No need to worry about Djokovic when Australia has many of its own anti-vaxxers

It’s too late to worry about Novak Djokovic playing in next year’s Australian Open, argues Joe Hildebrand. Have your say in our poll.

When I first heard we were having another debate about Novak Djokovic playing in the Australian Open I wanted to say, “This is so last year”.

Unfortunately, I checked and it was in fact this year that the whole fiasco first blew up. It just feels like a lifetime ago.

And yet here is opposition home affairs spokeswoman Karen Andrews living up to her first name by saying that allowing the unvaccinated tennis ace to enter the country would be “a slap in the face” for vaccinated Australians.

Really? Is that the reason they’re going to write on his visa rejection? Or is there a stamp for it?

Frankly, the vaccinated/unvaccinated debate is over.

The tiny percentage of people still refusing to get the Covid jab are the same bunch of crazies who have been anti-vaxxers all along.

If Serbia's Novak Djokovic plays in next year’s Australian Open, it is unlikely many of us will be close enough to touch the tennis star. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

Yes, they’re annoying, Yes, they’re wrong. But there is clearly no convincing them. And the problem with living in a liberal democracy is that people have the right to be annoying and wrong. In fact, the anti-vaxxers who were most annoying and wrong during the pandemic were the millions of so-called “vaccine hesitant”, who were largely Covid-trembling lockdown luvvies when the virus came and yet, when the vaccine was on offer to save them from it, they ummed and aahed like they were window-shopping for the right pair of shoes, keeping the rest of us barricaded in our homes.

Say what you like about the hardcore anti-vaxxers, at least they’re consistent.

And guess what? They’re already walking among us. You probably even know some of them. You might have even touched one!

By contrast, it is fairly unlikely that any of us will be touching Novak Djokovic and so, if you’re upset about him coming, it is purely on the basis of imagined abstract outrage.

And if that’s your biggest worry as we’re running out of doctors, heading towards recession and petrol prices are going through the roof, then you should fall on your knees and thank your lucky stars.