Prime Minister’s singles game against Novak Djokovic

The Prime Minister’s attitude toward Novak Djokovic taps into a lamentable historical tendency to demonise and torment prominent visitors to our country

Novak Djokovic wasn’t ­singled out for any special attention by Border Force authorities, Prime Minister Scott Morrison assured us last week.

It’s just that, as the PM explained things, it looked very much as though the Serbian tennis great indeed had been singled out.

“When you get people making public statements, of what they say they have and what they are going to do and what their claims are, they draw significant attention to themselves,” Morrison said on Wednesday morning, as Djokovic began his stay in hotel detention.

“Anyone who does that, whether they are a celebrity, a politician, a tennis player, a journalist, whoever does that, they can expect to be asked questions more than others before you.

Australian governments, health officials and the public are trying to spread the Covid misery in the Novak Djokovic affair.

“That is how Border Force works. They are not singled out at all.”

So the likes of Djokovic “can ­expect to be asked questions more than others”, but at the same time “are not singled out”, Makes sense.

Not that many Australians were upset about Djokovic being denied permission to easily enter our country and begin preparations for the Australian Open.

They’d been howling for his rejection from the moment vaccine ­opponent Djokovic announced the previous evening he’d obtained a medical exemption and was on his way to Melbourne – a straightforward summary of his position that has since been described as “bragging”.

Opposition to Djokovic was led by a group accurately labelled by Mir­anda Devine as “media Karens”.

“WHAT A FARCE!” sports reporter Bernie Coen declared online.

“Novak gets exemption to play ­Aus Open but some Aussies can’t even fly interstate to see dying loved ones. Fair dinkum disgraceful that’s a big up yours from sports officials and the Gov to Aussies to allow this.”

The “fair dinkum disgrace”, of course, is that Australians were and are prevented from seeing those dying loved ones – due to decisions that Djokovic obviously had nothing to do with.

The Serb may be copping what shrinks call “displacement” – fury ­directed at something or someone else other than the actual cause.

“People will be going to bed right now to get up at 5am to do the right thing to get into testing queues for PCR results they won’t get for six days and will quarantine anyway,” AFL writer Jon Ralph added.

“How bloody galling to see Novak get an exemption.”

There has been considerable outcry from Australian sports reporters regarding Djokovic’s bid to do what he does best, play tennis.

From a health perspective, it isn’t galling at all. If he plays, Djokovic – like all other Australian Open competitors – will undergo constant Covid tests. He presents no immediate health danger.

But Jon isn’t arguing about health. He’s speaking for perhaps millions of Australians who simply want to see an individual endure similar or worse difficulties as the rest of us.

It’s an understandable response, I guess. And also deeply regrettable.

Melbourne sports broadcaster Andy Maher offered his view: ­“Australians have been denied for two years, but this bloke — who’s taken extraordinary liberties in the face of the coronavirus — gets his exemption.”

One of the things many Australians, particularly Victorians, have been denied is sport. Seen from that angle, Djokovic’s Australian Open participation would be part of the ­solution, not the problem.

The equality brought by socialism, as Winston Churchill once put it, is “the equal sharing of miseries”. There is a fair element of that at play in ­reaction to the Djokovic case.

An unfortunate element of the Australian character, as we’ve seen all too clearly since the pandemic began, responds happily to demands for ­universal oppression.

Prime Minister Morrison may have been tapping into that base ­response last week.

“Djokovic’s visa has been cancelled,” he announced on Wednesday, just a few hours after saying that the reigning Australian Open champion’s visa approval was “a matter for the Victorian government” and that the federal government “would act in accordance with that decision”.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaking to the media regarding the Djokovic situation last Wednesday.

“Rules are rules,” the PM went on. “No one is above our rules.”

Our rules changed rather quickly, though, didn’t they? And so did the authorities responsible for applying those rule.

Some older Australians have been reminded by the Djokovic case of how Australian journalists and unions ganged up on Frank Sinatra during his 1974 tour.

Annoyed by Sinatra’s refusal to grant any interviews, reporters swarmed the great entertainer at his hotels and outside rehearsal venues.

“They keep chasing after us. We have to run all day long,” Sinatra told his audience at a Melbourne show.

“They’re parasites who take everything and give nothing. And as for the broads who work for the press, they’re the hookers of the press.

“I might offer them a buck and a half, I’m not sure.”

That concluding line provoked what might have been Australia’s first great woke outrage.

The Australian Journalists Association demanded an apology. The Australian Theatrical and Amusement Employees’ Association refused to provide lighting, staging and musicians for his tour. Hospitality unions declined to provide room service to Sinatra’s hotel suite.

None of this happened because mid-70s unionists were acutely sensitive to sexism. It happened merely ­because they had a chance to push someone around – someone weal­thier and more accomplished than them. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

When Sinatra said he would leave the country rather than submit to union tyranny, the Transport Workers Union declared they wouldn’t ­refuel the singer’s private jet.

That’s one difference between 1974 and 2022. Back then, a certain class of bloody-minded Australians wouldn’t let a foreign star leave.

Now they don’t want one here in the first place.

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