Rules are rules the Prime Minister declared,especially when it comes to our borders. Rules weren’t rules last year,when celebrities travelled to and from Australia while ordinary people were denied a permit to leave,or even more scandalously,not afforded the most basic right of a citizen to return to their country. Now though,when Australia chooses to insist on a medical procedure as a condition of entry to Australia the rules are suddenly rigid.
Novak Djokovic has turned Australia into an international human rights flash point.AP
The case is generating international attention,both from people opposed to vaccine mandates and from people concerned that pandemic restrictions are becoming increasingly embedded and draconian. The Australian immigration minister’s application of his “god powers” will inform how Australia is viewed around the world. It is currently viewed with pity.
Here I should insert the usual disclaimers. Vaccination has contributed significantly to reducing the severity of many diseases,including COVID-19. Australia’s very high COVID vaccination rate puts us in a strong position to manage the transition from pandemic to endemic which is currently occurring. As the world opens up,it is clear that fully vaccinated and even boostered people can still catch and transmit the virus,but also that those people will generally suffer less from its effects. That’s good for them and good for the health system.
Vaccination does not,however,prevent the spread of COVID-19. The current Omicron strain infects vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike. It has made a mockery of PCR tests and rapid antigen tests which are most reliable at reporting an infection when it has already been hitching a lift for some days. In most cases treatable with paracetamol,Omicron has also turned emergency powers into a club to kill a gnat.
Civil liberties organisations are becoming increasingly concerned that this club will be brought out every flu season on the pretext of protecting society from an infection. The US-based New Civil Liberties Alliance has been running cases to challenge the health edicts imposed by government agencies. Litigation counsel at the alliance Jenin Younes (fully vaccinated) argues that,if left unchallenged,the powers that allow the agencies to mandate vaccines and make employment dependent on vaccination status could lead to all kinds of other health mandates. Why not also mandate a maximum BMI,for instance,for the good of the employee and his or her co-workers? Or demand that employees as Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin would like. Younes also fears that pandemic restrictions risk becoming actively anti-science,as agencies refuse to adapt their advice and requirements to the most up-to-date reality of COVID spread. France is providing an example of the perverse consequences of a rigid stance on vaccines,bywhile healthy but unvaccinated health workers from providing care since September last year.
There is a good measure of this inflexibility about the popular sentiment in Australia that Djokovic should just get vaccinated,as most Australians have. Djokovic’s vaccination status wouldn’t add to the Omicron wave nor,as a fit young man,would he be likely to end up a burden on the health system. Rather,fellow tennis player Tsitsipas when he complained that Djokovic’s decision to remain unvaccinated made the other players “look like fools”.
There is no reason to feel foolish for getting a vaccine if you believe it will afford you protection. If the government hadn’t blown the matter up into an international incident by trying to use him as a distraction,Djokovic could safely have been waved in to make a fool of himself without making a fool of us. Now instead his case will perpetuate the worst aspects of the pandemic.
Younes admits there is real danger in litigating to make law in emotive times. If a court were to find against Djokovic it could create a precedent that is more restrictive and less challengeable in future. Also,the arrogant tennis ace is not the client a strategic litigator would have chosen. His lies have significantly tarnished his case to stay in Australia and there is a real risk that Australia’s Byzantine travel regulations could be seen to be vindicated. This would discourage tourism to Australia as well as our ability to attract skilled workers. On the other hand,if the immigration minister had waved him through,Australia’s travel restrictions would have been shown to be a sham and our nation’s claim to being a rule of law nation further undermined as another celebrity becomes an exception. Vaccine mandates everywhere would have come under scrutiny.
The world is watching. Once again,a zealous Serb is changing the course of history.
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