Australia is nuts.
HA HA
Australia is a laughingstock.
Yes. It seems the ptb in oZ are nutz. Maybe they will find Dee’s nutz in a basket.
Australia and the Open have no credibility. There can be no Grand Slam winner this year. Maybe Australia shouldn’t even be considered a Grand Slam tournament anymore.
The minister has used his extraordinary personal power to remove Djokovic ftom Australia on the grounds that he was considered a threat to welfare of society due to his unvaccinated status. The courts have very limited judicial grounds to review this decision.
As an expat, i never knew that the minister had such powers to deport foreigners and wondering why he has not used the same to deport the tens of thousands of illegals, visa overstayers, criminals, cheats and hate mongers who are in Australia.
He certainly doesn't need the money, it won't hurt him but Australia is now a laughing stock. In the big scheme of things he has made made them look like fools.
This certainly isn't Australia's finest hour. What a pathetic showing from a country who supposedly was made of better people. They're scared of their shadows, they might as well be French.
Australia is not a democracy ruled by the people for the people but by dictators sucking the tit of the WEF.
When these dictators in our world get their end I only hope it is long and gruesome!
The Covid19 policies in our most liberal states are much better than Covid deranged Australia.
written before the Court decision, by the former Australian Open tournament director...but well worth noting, as this is not what the public were told about Djokovic by the FakeNewsMSM:
15 Jan: The Age, Melbourne: Djokovic an easy target in anti-vaxxer witch hunt
by Paul McNamee, tennis player and former Australian Open tournament director
The No.1 men’s player in the world and nine-time champion is scheduled to begin the defence of his Australian Open title on Monday. In the Federal Court, he is facing deportation for three years. For me, perhaps sending home one of the best athletes in the world boils down to the simple reason that it is now known he is not vaccinated, and being such a public figure, it made him an easy target. Otherwise, there never would have been what seems to be a witch hunt.
When he boarded the plane for that long flight to Australia, he had every reason to believe he was entitled to enter. Yet, unlike the ***other players and officials ***who had arrived before him with the same medical exemption (including, in my view, the very poorly treated Czech player Renata Voracova), he was the one singled out to be detained...
It’s important to note the federal government has now accepted his medical exemption is valid, that there is only negligible health risk, and further stating in court documents he is a “person of good standing known for his philanthropy”.
For the record, if you have the same medical exemption here in Victoria as Djokovic, you can get a job at Woolies (Woolworths supermarkets), or can work at or attend the Australian Open. The new court case will be based on entirely new grounds, with the Immigration Minister saying that “as a high profile un-vaccinated individual ... Mr Djokovic’s ongoing presence in Australia may lead to an increase in anti-vaccination sentiment in the Australian community, potentially leading to an increase in civil unrest of the kind previously experienced in Australia with rallies and protests which may themselves be a source of community transmission”.
People are saying he is getting special treatment because he is Novak Djokovic, when in fact it’s the opposite, as now it’s only because he is a high-profile and “influential” person that he is facing deportation.
The Australian Open is far and away Australia’s biggest international sporting event. Hosting all the world’s best tennis players in arguably the best sporting precinct in the world, it generates close to one billion dollars in economic impact for the state of Victoria. It puts Melbourne front and centre on the world stage for two weeks but, this year, for all the wrong reasons...
Djokovic is not an “anti-vaxxer”, which has been widely reported. He has openly said his children get various vaccines. Generous to a fault, he has personally donated millions of dollars to hospitals and causes struggling under the burden of COVID-19 in Serbia, Spain and Italy. He set up and paid for free vaccinations at two ATP and one WTA tournament (on his property) in Belgrade, so players and coaches could be double vaccinated, as many were. Who knew that?
He knows from his own experience with allergies and diet that, in many ways, you are what you digest. Simply put, he wants the final say about what enters his body. As the No.1 in a highly competitive global sport, who can blame him? So, what he is actually is pro-choice...
The facts are that Djokovic, a complex, holistic and deeply spiritual man, was put in detention just in time for Orthodox Christmas. He chose not to take his “bat and ball” (actually racquet) and go home but, armed with resources unavailable to the average man, he dared to take on the government in the Federal Court, and won.
Now he is facing another court case, on entirely different grounds. He could have said it’s all too hard, cut a deal, so there would be no further detention or long-term consequences, and got out of Australia pronto. He has chosen to stand his ground and take on the fight, and is again detained, on the eve of his first-round match. I respect him greatly for that.
I also respect that he fights for the rights of lower-ranked players to make a better living. He is popular in the locker room, and since this saga began, I have run into many players, male and female, and especially the lower ranked, who deeply appreciate the efforts he makes on their behalf: “Without Novak, we have no voice. He is our friend.”
The Australian Open has been engulfed and paralysed by this fiasco. Having once been the tournament director for 12 years, and knowing the enormous contributions of so many, I am not happy that it is being subject to ridicule, given, for example, the so-described “temporary draw”...
The facts are that Djokovic came to Australia with one sole aim, to try and defend his Australian Open title. Agree with him or not, and unpopular as he is here, it is accepted he met the rules...
So, he sits detained with the threat of immediate deportation for three years. It might as well be for life, as why would he ever come back?
https://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/more-sports/djokovic-an-easy-target-in-anti-vaxxer-witch-hunt/ar-AASNBJL?ocid=msedgntp
I guess the Australian Open isn’t really so open.
Australian leaders are going to pay dearly for this outrage and are taking their country down to ruin with them.
Out of the ashes, the people of the world will be soon taught a harsh lesson about mass psychosis.
I predict those in charge in Australia will eventually have to leave or be hounded for the rest of their lives.
Their country, their rules.
With that said, this whole spectacle is an embarrassment to the Australian Open. Sporting events of a much larger magnitude have been safely conducted with some participants unvaxxed. What this suggests is that the Australian open is not confident in its ability and in the science to have competitors who are unvaccinated to participate.
It’s their country. It’s their sovereign rule.
If a visitor does not want to follow the immigration laws of a country he or she enters? He has no room to bellyache. Same with our sovereignty. I’d be a hypocrite to insist any different based on my immigration related postings here for many years (particular illegal immigration).
Eventual winner will always be tarred with Djokovic absent champ.
Yup, the gubmint and courts stepped up to block his participation in a tennis match
With his departure, the Aussie open has lost its luster. If there were some other top level pull outs, it send a statement.
If I were him, I’d never go back and bash them at every opportunity. My only concern is the other weakling countries will do something similar with their COVID induced hysteria.
If the world top tennis players remain to legitimize this overreach, they deserve the escalation that will inevitably follow. The Australian Open should be reduced to a high school junior varsity competition.
He probably wanted to get out of Australia ASAP in case the officials wanted to put him in a COVID-19 Concentration Camp.
Never would believed freedom loving Australia would turn to Nazism.
australia, as a country, had been trying for decades to eat Christmas dinner at the adults’ only table. Now, it has been relegated for decades to come back to the kiddies’ table. Junior “country.”