CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
The Australian Prime Minister, Scotty From Marketing, says Novak Djokovic was deported because he tried to breach entry rules at the border, even though immigration minister Alex Hawke did not dispute the tennis star’s belief he had a valid medical exemption.
After nearly a fortnight of appeals and injunctions, the Serbian tennis player boarded an Emirates flight from Melbourne to Dubai last night. This came hours after the federal court sat down on a Sunday afternoon in January to uphold Hawke’s decision to cancel Djokovic’s visa – and ordering him to pay the Government’s costs.
On talkback radio this morning, the PM said the world men’s No 1 had failed to comply with “the rules” – which appear to change every day depending on whoever is seeking special exemptions to leave and arrive in this country – and the specific brand of religion that they adhere to.
For the last ten years, the Coalition government has spent most of their energy denying entry to Muslims – which was the easiest way to score political points back when ISIS was the scariest news in the media cycle.
However, now with the pandemic overtaking terrorism, and the Prime Minister under constant siege for the way he has bungled the entire handling of said pandemic – it seems that Serbian Orthodox tennis champions are now also unable to visit Australia.
Debates rage amongst immigration advocates and policymakers about whether or not Djokovic would have been chosen as the Morrison Government’s media scapegoat if was a pentecostal Christian – like Morrison and Hawke.
Outside of the Djokovic saga, which has successfully distracted the entire Australian media cycle away from severe fresh food shortages and the RATs crisis, the only other story to make the news last week was the tens of thousands of young people dancing at the Hillsong Youth Festival in Newcastle.
The NSW government, NSW police and Federal Government have chosen to not act on this very clear violation of public health orders – leading many to ask, is there different rules for Hillsong?
It’s for this reason that Novak Djokovic has returned to Australia 24 hours after being deported with a new plan – as well as a new fedora and an electric guitar, as he seeks one of those special Hillsong exemptions.
Djokovic’s newest application has bypassed Australian Border Force, and was handed from Alex Hawke MP to Scott Morrison, who in turn sent the application to his mentor and key advisor, Hillsong Founder Brian Houston.
It is believed that Houston’s lawyers have since been in touch with Team Djokovic, with the promise that they ‘might be able to work something ou. And this isn’t like a Tennis Australia or Dan Andrews exemption. This is a real exemption
