And the decision was none of those things.The government decided to try to deport Mr. It was not a judicial endorsement of the call being sensible or fair or anything else. In the Djokovic case, the judges simply conceded the Minister had the power to do deport. Morrison, who has form in caving to Twitter mobs, panicked. And once Twitter erupted about this unvaccinated sports star, Mr. This has caused it to hemorrhage support from its base on the right while gaining next to no support on the left. The Morrison government outspent Canada’s Justin Trudeau government in per capita terms, and noticeably so, which tells you all you need to know. It has also been a massive spender throughout the pandemic. Through its term so far, though, it has governed in an illiberal manner, seemingly unconcerned with freedom-related matters. It was elected in 2019 and must hold an election before May of this year. This is a supposedly right-of-center government under Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Nevertheless, once Djokovic arrived in Australia, one of the world’s most vaccinated nations, the federal government started to panic.
(And though science is always unsettled and in debate, the preponderance of evidence points to natural immunity-getting and surviving the illness-as being at least as protective as any number of vaccines, and most likely a good deal better and longer-lasting.) That was enough for him to get the original visa approved. Djokovic had tested negative for Covid and had shown proof of a recent Covid infection. Even in Australia, it is not illegal (not yet at any rate) to be unvaccinated.
Privatized tyranny def professional#
What few in the media ever go on to say is that not a single professional sports star has died of Covid throughout the pandemic and that this virus is of close to zero risk for the fit, thin, and healthy. Everyone knew the tennis great (currently tied for the most career grand slam wins with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal) had not been vaccinated, though he half-heartedly prevaricated on the matter. The current world number one, Djokovic applied for and was granted a visa to come to play in the tournament. That brings me to the Djokovic saga, or more aptly, fiasco. And the biggest international sporting event hosted each year in Australia is the Australian Open tennis grand slam. Take it from me, Australians love sports in a way only Americans who follow SEC college football might understand. Australia is the top-ranked test cricket team in the world, a sport few Americans admittedly follow, but one which has more worldwide followers and participants than baseball and football and is the national sport here. For a country of 25 million people, far fewer than live in California alone, Australia has top ten PGA golfers it has the world number one women’s tennis player it has NBA basketballers the best punters in the NFL are Aussies (due to the popularity of Australian Rules Football that focuses on kicking a ball in a way not too different from the NFL punts) and it has a top Formula One driver. Readers need to realize that Australians take sports seriously. Or so it seemed until the world’s best male tennis player, Novak Djokovic, came to play in the first of the year’s four majors, the Australian Open. I have written widely against this illiberalism and public health despotism throughout the pandemic, to zero effect.īut a couple of months ago that all seemed to change as reality set in, vaccination rates got up over 80 percent, Omicron started to explode, and the country opened up and loosened up, at least half-heartedly. They also elevated a cadre of public health supremos to the role of de facto decision-makers. Yes, some Australian states were a good deal less despotic than Victoria but the general “we can eradicate this virus” attitude was shared just as much by politicians on the right as it was by those on the left, as both made Covid cases and deaths the only matrix of concern that counted in public policy-making for almost two years. Meanwhile, the State of Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous, had one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, the city of Melbourne having endured six lockdowns totaling 262 days from March 2020 to October of 2021.Īll this was done, implicitly, under the foolhardy aegis of a “Covid zero” policy. And virtually no one could get in, either (the odd exception being made for Hollywood types making movies and sporting stars). Only those who received special bureaucratic permission to leave the country were allowed to do so, and there were very few such permissions granted. Alone amongst the democratic nations of the world, Australia locked its own citizens inside the country. Australia’s response to the Covid pandemic has been incredibly heavy-handed.
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