Andrew Bolt: Overriding Djokovic court decision would be dangerous

It would be dangerous for the Morrison Government to now override the Djokovic court decision simply to save face or win cheap votes.

The Djokovic saga makes Australia look mean, stupid and contemptible. Now, to make us look even worse, Immigration Minister Alex Hawke says he could still arrest the world’s top male tennis player and throw him out of the country.

Minister, don’t.

Spare Australia that final disgrace. Don’t prove the Australian Government would rather be vicious and popular than be fair.

There is really just one question to answer. Does Novak Djokovic pose a health risk to this nation?

The answer is clear. Almost certainly none.

Yes, I know, he’s been stupid in rejecting vaccines, but an Australian Open physician, supported by an independent panel convened by the Victorian government, gave him a medical exemption based on his claim to have caught Covid a month ago.

If true, the now twice-infected Djokovic would have more antibodies than any twice-vaccinated player. He couldn’t be less of a risk on our streets, so there’s no rational reason to keep him.

Novak Djokovic has won a court battle to stay in Australia but still faces deportation. Picture: AFP

But did Djokovic break the law in flying here?

Again, clearly not. So says a Federal Circuit Court judge. Djokovic arrived here with a passport, a medical exemption and a visa.

As the judge said: “What more could this man have done?”

If the left hand of our bureaucracy didn’t know what the right hand was doing in letting him in, then punish the clowns who made the mistake – not Djokovic.

If the Morrison Government now overrides that court decision simply to save face or win cheap votes, it is disgusting and dangerous. It will be as capricious as the communist Chinese “justice” system.

Let me stress this again: Djokovic poses less health risk than the average Australia Open ball boy. To ban him seems not just irrational but spiteful, and would damage the Australian Open and our international reputation.

If Djokovic has, as some suggest, lied about getting that second dose of Covid, then, sure, toss him out. But that hasn’t been proved.

I know, there are photos of him posing with fans – unmasked – back in Serbia the day after he tested positive. This may make him look reckless, but does not prove he’s a health risk to Australians now, weeks later. It may speak to his character but not to his right – or not – to be here.

So why have politicians been so keen to abuse Djokovic and ban him, when he poses virtually zero risk of infection and has followed the law to the satisfaction of a judge?

I suspect it’s because they are cheap populists who reckon there are more votes in this election year in pleasing an irrational hate-baying mob than in defending sweet reason.

That mob has been whipped along by commentators who’ve painted Djokovic as some pantomime villain who by his mere presence “spits in the face of every Victorian”. Or is a “slap in the face” to every Australian, according to another headline.

Such idiocy. Such bloody-minded scapegoating.

Supporters rally outside the Park Hotel where Djokovic was being held in detention. Picture: Getty Images.

If you don’t like Djokovic’s medical exemption, then blame the bureaucrats who issued it. Why blame Djokovic for accepting it? Why now insist, as one loutish journalist did, that “it’s the duty of every Australian to boo Novak relentlessly”, or gloat, as did another, that Djokovic is “the most hated sportsman to arrive Down Under in 90 years”?

I now barely recognise this country. A New Australia is creeping out from under the rocks – a tribe of primitives and hysterics, unleashed by politicians who exploited the virus fear by looking for scapegoats and setting Australians onto them.

Listen to this mob now on the radio and in the paper. Listen to them abuse Djokovic for (legally) entering this country because, they cry, Australians were banned from visiting dying parents, stopped from going home for Christmas, locked out from even playgrounds and subjected to all kinds of pointless cruelties by politicians eager to seem “tough” by being stupid.

No wonder politicians are now eager to back these Djokovic haters. The Australians they subjected to countless pointless cruelties – the people they bashed, harassed, tear-gassed and even shot with rubber bullets – now demand their politicians be equally cruel and senseless to Djokovic.

A rational people should actually ask why they’ve not been as free as Djokovic from useless bans – not demand he be subjected to another useless ban by our clownish politicians.

But that kind of thinking is not what our politicians want. They don’t want Djokovic to show us that some of our rules really are nuts.

Hey, you might also start holding our politicians to account for their other virus idiocies and blunders.

No, much safer to have the public they’ve unfairly flogged now demand Djokovic be unfairly flogged, too, to prove their pain “wasn’t for nothing”.

Let the mob kiss the whip that beat them.

Let them act as slaves beaten into loyal obedience by tyrants.