He got an exemption the Victoria state rules, this is the same as you getting a paper from Florida saying you can travel freely there and trying to enter the US based on that paper.
His exemption was a process provided by the Australian Open tournament. More than twenty people applied for it and only a handful got the exemption. The process they outlined was a blind process (those evaluating the applications did not know who the players were) and two stage.
It's not like he tried to cheat the tournament or Australia with this. He was following a provided process.
Note, this is separate from any notion of him cheating or not with the process. Just saying it doesn't appear he tried to sneak in by bypassing the processes.
The reason he's being looked at instead of the others who went through this process is likely that he posted about it on social media.
> not like he tried to cheat the tournament or Australia with this
If the evidence presented here holds, Djokovic submitted falsified documents to the Australian government and courts. That's potentially visa fraud, perjury and a bunch of things that would put an ordinary person behind bars for years.
I don't think I was clear enough. By going for an exception he wasn't trying to cheat the tournament or government. If he tried to cheat while in the process that's a different matter.
> Djokovic submitted falsified documents
If the dates are real from the records everyone has found then he would, in theory, still qualify. So, why change the dates?
Djokovic has people who do all this stuff for him. I wonder if something happened in translation or somewhere else.
> If the dates are real from the records everyone has found then he would, in theory, still qualify
Djokovic pursued an exemption on the basis of recovery. That requires a positive test followed by a negative one. If the allegations here hold, he tested negative and then positive. That wouldn't be proof of recovery, but of infection.
There is a lot we don't know and I'm slow to judge and curious for more information.
For example, was he getting regular rests due to being tennis? Did the wrong ID for the recovery test result get submitted by accident? This is plausible and accidents do happen.
I'll be curious to see more details that come out on this.
Whose fault is it if the tournament didn't put a process together that worked properly with the government? The people who used the process or the organization that created it?
> Whose fault is it if the tournament didn't put a process together that worked properly with the government?
Djokovic may have a claim against the Australian Open for wasting time and causing inconvenience.
That doesn't mean Canberra must grant him a visa. And it is in no way an excuse for submitting falsified documents (if he did that, which is far from proven) to Canberra and her courts.
If he is singled out while the others who successfully went through this process are not wouldn't it should some form of prejudice? Targeting a high profile player to show that a politician in more powerful, or something like that?
I assume others who claimed medical exemptions aren't prominent antivaxxers whose request for a medical exemption from completing a course of vaccinations (recommended spacing between doses >21 days) on the basis he was unable to because of a COVID infection less than 21 days before his flight is pretty absurd (even assuming the tests are valid and he answered all visa applications questions truthfully).
Just because the public outcry might have prompted politicians to intervene doesn't mean they were wrong to do so
It was a bit of a stuff up but at the end of the day an unvaccinated non-citizen does not qualify to enter Australia (except with a valid medical exemption which why the hell would Djokovic have).
"people are welcome in Australia. But if you're not double vaccinated and you're not an Australian resident or citizen, well, you can't come." - Australian PM Scott Morrison - 6th Jan https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-canberra-act-35
According to the ATAGI guidelines (which are not the border rules), previous covid infection is not a contraindication for vaccination, and as a temporary exemption vaccination can only be deferred by up to 6 months in the case of "acute major medical illness".
Apparently Tennis Australia was specifically told this by border patrol but they didn't pass that information on to the players. Probably everyone was too chicken to tell Novak.
On that note, I have no idea on what basis he was granted an exemption when he applied for his visa in November, given that he had not even been covid positive in the last 6 months (at that time, lol).
I have a bit of sympathy for Novak with the lack of concise communication but at the end of the day he wouldn't be the first person who has been irritated by bad government communication, or the first person to be turned away from a country because of confusing border rules.
