Federal Prime Minister Scott Morrison has today said that world tennis number one Novak Djokovic who has reportedly been denied entry into the country ahead of the Australian Open could not prove the medical exemption for receiving a COVID-19 vaccination following his arrival at Melbourne International Airport in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Speaking at press conference this morning, the prime minister said: “It is on them to have the proof to show why they would not have to be vaccinated. He (Djokovic) was unable to furnish that proof to Border Force officers at the airport last night and they are the rules and it happens on many occasions and that is what has now happened.”
He also said that he did not know “whether the Victorian government were proposing to waive quarantining (with regard to Djokovic).”
It appears that Djokovic, who had arrived in the country to defend his Australian Open crown and in the process claim a historic 21-grand slam victory, was on a visa that did not allow for a medical exemption from a COVID-19 vaccination and was likely to be deported as a result.
He quoted a letter sent by the federal government to Tennis Australia that stated “people must be fully vaccinated as defined by ATAGI (Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation) to gain quarantine-free entry into Australia”.
“That means people who do not meet the definition will not be approved for quarantine-free entry. In relation to the specific questions raised by Tennis Australia, this is from the Minister for Health, I can confirm that people who have contracted COVID-19 in the past six months and seek to enter Australia and have not received two doses of a TGA approved or recognised vaccine are not considered fully vaccinated,” Mr Morrison said.
Meanwhile, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has pledged his support for Djokovic who according to the ABC, was taken to a hotel controlled by immigration officials at about 10am.
President Vučić said all diplomatic avenues would be used to help Mr Djokovic writing on Instagram: “I told our Novak that the whole of Serbia is with him. Our bodies are doing everything to see that the harassment of the world’s best tennis player is brought to an end, immediately.”
The PM took to Twitter to clarify that no one would get special treatment regarding rules in place.
“No one is above these rules,” he tweeted.
“Our strong border policies have been critical to Australia having one of the lowest death rates in the world from COVID, we are continuing to be vigilant.”
On Tuesday night, the Australian Open had released a statement confirming that Mr Djokovic had received a medical exemption after a “rigorous review process involving two separate independent panels of medical experts”.
“One of those was the Independent Medical Exemption Review Panel appointed by the Victorian Department of Health. They assessed all applications to see if they met the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Imunisation (ATAGI) guidelines.”
The assessments were conducted without the identity being revealed to the review panels. In a separate statement on Tuesday, the Victorian government said that it had worked with Tennis Australia to set up “independent and rigorous process to assess requests for medical exemptions at the Australian Open”.
“Any player who is granted a medical exemption will have gone through a two-stage, independent process to verify they have a genuine medical condition that meets the criteria for an exemption,” said the Victorian government statement.
