them in a big way.

All to maintain WA’s Covid-zero pipe dream.

While the rest of the world is going about their business and opening up, Australia is locking people up for contravening zero-Covid rules.

Believe me, the rest of the world is laughing at us.

Originally published as Grand Final border hoppers broke the law but don’t deserve jail