Whether or not you agree Novak Djokovic should be allowed to come to Australia despite being unvaccinated I think is beside the point in this story.
There seems to be different tensions here.
On one side you have those thinking, ‘good for ScoMo and the Border Force, kick him out!” “we don’t want any unvaxed here.”
There are those who might think he should be allowed to play at The Australian Open however if I have lost my job because I was not vaccinated then there is no way he should be allowed to play either.
Then you have those who think these whole vaccine mandates are madness and Novak should be allowed to play.
There is however one thing we should be really alarmed about throughout this whole saga.
That is the Government will interfere in matters of Immigration if there is a political reason to do so.
The policy of the Federal Government has always been they do not comment on operational matters.
Even going back to the days of the Abbott Government when answered questions in parliament over whether Australia had paid people smugglers to turn their boats around, the then Prime Minister then commented “The very consistent position of this Government has been not to comment on operational details.” Abbott said back in 2015.
Prime Minister Morrison has on many occasion refused to answer questions about the status of asylum seekers or boats coming to and from Australia often on the basis that “We do not disclose operational matters.”
This goes back to his time as Immigration Minister in the Abbott Government.
But then on January 6th, he gives us this little chestnut.
He commented that he supported the Border Force’s decision to cancel Novak’s visa, stating that Australia has always been strong on borders contributing to Australia’s relativly low number of deaths from Covid 19. ‘No one is above the rules’: Scott Morrison responds to Novak Djokovic visa rejection at Melbourne Airport | Sky News Australia.
What happened to not commenting on “operational details”.
Then there is the treatment of Czech tennis player Renata Voracova.
Voracova had been in the country a week before Djokovic arrived and had the same medical exemption to enter the country unvaccinated as Djokovic did.
She was rounded up and ordered to leave the country on the same day.
She had an adverse reaction to the virus which prevented her from getting vaccinated, she had done nothing wrong but was deported purely to give the impression of fair treatment.
That is why the treatment of these two is so alarming.
You can be made to feel like a criminal and made it into public enemy number 1 for doing nothing wrong.
We have seen with this victims of miscarriages of justice.
Of course we have seen this with some of the suspects of the William Tyrrell case.
We have seen this with Police releasing suspect details despite them not being proven to have done anything wrong, they use the media to pressure suspects.
One of the suspects being a whitegoods repairman Bill Spedding had his life shattered after his name was splattered all over the news for being linked to his disappearance despite having a solid alibi.
Fortunately we have a defender
“When Jesus was insulted, he did not answer back with an insult, when he suffered, he did not threaten, but placed his hopes in God, the righteous Judge” (1 Peter 2:23 GNT)
We too can place our hopes in God who is our righteous judge, is our refuge, our defender and the rock in which we stand.
Lets Pray that always truth and innocence will win out.
Ben Kruzins is the Campus Pastor of The Hub Baptist Church in Ocean Shores on the North Coast of New South Wales. He is also a Journalism graduate who has written articles in The Canberra Times and The Sydney Morning Herald.